May is Maintainer Month and today we bring you an interview with Dhwani Patel.
Dhwani joined the company in January 2023. She’s a developer on the Maintainers team with a focus on Archivematica. When she first joined the team, she was living in Ahmedabad City, Gujarat, but recently relocated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
You’re new to the company. What drew you to Artefactual and the Maintainers position?
Mainly two reasons. Since I’m a Python developer I would love to work in Python, as it’s my favourite language. And the other thing is, so far in my career, I’ve never worked with an open-source product, because mostly I’ve worked in the service industry. If I compare, Archivematica is quite a big product, it’s enterprise level, and that motivated me to join Artefactual. It’s a big codebase, a big product, and so there’s obviously more learning. I was working mostly in the service industry with different projects all the time, just small tasks, so I wanted this new experience.
What are the biggest challenges you foresee for the team?
Honestly none! We are all new, except for Douglas. We have a scrum call every day so whenever we face any issue we help each other. So in that way, we don’t face any challenges yet.
Well that’s optimistic! Challenge-free! If there are no challenges, then what excites you about the future for Archivematica/AtoM?
I’m very optimistic about Archivematica! In Slack we have a channel where new deals are posted – so all the time I’m looking forward to seeing a team that has done something in India, because so far we have done two [projects with clients in India], so I expect that we will cover that market also. All over Asia.
More worldwide adoption of Archivematica! That would be cool. Finally, tell us a fun fact about yourself.
When I was little I wanted to be an air crew member, I wanted to be an air hostess.
You wanted to travel, lead that glamorous life?
Yes yes, I like planes, so I wanted to be that!
But you didn’t want to be a pilot?
No, not a pilot, I know that I don’t have that talent!