From Community College to Amazon Web Services

REUSE Helps Philip Gray Launch Career

Philip Gray knew early on that he wanted to pursue a meaningful career in computer science.

“I’ve always loved the complexity that comes with the industry,” said Gray. “I want to make the world a better place, and I knew early on that CS could help me make that impact.”

Gray began his education at a community college and later transferred to the New College of Florida (NCF). There, he learned about and was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Software Engineering (REUSE) — a program that eventually helped him land a role as a software development engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“In one of my classes at NCF, we read papers on a weekly basis,” Gray said. “I always wanted to understand how those papers were written and the research that went into them. That's what initially led me to apply to REUSE.”

While in the program, Gray worked with Software and Societal Systems Department faculty members Christian Kästner and Bogdan Vasilescu; and Ph.D. students Courtney Miller and Kimberly Truong. Together, they researched why developers step away after founding open-source communities — self-organized groups led by core contributors who develop and maintain code that is accessible to all members.

“Millions of people and businesses depend on open-source code, but many of these projects rely on only one core contributor,” Gray said. “When that person leaves the group, it can be disastrous.”

To conduct the research, Gray and Truong used the Python programming language to scrape and analyze news articles, blog posts, podcasts and social media to understand why core contributors step down from open-source projects. Gray documented all cases on GitHub.

“We found that the most common reason for disengagement was community hostility,” Gray said. “Burnout, lack of support and not having enough time were also common reasons. Many people complained about being the only person contributing to the development of the project, or the lack of financial incentive.”

Gray hopes that this research can help reduce disengagement in the future.

“By better understanding the potential issues that come into play, contributors and leaders can prepare themselves when participating in or leading an open-source platform,” he said. “We hope that communities can protect core contributors by preventing disagreements and community hostility.”

The research caught the attention of the software engineering community, and Gray was invited to present his findings at the International Conference on Software Engineering Companion in 2022.

Looking ahead, Gray plans to apply to Ph.D. programs. But REUSE and the project he completed played an integral role in getting him where he is now.

“The REUSE program changed the trajectory of my career in an incredibly positive way,” he said. “The program instilled a lot of confidence in me, both personally and professionally, and I apply the technical writing skills I learned to my role at AWS every day.”