The MicroProfile community is thriving and always on the lookout for new members to join the family. This Open Source community cares about its members and will do its best to keep the hurdles of getting involved as low as possible.
We asked Martin Stefanko to participate in the MicroProfiler Onboarding Interview initiative tracked via (git issue) and share his experience in MicroProfile with Rudy De Busscher, the interviewer. Martin’s interview provides a valuable input in optimizing the MP welcoming process and hopefully inspires you to join if you are not yet a user/contributor.
Introducing Martin Stefanko
Martin Stefanko is a software engineer working mainly on Red Hat middleware runtimes technologies like WildFly / JBoss EAP application servers, Thorntail, Quarkus, and individual components included in these projects like RESTEasy, Weld, or Hibernate. I am also actively participating in MicroProfile and Java / Jakarta EE specifications.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your profession as a (Java) software developer?
My name is Martin Stefanko. I am 26 years old. I work as a software engineer at Red Hat, where I started as an intern 4 years ago. I finished university last year. I am currently working on WildFly and JBoss EAP application servers and all the components included, like RESTEasy, Weld, or Hibernate. I also work on Red Hat micro services-oriented runtimes like Quarkus or Thorntail. I am also active in a few specification areas, such as the MicroProfile APIs and SmallRye’s implementations. Slowly I am also starting with Jakarta EE.
In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, gym/weights, and books (or generally learning & applying something new).
How did you first hear or read about MicroProfile?
Through my master’s thesis, which main task was to create an extension to the MicroProfile Long Running Actions specification, I consequently started contributing afterward.
What made you decide to start working on MicroProfile LRA?
For LRA, the master’s thesis that got my attention from the start as the idea of distributed transactions in the microservices environment sounded really interesting and challenging. During my research, I came up with several ideas about where the specification could be evolved, so after I finished my studies, I started proposing and implementing these ideas. After these were done, I became an expert on the LRA, so continuing to evolve this specification feels natural because I think it’s an amazing technology that is solving many use cases.
However, nowadays, I am also contributing to several other specifications (Health, Reactive) because of the same reason. 🙂
Does the framework fulfill your needs for developing enterprise software?
Yes. MicroProfile is solving every problem that modern microservices applications deal with on an everyday basis. If something new emerges, MicroProfile always gets up today extremely fast with its three releases per year and new specification proposals. There is always something that I can do, which is why I enjoy working on MicroProfile.
What was your initial impression about the framework and/or community?
Back in the day, I was only familiar with the Java EE ecosystem. Today rebranded Jakarta EE and its application servers. My first impression was that MicroProfile is a modern, new technology that will make the development of microservices easy for developers. From what I hear in the community or my MicroProfile talks, I wasn’t wrong 🙂
How did you first hear of the MicroProfile community hangout?
I believe it was through the MicroProfile calendar, which I found through the MicroProfile dev mailing list.
How do you like the MicroProfile community so far? Was it is easy to participate in the discussions and the meetings?
The community is perfect. Yes, participating in discussions and decisions was really easy. Many of my ideas are already now integrated into several MicroProfile specifications.
What would you like to say to new members of the community that are onboarding and are figuring out how to contribute?
Don’t be afraid to reach out. If you are interested in the specification or technology or have some ideas for fixes or features, reach out to the MicroProfilers working on the particular specification on GitHub or in the periodic Zoom meetings gitter, or dev mailing list. All ideas are always processed accordingly. Even if you visit a hangout and don’t understand everything discussed, join several times. Usually, we need to discuss some more complex problems, so it can take time to grasp them. New contributors are always welcome!
Note from the WordPress MicroProfile Editor:
Just like MicroProfilers Martin & Rudy, should you feel inclined to share your commencement into this Open Source Project, this MicroProfile initiative is ready for YOU! Amelia