30 times on stage

Last week I realized I had put myself in front of people 30 times since I started promoting Kairos 3 years ago. That's roughly 10 times per year, which I think is a fantastic number for me.

But it's not like this was my first attempt at public speaking. Back in 2015 and 2016 I gave it my first shot with some minor success. I was even at FOSDEM and LinuxCon back then, which was huge for me at the time, but then I stopped.

The reason I used to tell myself and others was that I had stopped working in the open. And there is some truth in that. It is much easier to give a talk when the work is public, when people can see the code, the issues, the discussions, the decisions, and all the rough edges. Open source gives you a shared body of work to point to, not just a story people have to take your word for. But if I'm honest with myself, that was not the full reason. Working on proprietary code has never stopped people from giving good technical talks.

The real reason was impostor syndrome.

I felt like maybe I could convince the people selecting talks, and maybe I could even convince the right kind of audience, but I could not convince myself. And when you cannot convince yourself, it becomes hard to keep going.

The person who originally inspired me to start speaking was Cornelius Schumacher. He has been active in open source for a long time, and one of the things I learned from him was not to sit too comfortably, but also not to drown myself in a challenge that was too big. The useful place was somewhere in the middle: uncomfortable enough to grow, but not so overwhelming that you cannot move. That lesson stayed with me, even if for a while I was not really acting on it.

What changed with Kairos was not that I suddenly became fearless. I didn't. There is still stage fright. There is still the moment where I look at a topic and think: "Do I really understand this well enough to explain it to other people?" There is still the discomfort of being visible, of being judged, and of maybe being publicly wrong. Being back in open source definitely made it easier, but what really made it click was how I think about teamwork. We all have our skills, but we also all care about certain things more than others. I thrive when I find a spot where I can help and nobody else can, or nobody else wants to. Promoting Kairos was that spot. Someone needed to fill it, and morphing into what a gap needs so that others can keep doing what they are good at is, I think, the thing I am actually good at.

So I decided to step up and take that role, without leaving my maintainer duties. Not because I thought I was the perfect person for it. Not because I think I'm an excellent speaker. And definitely not because my goal is to be in front of people just for the sake of being in front of people. I did it because the project needed it, because I care about the work, and because it forced me to confront an unresolved experience I had been carrying for years.

One moment made this very clear to me. In 2023 I was part of a panel at KubeCon Paris, sitting next to people from Microsoft, Google, and AWS. I walked in feeling like the underdog in the room. But at some point during the conversation I noticed I was not just keeping up, I belonged in it. Nobody handed me that feeling. I had to notice it myself.

I believe all this public speaking has helped people discover Kairos, which is the main goal. Preparing a talk forces me to understand things better. Explaining an idea in public exposes the weak parts of my own thinking. Questions from the audience show me where the story is unclear. Crafting a demo helps expose bugs and UX issues in the system. And doing this repeatedly has made me a better engineer, not just a better communicator. But there's also one aspect that I think can be improved. Talks tend to be one-sided communication, except for the few questions you get at the end. So I want to try more ways to promote the project that allow me to engage further with people.

So here's to those 30 times on stage. For me personally, I think I can close a chapter. The question I'm asking myself now is: what is the next thing that sits just outside my comfort zone, but not so far outside it that I cannot grow into it? I think the answer is exploring other formats like video or online workshops. If this sounds interesting to you, please follow me on LinkedIn or YouTube, where I've started publishing some conversations with the Kairos team. And if you would like to collaborate, please reach out through my contact page!