In this episode the discussion revolves around the BOSS program (Bitcoin Open Source Software), which offers a 30-day series of technical programming exercises aimed at engaging participants in Bitcoin protocol development. The guests, Satsie, Sangbida, and Ron, share their backgrounds, motivations for joining the program, and experiences throughout the challenges. They discuss the impact of the program on their careers, the importance of community support, and the unique environment of open source development. The conversation also touches on the challenges of grant applications and the mindset required to succeed in this field. The episode concludes with advice for potential participants, encouraging them to take the leap and apply for the program.

Takeaways:

🔸The BOSS program is a free opportunity for learning Bitcoin development.

🔸Participants come from diverse backgrounds, including IT and finance.

🔸The program is gamified to keep participants motivated.

🔸Community support is crucial for success in the program.

🔸Contributing to Bitcoin open source is seen as ethical and impactful.

🔸The experience in open source differs significantly from corporate environments.

🔸Grant applications require a proactive approach and clear proposals.

🔸Imposter syndrome is common but can be overcome with dedication.

🔸Feedback from the community is direct and valuable for developers.

🔸Working in open source can lead to fulfilling and autonomous careers.

Timestamps:

(00:00) – Intro

(01:21) – What is the BOSS program?; Sangbida & Macgyver’s journey with BOSS

(04:07) – Participant’s motivation & experiences with the BOSS program

(09:00) – What are the career opportunities for Bitcoin developers after the BOSS program? 

(12:57) – Challenges of learning & working in open source

(16:53) – What are Sangbida & Macgyver currently working on?

(18:25) – What is it like applying for grants and funding in open source?

(19:48) – Sponsor

(23:12) – The role of community engagement in open source

(25:16) – Skills and mindset required to thrive in open source

(30:23) – Working in Bitcoin – passion vs. reality

(38:13) – Closing thoughts

Links: 

• https://x.com/satsie 
• https://bosschallenge.xyz/ 
• https://bitcoindevs.xyz/ 
• https://x.com/Bitcoin_Devs 
• BOSS Challenge: https://x.com/i/status/1996282354969858301  

Sponsor:

• CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
• Subscribe to the podcast
• Subscribe to Substack

Transcript:

Stephan Livera (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about the Boss program. Now some of you long time listeners might know from last year we did an episode on this and Satsi is rejoining us to talk about this program as well as Sangbita and MacGyver. So first off, welcome back to the show.

Satsie (00:19)
Thanks for having us.

Macgyver (00:21)
Thank you.

Sangbida (00:22)
Yeah.

Stephan Livera (00:23)
Great, and so, yeah, I guess, you know, I have a lot of, I often interview a lot of developers and they’re developer listeners on the show, so maybe give us a bit of an overview, just for anyone who maybe didn’t hear the episode last year. Satsi, do you wanna just give us sort of an update on it? What is this program? And then we can kind of get into a little bit about Sangbita and MacGyver’s background.

Satsie (00:47)
Yeah, I’d love to. So BOSS stands for Bitcoin Open Source Software and the BOSS challenge is a 30 day series of technical programming exercises that take you through various parts of the Bitcoin protocol and they do it in a way that’s really fun and engaging. Now, if you finish the first month and you had a really good time and you want to keep going, we have options to extend it for an additional two months. But the magic of it is really in that it allows people to

signal their technical ability and readiness to contribute to Bitcoin open source and do it in a way that cuts through a lot of the noise because we know that is so so difficult. The program is completely free to participate. It’s put on by Chaincode Labs and it’s open to everyone around the world.

Stephan Livera (01:36)
Fantastic. so, yeah, let’s hear a little bit about you guys. So maybe we’ll start with you Sangbita.

Sangbida (01:44)
Sure. So, prior to working in Bitcoin open source, ⁓ I worked ⁓ on Block’s Bitcoin trading team. And so was still working in Bitcoin, but I was broadly familiar with working in Bitcoin, but I really didn’t know a lot about like protocol development or Bitcoin fundamentals. And so that was the main motivation behind joining the course.

but I really enjoyed it so much that I sort of kept going and persevering through the all three months. And yeah, I didn’t expect to be working in Bitcoin open source. When I started, the goal was just to learn more about Bitcoin open source. But yeah, here I am.

Stephan Livera (02:31)
There you go. And MacGyver, tell us a bit about yourself also.

Macgyver (02:34)
Yeah, so I’ve been in IT for 25 years as an IT admin, system engineer, also an engineering manager, product development roles. So it was really something that I’ve been looking and use. I’ve been using Bitcoin for several years, and I had not actively done any contributions into Bitcoin. So it was kind of a nice ⁓ opportunity for me to really get to the fundamentals and learn and then take it from there.

Stephan Livera (03:05)
Yeah, interesting. so, yeah, I mean, people come from different kind of walks of life, whether that’s like professionally being a software engineer or other people who just kind of, I’ve seen other people in this journey, and this in this industry who came from a totally unrelated field, and they wanted to learn, you know, Bitcoin development, and they just sort of did it anyway, the hard way. So yeah, I guess maybe let’s talk to let’s speak to let’s hear a little bit of your, let’s say motivations, right? Because

Sangbita, it sounds like you were already even working. I would say that counts as you were already working in Bitcoin, but actually you wanted to go really into more like the specifically open source elements of it. So maybe you guys want to tell us a little bit about your motivations for actually going through the program and actually wanting to get more deeply into the Bitcoin open source side of things.

Sangbida (03:54)
Sure. ⁓ I think contributing to Bitcoin open source is very ethical. ⁓ In my head, my vision for Bitcoin is that people use it for payments, like everyday payments. I think people’s relationship with money is very local and cultural. so Bitcoin open source really allows a good foundation for that.

to build local solutions on top of that. ⁓ So I think contributing to Bitcoin open source really helps with that. ⁓ And also it’s like an awesome new technical challenge that I’m personally excited for.

Stephan Livera (04:40)
Cool, and McGigga.

Macgyver (04:42)
Yeah, so I’ve worked in corporate America for a few different startups and I kind of got to the point where in my last chapter, just, the work wasn’t as meaningful as I wanted it to be. Like Sanvita said, I was looking for an opportunity to give back. I’ve been looking for a few years and I saw the social media post last year on the Boss program and it just, it kind of spoke to me. It seemed almost too good to be true. It’s like a free opportunity to get a bootcamp.

and really get started. And so I just signed up and the rest is history.

Satsie (05:16)
Yeah, I think probably the number one reason why people come to Bitcoin open source is the ability to do work that’s truly impactful work that is used by countless people across the globe for goodness, who knows how long your code is going to be running because it’s open source. And I think that so many of us are just so mission driven in Bitcoin. We all believe in financial freedom. We all believe in financial sovereignty. And that creates a really unique landscape. You get to work

like Sanghita said, some of the best, most challenging problems with honestly some of the best people you will work with in your career.

Stephan Livera (05:57)
So talk to us a little bit about the experience of going through the program. What was your experience there doing that?

Sangbida (06:08)
Yeah, personally I find going through online courses, ⁓ they struggle with motivation, but ⁓ the Chaincode boss program is sort of gamified and a lot of effort has been put in by the folks at Chaincode to run this program so seamlessly. ⁓ What I mean by it being gamified is that you sort of have to unlock the challenges so you

you’re incentivized to finish the challenges as quickly as possible to unlock the next one. And so I think that kept me really motivated. Another thing that was really helpful was the aspect of peer learning. Everyone I find like in the discords was really keen to help, which made me keen to help other folks as well. And people produce these amazing docs that I learned from about their experiences.

So everyone, like the community was really great through the program.

Stephan Livera (07:11)
Yeah, MacGyver.

Macgyver (07:12)
Yeah, I would second that. ⁓ I really enjoyed the kind of the structure of the curriculum as well. I think it helps you build the foundation early ⁓ for me coming in with little Bitcoin development experience. It was like drinking from a fire hose, but I really enjoyed it. I think the structured gamified learning really helped me. I’m competitive and motivated like that. So I enjoyed the puzzle, the challenge. And then towards the end, you get to be kind of in a

you get to work on what you want to work on and you get exposed to different projects and project leads and kind of get to hear the stories of other open source developers. So you actually get in contact with people who are doing the work now. And it’s just a really nice kind of wrap up to the entire program.

Satsie (07:58)
Yeah, I will say that the challenges have been refreshed this year, so if anyone joined us in a previous year and wants to do it again, you’re more than welcome to come. And we almost joke that this is Bitcoin’s Got Talent, which is kind of funny, but it really is. It’s about showing up, demonstrating your ability to do the work, to contribute, and really taking it as far as you can go. And if you’re serious about it, you will be taken seriously, and that’s kind of the beauty of open source.

Stephan Livera (08:28)
And I mean, for some, maybe for many, the goal is to eventually end up working professionally in the space. And maybe you can outline a little bit on, you know, what does that look like? Is that being ⁓ sponsored or is that being going and directly working as a developer in one of these projects? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Satsie (08:51)
Yes, so for most it’s going to be to get funding. Now in 2024, eight people left the program fully funded, new careers in Bitcoin open source. Last year that was about 10 and that actually doesn’t include the people that go on to start companies or get jobs in the Bitcoin industry. We only put the people who work in Bitcoin open source on the website, but that’s generally what it looks like. ⁓ And it’s a very small percentage

it really is the top performers that make it through the program, but the fact that it can crank out almost 20 in the past two years is pretty incredible to me.

Stephan Livera (09:32)
So actually, you want just explain a bit about that? Because it’s, you know, not to diminish, you know, the program at all, but doesn’t it sound like there’s not a lot of, you know, developers there coming through? ⁓ Is it just a function of, you know, the technical difficulty of it, or just kind of getting people, you know, who are at the right level, like the skill level?

Satsie (09:57)
Yeah, yeah, you really need that unique combination of exactly those two things. So technical ability, that’s obvious. You need to be up to par. You really need to know what you’re doing. But another aspect that isn’t often talked about is your readiness. You need to be at a point in your life where you’re ready to put in the work for one, two, three months and then make that career change. And so just because you come into the program and you don’t leave with funding doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get funded.

later in the year doesn’t mean you don’t if you do it again you’re not going to get funded it just means like this wasn’t the right timing and that’s going to be different for everybody it’s going to be different some people who come into the program they have full-time jobs they’re not going to have as much time as somebody who doesn’t have a full-time job or somebody you know maybe we have students in the program it depends on also your family obligations ⁓ so we try to keep it flexible but this is really meant to capture those people at that really unique intersection of having

the technical ability and being at a point in their lives where they are ready.

Stephan Livera (11:01)
So let’s see that from MacGyver and Sangbita. What was your perspective there going into it that you had, let’s say that one to three months of time that you could really devote to this?

Macgyver (11:16)
Yeah, I’ll go first. I, ⁓ like I said, at the beginning, I was looking to get into the space. So I kind of went into it with a, you’re going to have to kick me out because I’m going to give it everything I have kind of mentality. Yes. So yeah, I told my family, I have, you know, teenage kids. I was like, Hey, I’m going to be heads down because I have full time job, you know, supporting them as well.

Stephan Livera (11:28)
So you’re like super committed going in,

Macgyver (11:39)
So I was like, I’m gonna be heads down as much as I can to make sure I succeed at this. And there were weeks I put in 20, 25 hours, but there were other weeks that it was not as bad. it was other people I know probably went through the program and put in less than 10. So it really just depends on your background and kind of what your skills are going in. But it’s a proof of work curriculum. So if you show up and you do the work, I think you can make it to the end.

Stephan Livera (12:08)
Sangh Beda.

Sangbida (12:10)
Yeah, I don’t have any kids, but I also did have a full-time job going in. So a lot of my free time was spent doing this, but I was very happy to spend the time doing it because I learnt so much from the program. Yeah.

Stephan Livera (12:31)
Right, how did you, I guess, contrasting this program that has some structure to it versus, let’s say, self-directed learning, right? In your mind, you have to contrast that too, because you could, theoretically, you could have said, I’m just gonna go through and ⁓ just go make PRs on Bitcoin open source projects and just try to…

sort of do it the hard way. What was the difference in your mind of going for this structured program as opposed to just sort of jumping straight into making PRs on an existing open source Bitcoin project and hoping to get sponsored that way?

Sangbida (13:13)
show.

Macgyver (13:14)
I I think the amount of time I think that you save by having a structured curriculum is, you know, orders of magnitude better, in my opinion. I think you learn how to make ⁓ contributions. It’s kind of like the full, you know, gamut. ⁓ So I think it’s a great idea. If you’re interested at all, I would definitely highly recommend it. Worst thing you could do is learn a lot.

Sangbida (13:42)
⁓ I think it’s difficult to know just where to start, like what are, like not all projects are ready to accept new, like newer folks. I think there’s repositories that are good for first time developers and you don’t really know of this until someone tells you about it.

Macgyver (13:47)
Mm-hmm.

Sangbida (14:08)
Or you knock on a lot of doors and then you find the right one. But going through the program definitely like funnels all of that information for you. you kind of before you go in and do open source development, you have a really good foundation of like what you need to know, ⁓ not only about Bitcoin fundamentals, but also ⁓ how you might structure your PR or how a commit looks like.

or what repository you might decide to contribute in. ⁓ So those are a bit like if you know you know and you definitely find those things out in the program.

Stephan Livera (14:49)
Yeah, and Satsi, I’m curious to hear your perspective. Of course, I know you have worked in the industry previously at CASA, I believe, and you’ve been around the industry, you’ve been working in this industry for a while. What are your thoughts on that?

Satsie (15:02)
Yeah, I have so many thoughts. ⁓ So first, working in open source is just a completely different paradigm to working in industry. You have to be a self-starter and you have to be really confident in your ability to pursue something. And you have to be okay with not really having the same kind of support system that you have from maybe coworkers working on the same problem and a product manager telling you, you’ve got to ship this by a deadline because

that

it doesn’t it doesn’t happen like that in open source and one eye-opener experience for me was the first time I submitted like a real PR request to a real pull request to Bitcoin Core with like actual big chunks of code and it was torn apart it was shredded to pieces and I felt so discouraged but knowing what I know now about Bitcoin open source that means someone cared that means somebody took the time to review it it’s actually worse for

to not get any eyes on it at all. And so over the years being in an open source, I’ve learned to kind of like trust my own internal compass and kind of move without the same level of guidance that I had been working under in industry.

Stephan Livera (16:20)
Yeah. so maybe just to explain what were some of the outcomes of ⁓ this Boss program for you guys. Maybe you want to explain a bit about that and what you’re working on now.

Sangbida (16:37)
Okay, I can go first ⁓ Yeah, right now I am working at Blockstream on Core Lightning so I kind of fell into it by by chance it was like opportunity and also I was working on on on through the open source program, so ⁓ I was looking for jobs at the time and ⁓ Jonas from Chaincode was able to connect me to Rusty

⁓ who leads Core Lightning and it’s sort of just happened from there. I did not expect it to happen but I’m very glad to be here.

Macgyver (17:20)
Yeah, okay, yeah, thanks. So at the end of the program, one of the kind of the self-directed projects that I picked was to build a silent payments indexer. So that kind of naturally led itself to me meeting Jonas and getting a recommendation to talk to the protocol developer. So I met with them, kind of surveyed the ecosystem of what’s been developed against silent payments for the last three, four years.

Stephan Livera (17:20)
Great, yeah, gone MacGyver.

Macgyver (17:48)
and really saw an opportunity to kind of marry my skills of, you know, kind of product management leadership, trying to promote adoption of something that’s technically like moving forward, but not really a lot of coordinated effort between different projects. So it was one of those things where I was able to kind of like come in, you know, submit a plan to a couple of organizations to seek funding and then, you know, execute that plan. So that’s kind of where I’m at now. I’m about six months into that.

Stephan Livera (18:19)
Excellent. And so what was it like applying for grants?

Sangbida (18:28)
I haven’t applied for any grants because I applied for the job. So maybe this is a better question for you.

Macgyver (18:36)
Okay, sure. ⁓ Okay, no problem. Yeah, so I kind of like took it as a almost like creating like a product roadmap and then pitching my idea to like a leadership team to try to get buy in for something. that was kind of how I approached it. ⁓ my ⁓ grant is, you know, to be like the shepherd of silent payments and like push it forward to adoption. So that’s kind of what I’m doing. So I’m not managing anyone. I’m not.

Stephan Livera (18:36)
Yeah, maybe a better for you MacGyver, yeah.

Macgyver (19:05)
you know, developing anything specific. I really try to coordinate, ⁓ you know, meetups. ⁓ I’m trying to work on like building tests, ⁓ things like that for silent payments, and then contributing wherever there’s holes. So that’s kind of what I’m doing. But yeah, my grant proposal process was, you know, develop that plan, and then meet with, ⁓ you know, perspective. ⁓

grant organizations. I had two one-on-one meetings and then one was just a, you know, I guess full, it was based off of just the document itself that I put together. So that’s kind of how everything came together for me.

Stephan Livera (19:46)
Yeah, interesting. does ⁓ give that, I think, like Satsi mentioned, this kind of self-starter idea that you really have to, in this case, if you’re really out there trying to find a grant to get work, to work on a particular project, you have to sort of take that on for yourself as opposed to if you’re working in a company and you’re just told, this is the new priority, go get to work on that.

Macgyver (20:03)
Yes.

I do have something to add there. You know, since working in Silent Payments, I’ve met several developers who were doing this as a hobby side project. I mean, they full-time jobs as developers and, you know, they developed good solutions and I, you know, recommended to them, hey, I think you guys should try to pursue this full-time. So I’ve kind of been evangelical about the process and trying to get people to go out and apply for grants to get funding because I think they’re doing great work. They just don’t know how to kind of cross that chasm. And that’s something that

I’ve had the experience doing it, so I’ve reviewed some of their ⁓ grant applications and tried to kind of give them some ideas, things like that.

Stephan Livera (20:48)
Yeah, and while we’re on that actually, for some there can be bit of uncertainty around living off of grants, right? Is that, how do people manage that? Is that like, you know, they’ve already got to make sure they’ve got enough savings so that they feel comfortable trying to go down this pathway with grants because the thing is some of these grants may not necessarily be for a long time and so how do people manage that? How do people deal with that?

Macgyver (21:13)
Yeah, I can take that. I me personally, I kind of made the decision that, you know, I was pretty confident, had high conviction that if I demonstrated the work, improved a value and what I can bring that, you know, more grants would find their way or I could kind of make enough connections and relationships and do a good job that I could, you know, find my place, I guess, if the grants ran out. So that’s, that was kind of my approach.

⁓ It seems almost like that’s how people start just from my experience in the seven, eight months that I’ve been kind of really in touch with what’s going on. It does seem as though once you’re kind of connected and know a lot of people in the industry, it’s probably easier to fall in different places. So I kind of yoloed on that idea, I guess.

Stephan Livera (22:01)
Yeah, but I think you’re right. Once you sort of know a few people in the industry, you tend to just meet a lot of other people in the industry.

Macgyver (22:08)
I there’s really high demand.

So I think, you know, qualified people that show up and do the work is in high demand, right? Everywhere, in business and in open source.

Stephan Livera (22:17)
Yeah,

so let’s go back to you Sangbita. Tell us a little bit about nowadays you’re working, you’re contributing on Core Lightning. How does that compare to before?

Sangbida (22:30)
⁓ I think it’s very different. Firstly, the community engagement that you get working in open source is completely different. get so much feed. There’s so many passionate people in the space that are using your software and are so passionate to just give feedback. It is awesome. There are so many other open source developers also working in the space. ⁓ So that has just been great to work with all these awesome people.

There’s also just so much to work on because you can really pick what you want to work on and just go nuts. ⁓ So that has been just really awesome to just have so much agency ⁓ and freedom to be able to work on what you want to work.

Stephan Livera (23:24)
Yeah, interesting you mentioned around like feedback from people like from users of the software. Do you feel like it’s put it this way, is it more direct feedback that you’re getting because it’s like from the real user of the pro of, you know, let’s say call lightning compared to a block user or a cache app user where maybe it’s all getting funneled through like customer support and things.

Sangbida (23:37)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah,

I guess so. Yeah, so at Cash Up, know, there’s obviously a funnel. We’re also kind of like in the backend, so we don’t get to deal with the customers directly. In Core Lightning, you are also the user. Like I run my own node now, ⁓ but there’s also all the other developers also run their nodes. And then there’s the broader community like on Discord and Telegram who are also, you know,

updating their nodes and running the new software and giving feedback and creating issues. And yeah, it’s just awesome, awesome to be able to interact with these folks directly.

Stephan Livera (24:27)
Gotcha. And so maybe back to you Sati, when you’re evaluating if someone can do this task, what are the skills you’re looking for? What are the, is it a mindset, ability? What is he looking for there?

Satsie (24:43)
Yeah, mean attitude really is everything. The easy stuff is obviously is your technical ability at a point where you’re ready to contribute. I know like some of these repositories are in Rust which can kind of have a little bit of a learning curve. Another thing is I mentioned your ability to work with minimal guidance because the other contributors on the project don’t want to be micromanaging you and telling you what to do. So you really have to be able to

identify issues and bugs and talk to other users and be really proactive. And then the last thing I’ll mention is, especially in the days where LLMs are now quite prevalent, ⁓ something that we’re seeing is like…

really honest contributors kind of leaning a little bit too heavily on them and opening PRs with code generated by LLMs and descriptions generated by LLMs and their responses will be generated by LLMs and while the sentiment is there it often creates a lot more work on the contributors to kind of coach you through things and they end up spending more time reviewing your code than what your code

is actually adding value to. So I would say those are probably like the top three things that ⁓ funders and other contributors look out for when they try to suss out if you are ready to make the leap into Bitcoin open source.

Stephan Livera (26:16)
Yeah, this whole AI generated contributions thing seems to be ⁓ a new thing now that, you know, even like I think there was like a recent bit where they were talking about like, you know, how, you know, AI generated content. And obviously, this can be kind of, I mean, yeah, on one hand, yeah, AI should be useful to people to help them research and learn things. But on the other hand, if it gets, let’s say misused or overused, then it can like be like a DOS on the time of

Satsie (26:28)
you

Yes. Yeah.

Stephan Livera (26:45)
people who are already there. I think there’s kind

of people are trying to wrestle with like, what is the right way to use AI, but still not like totally disavow all uses of it.

Satsie (26:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, and it’s so it’s so tricky to comment on it too because I use AI for stuff. So like I’m not telling people not to do it. It’s just like you said, there is a point where it can be a little bit too much and cause more problems than it helps.

Macgyver (27:13)
Uh, something that I learned at the end of the program when meeting some of the project developers is, think we spoke about this a little bit at the beginning, but the, responsibility of the person submitting the solution, uh, you know, the standard that you need to think about is like the person reviewing this has to take their time, uh, and, you know, put forth their energy to like parse through all of this stuff that you’ve created. So if you’re using an LLM to generate a ton of mess, and then you just like,

throw that over the wall, now you’re putting all of this ⁓ requirement on the person reviewing that. And even if they see that it’s kind of junky or it didn’t really like, it’s just too verbose and it does all these crazy things, they have to like think through that to even give you like a real response. So I just would implore people to like really think of it from the reviewer’s perspective and like what kind of, know, position you’re putting them in. That’s really what you need to think about when contributing to open sources.

the tasks that you’re putting on the reviewer and try to make it as clean and concise, easy to understand as possible.

Stephan Livera (28:21)
So I guess for you guys just zooming out a little bit on contributing to Bitcoin open source full time, what does it mean to you? What’s the ⁓ appeal of that ⁓ as a career path?

Sangbida (28:40)
⁓ I can go first. ⁓ I think I’m really excited about the potential of what my changes can do. I don’t know if that’s kind of selfish to say, ⁓ but I think it’s just an ambitious field to work in. So I’m just enjoying the technical challenges. I’m learning so much and I’m keen to see.

what’s next for me and get to do some big things.

Stephan Livera (29:14)
I’m gonna go.

Macgyver (29:16)
⁓ I think, you know, I want to build something that has, you know, a long, long time horizon to it. ⁓ Like most people in Bitcoin, you kind of think longer term. And to me, being able to contribute something that has the staying power of a large decentralized network. ⁓ It just, it feels different than building a product that, you know, has a specific use case and customer and

timelines and things like that. the freedom to kind of explore and ⁓ find your passion, it’s it’s kind of unmatched in my opinion. So I really love it.

Stephan Livera (29:59)
Let me put the question this way, just because I can imagine maybe there are parallels. Do you think people working in Bitcoin open source end up having to take a pay cut versus if they’re working in the private sector like to get like equity at a a FAANG or Magnificence at a Mag7 company, this kind of thing. But is it is it sort of that trade off of like you you are working on something that you’re more passionate about? Is that is that how you’re thinking about it? Or how do see it?

Macgyver (30:25)
I mean, I can kind of speak to it. think I have a general understanding of that. And I would say it probably is there’s some sacrifices that go in financially for people to work in open source ⁓ development, Bitcoin specifically. So I do think you’re doing it more as a passion as opposed to a huge financial reward. That’s my take.

Sangbida (30:48)
I would agree with that. think what I’ve really gained is like my mental health is a lot better ⁓ since working in open source just because I have so much autonomy over what I’m doing ⁓ and that’s very empowering and so while there are pros but there are no cons I find that the pros significantly outweigh them and like I’m much happier now.

That may not be the case for everybody, but that is definitely the case for everybody.

Stephan Livera (31:21)
Sure,

yeah. And I guess just as you were going through the program, any, like I guess particular moments you were proud of or any particular challenges that you had to overcome, if you have any stories to share for listeners that might be helpful for people.

Macgyver (31:40)
⁓ go ahead.

Sangbida (31:40)
Yeah.

I was very nervous going into it. I came into it with a lot of imposter syndrome. I think that it started off with the program started off with like four or five thousand people and I was like, oh my god, there are so many people and the chances are most of these people know so much more than I do. At least that’s what it seems like in Discord anyway, know, there are all these people who have their

on projects going on already. ⁓ Just everyone just seemed, at least to me, everyone seemed really competent. And I didn’t know that I was going to be able to make it at all, but I kind of just kept going, like kept putting one foot in front of the other and making my way through the challenges. And the last challenge was like particularly difficult. ⁓

I also don’t know if they tell you at the start how many challenges there are. So it was sort of like, I think by the end they do tell you. But that one was particularly challenging and I knew that one was the last one. And I finished that and I was really, really happy and I was like, okay, I’ve kind of made it this far. Maybe I can also do the rest. then that’s, so here we are now after that.

Stephan Livera (33:01)
There you go. MacGyver, any stories you want to share from your experience going through the program?

Macgyver (33:07)
Yeah, I mean, I would say week by week, ⁓ it was kind of, I had that same imposter syndrome, like I can’t possibly be good enough to make it to the end of this program. But, ⁓ you know, just like, like she said, I put my head down, did the work, ⁓ kept learning, learning, learning, learning, reading, trying, reading, trying, learning, learning, learning, ⁓ made it to that point.

There was a of a challenge in the middle that broke up the Bitcoin portion and the ⁓ Lightning portion with like a block builder. And I really enjoyed that because it was was open ended. You didn’t have like a grading or a pass fail. It was like you had to do your best work of building like a minor revenue optimization block template. ⁓ So you kind of got to like do some free thinking and try to optimize. So that was a fun problem for me to solve.

I liked it because it was kind of like, just do your best and submit that. I felt like I surveyed the possibilities and I was pretty close to optimal, so I was confident. But there was a lot of people that I could tell that were more structured that really struggled with the nature of that. So I kind of like had a small win in the grand scheme of things against all these other incredibly intelligent people.

Stephan Livera (34:27)
Right. ⁓ And I guess just ⁓ interacting with Bitcoin open source developer communities, how has that, how’s your thinking there shifted or how’s your relationship shifted with the way you, let’s say, talked with Bitcoin open source developers or contributors?

Sangbida (34:46)
a less intimidated now, think, just, well, a little less intimidated. There’s still a lot of really smart people, well, there are a lot of really smart people in this space, but they don’t bite. They’re really nice and really enthusiastic, and most of them really want you to succeed if you’re dedicated to contributing in Bitcoin open source. And a lot of them take their time to really thoroughly review your PRs.

which I think is incredibly generous. ⁓ So my experience has been very positive in Bitcoin open source.

Macgyver (35:26)
Yeah, I personally ⁓ haven’t met anyone that was difficult to work with. Everyone is super welcoming, ⁓ very talented. I learn something all the time just by keeping my eyes open and listening. And I love the feedback that you get. I think the open source, open code mindset just is different. Both of the companies I worked at before, was…

protecting the code and that keeping it private and protected was incredibly important to them, the leadership team. it’s just, it’s really nice to work in the open. ⁓ I can pick up a piece of code or work on a project and submit a PR to something that like, I don’t even know the people that maintain it, but it would be beneficial to, know, silent payments, for example, to have this move forward. So I can just pick that up and contribute and.

know, get feedback from people. it’s really kind of just very open and ⁓ collaborative. It’s just, yeah, it’s nice.

Satsie (36:31)
Thank

I think it’s really cool the more time you spend in open source and the more people you talk to, the more that you realize everyone is just kind of like learning as they go and figuring it out and we’re all just trying to move something forward and going to the whole open source part too, like people are generally really encouraging and before like when I first got into it, I got kind of like self-conscious if I were to like fork something and be like, well, like I took something of yours and I made it different. Like, I don’t know how that makes me feel.

but people actually really love that and I think that’s a really nice thing and I and that attitude and that spirit like can leak into other parts of your life and it’s just like all around a good thing.

Stephan Livera (37:14)
I say yeah, I guess they can see it as if someone takes, if someone is taking your code and forking it away, it’s like there’s interest in that, which I guess to what we were saying earlier, that it’s like if someone even spends the time to give you that review time, that itself is an indicator that they cared enough to do that, which is more than you can say for a lot of other things.

Satsie (37:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s really nice and something else too like there are so many barriers to contributing to open source that are kind of more on like the soft skill like mental side like am I ready like I don’t know where to start but one thing that’s not a barrier is the code. The code is right there. Nothing is stopping you from checking out the Bitcoin Core repo and going through it line by line. Now there are many other elements but you can’t say that the code’s not open and I just think that’s great.

Stephan Livera (38:06)
Alright, so let’s wrap up then. So any closing thoughts on the program? just for listeners, if they’re interested to go through it, do you have any advice for them?

Sangbida (38:18)
Yeah, be brave, just apply and see where things take you. That’s definitely how I started. I saw a tweet by Nifty. I was doing her base 58 course and I thought she said to apply to this thing and here we are. So just come prepared to try your best and maybe it will be good enough.

Macgyver (38:48)
Yeah, I would second that. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. If you have, you know, kind of the aptitude and the passion to try to learn ⁓ Bitcoin and, you know, you want to contribute, I think you should definitely give it a try. Not much to lose.

Satsie (39:06)
this probe.

This program is all about giving people the opportunity to show what they’ve got. It is very difficult to put out your signal over the noise. And the boss challenge is one way to do that. It doesn’t matter if you’re like Sam Beta and you are a corporate developer in Australia, or if you’re on the other side of the world like MacGyver and you are a manager at a startup. It doesn’t matter if you are an Apple developer in Europe, a security research in Nigeria, an Uber

eats driver or an algebra teacher these are all examples of people that have come through the Boss Challenge and emerged on the other side with fully funded careers. I encourage anyone who has just been like noodling on the idea of like wow I really want to work in Bitcoin I really want to work in Bitcoin open source I know how to code I just don’t know what the steps are to apply. Applications close December 31st and the program kicks off the week of January 12th the website is bosschallenge.com

x, y,

Stephan Livera (40:10)
Fantastic well we’ll leave it there links will be in the show notes so listeners make sure you share this episode so other people can learn a bit about the boss program the boss challenge and Yeah, if you’re interested definitely sign up. Thank you for everyone for joining me

Satsie (40:24)
Thanks, Stefan.

Sangbida (40:26)
Thank you.

Macgyver (40:26)
here.