Looking for advice on getting started with kernel development professionally

[Alison Schofield]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 10:44:14PM +0300, Racz Zoli wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I hope it's okay to ask this here. I understand this list is mostly
> for learning and discussion. I've been working on kernel-related
> projects in my spare time, including an experimental filesystem, a
> block level incremental backup utility, btrfs-progs and currently I`m
> working on a multithreaded disk usage analyzer like "du" but written
> from scratch.
> 
> I'm really interested in contributing to the Linux kernel
> professionally and while I have over 15 years of programming
> experience in different areas - was wondering if anyone had advice or
> knew of any opportunities - internships, contract work, or mentoring
> programs.
> 
> Totally understand if this isn't the right place to ask, but I'd be
> grateful for any tips or redirections.

Hi Zoltan,

If you haven't already, engage with the communities you are interested in
thought their mailing list - ie https://lore.kernel.org/linux-btrfs/
By engage, I mean follow their list, ask questions, review patches.
Even if you are a newbie, there are clarifying questions that you can
pose that others will appreciate. The point is, that before you start
asking for your contibutions to be reviewed and merged, become a known
quantity on the list. Support others. Another responder mentioned the
query that finds your tags - note we have tags for Tested-by, and 
Reviewed-by, in addition to Signed-off-by:  and all are valued.

I think this program is an option for and will get you a very 
structured start to kernel submission - https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/lkmp

Good luck!
Alison




> 
> Thank you,
> Zoltan Racz.
> 
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