July 16, 2020

Bringing Liquibase Community Contributions Together

Communities are pretty dang cool and powerful. People from all over the world with different perspectives come together to connect and break bread over a cause they believe in, a passion project they’re working on, or in my case, geeking out about database software.

Liquibase Community Management

Hey there! I’m Caroline. I’ve been working with the Community Team at Liquibase for the past 3 months and I feel so fortunate to do what I do. Just today, I spoke with a user from India over my morning coffee and then hopped over to Kenya just before lunch to talk with another. I’ve met more people across the globe quarantined at my kitchen counter than I have in my entire life. Our Liquibase Community is filled with some bright, compassionate, and totally rad people.

Bringing Contributions Together

Speaking of rad people, you might have heard of a dude named Vincent Van Gough. He didn’t use Liquibase because it didn’t exist yet, but he was a very talented painter. Van Gough said something pretty enlightening that I am sure someone at the time needed to hear.

Photo: Courtesy Musée d’Orsay via Wikimedia Commons

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”

Warning: Puns ahead.

This paints the picture of the strength of communities. It’s a culmination of people doing seemingly small things that impact the greater picture. (Or shall I say masterpiece painting?)

Our community members are doing more than a series of small things, they’re rather quite big things. After all, databases are really complex. Over the past 3 months, I have been getting to know our community over Zoom and learning more about them and their Liquibase journey.

Liquibase Community Spotlight: Artem Zagnitko

One of the people doing big things for the Liquibase community is my new friend, Artem Zagnitko, who calls Russia home.

Artem Zagnitko

Artem’s superpower is answering technical questions in StackOverflow and my gosh, he answers a lot of questions about Liquibase. People like Artem play a crucial role in our community and our team was quite thrilled to meet him and learn more about his experience with Liquibase.

Artem began using Liquibase at his previous employer back in 2014 and then introduced it to his development team at Wiley publishing. They integrated Liquibase into Spring Boot and use Amazon for their database environments to power WIleyPlus, an online learning platform. Talk about great timing with Covid-19.

At the beginning of Artem’s career, StackOverflow provided a lot of answers to his questions, so he felt it was time to give back to the community that helped him so much. With five years of Liquibase experience under his belt, he jumped right in.

When asked what motivates him to answer questions in his free time, he said it feels meaningful to help others. He’s inspired by the innovative and sometimes out-of-the-box solutions that other users provide and that’s what continues to motivate him. How awesome is that? He enjoys the gamification in StackOverflow. His goal was to be the 6th person ever to earn the bronze badge for Liquibase and he achieved it this past May!

Join us!

Liquibase users like Artem are why our community thrives. After they take, they give back. This continues to feed the engine of our community. We want to encourage our users to contribute, meet other people using our software, and continue to help us build a better Liquibase. We can’t do it alone. After all, great things are done by bringing a series of big things together in the world of database management.

If you were moved by Van Gough’s words or the work Artem is doing, check out the many ways you can contribute to our growing community. You can also just reach out to us and say hello. We’d love to meet you.

Caroline Hunt
Caroline Hunt
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