The Summer of Nix

Summer of Nix 2022 will happen from July 18th to September 30th!

Applications are open here from now until May 15th!.

Following the excitement of Summer of Nix 2021 (more in last year’s report, I am happy to announce that the European Commission, NLNet and the NixOS Foundation have granted enough budget to organize another community event this year. After some brainstorming sessions I am excited to share how we (an organization committee of ~8 people now) would like to organize this event.

Summer of Nix is a paid summer program where you can learn, meet, and work with the Nix community. It targets experienced Nixers and Nix newcomers alike to come together and work on a range of different topics. At the same time, there will be talks about Nix and presentations by Nix-using companies with the goal of fostering a strong sense of community and pushing the ecosystem forward together.

What’s new this year is that we offer …

• a communication stream to write quality documentation, deployment stories, tutorials, and produce video content and podcast episodes;
• an ecosystem stream to work directly on Nix tooling that improves the overall packaging and package user experience;
• a packaging stream to package new free and open source software either within nixpkgs or as independent flakes.

All streams focus on improving Nix support for the free and open source (FOSS) ecosystem from different angles, as last year with emphasis on the packages sponsored by the European Commission via the NGI initiative and NLNet.

You can participate in Summer of Nix in several ways:

• As a participant you will work full time on various projects together with other participants within the 3 work streams for about 8 weeks (with some flexibility, e.g. to take vacation). This is the main role in Summer of Nix and great for those who work in a team to share and improve their Nix skills, meet nice people while contributing to the community.
• As a team coordinator you will lead a small team, arrange communication and mentoring, and guide technical discussions and decisions. You will also be involved in the overall organization of the program with other coordinators. Technical work in this role includes reviewing PRs and answering technical questions. Hours can vary, but on average the time commitment is about 12 hours a week. Experienced Nix tinkerers with a social knack are encouraged to apply for this role. If you’re interested in Nix and also enjoy team organization, this role is for you!
• As a tech wiz you will pair program with participants, answer their questions, review their PRs, and show them how to get along with Nix. This is a great way to be involved if you are an experienced Nixer and enjoy helping others in a flexible way.
• As a project lead you offer a project within the three work streams. You would work together with participants on this project, and provide them with guidance and technical expertise. This is great for anyone who is looking for support on their own Nix project. If you have an idea, please apply, but understand that projects have to fall within the three work streams and we will need to evaluate whether they can fit within the scope of the European Commission’s grant.

The compensation depends a bit on each role but will roughly be oriented on Google’s Summer of Code stipend for the participant roles.

Please write to summer@nixos.org if you have questions. In addition to this, we will also have a separate sponsor track for companies who want to connect with the community in this program this year. But more about this later…

Rumor was already out but now we announce it officially: we are organizing a big hiring event on October 27th where Summer of Nix participants and applicants can meet companies that use it. Participation is free but places are limited for organizational reasons to Summer of Nix participants and applicants for now. If you like to know more, send us a mail at summer@nixos.org.

Thanks a lot for your interest in the Summer of Nix program! We've done more than a hundred interviews in two months, it's been thrilling to see so much excitement over this program.

We are currently in the process of selecting participants and making the teams: stay tuned!