OpenTelemetry provides the tools and standards to collect metrics, logs, and traces from applications and services. Getting started with contributions can feel overwhelming, so here are some lessons from hands-on experience.
Most guides explain how to find a “good first issue,” fork a repository, or join a SIG meeting. That advice is useful, and many resources cover it well. What often receives less attention is the broader context around contributing: understanding the ecosystem, navigating community dynamics, and building long-term engagement in a large open source project.

OpenTelemetry's platform is an observability framework, offering insights into distributed tracing, metrics collection, and log management for cloud-native applications. Through documentation, tutorials, and community contributions, OpenTelemetry provides insights into instrumenting applications to monitor performance and troubleshoot issues. Developers and DevOps teams can learn about distributed tracing standards, telemetry data formats, and integration with observability tools to gain visibility into complex distributed systems.

OpenTelemetry

A guide for making open source contributions to OpenTelemetry sustainable beyond the initial 'good first issue.' Covers navigating the CNCF ecosystem, understanding community dynamics, non-code contributions (documentation, localization, SIG participation), tips for beginners, and strategies for long-term engagement. Emphasizes that contribution is more than code, highlights pathways for underrepresented contributors, and explains how consistency builds credibility and influence in a large distributed project.

Beyond the good first issue - How to make your contributions sustainable

Making contributions sustainable — an example