I originally planned to finish my 2025 year-in-review before the Lunar New Year, but ended up writing it two months after.
There were just too many things to handle before and after the New Year. Now I finally have time to sit down and document what happened in 2025.
Kubespray Maintainer#
Since becoming a reviewer, I’ve been diligently reviewing PRs every day. The contributions accumulated over time, and in June this year, I was invited by other approvers to become a Release Manager for Kubespray.
Earning the approver role also means taking on greater responsibility. I’ve seen many contributors around me rush to claim issues, but very few make it to the end. Especially in this era of rapid AI development, having the patience to seriously hone one thing is truly valuable.
According to statistics from the CNCF official blog, approximately 40–65% (about 16–26 people) continue contributing after each mentorship term ends. Ultimately, only about 1–3 become maintainers or approvers. Since 2020, roughly 20 cumulative maintainers have emerged — and of course, I’m one of them!
KCD Taipei 2025#
I served as the lead organizer for KCD Taipei 2025 for the first time, handling many tasks required to host a conference. I even brought back ClashLoopBackOff from abroad for everyone to play. Special thanks to Tony and OCF Singing for their help, as well as fellow community members and volunteers.
It’s confirmed that 2026 won’t be held under the KCD name, but I hope to build a Kubernetes contributor community in Taiwan in 2026, and return to an official CNCF event in 2027.
Kubernetes Release Team - Release Signal Lead#
After nearly a year on the Release Team, I chose to take on the Release Signal Lead position for v1.35.
My Release Lead this time was Drew Hegan, who was also my lead when I first joined as a Release Signal Shadow. I was pleasantly surprised when I took on this role. (After all, I had been guessing who the next Release Lead would be.)
As for what stories unfolded in v1.35? I’m still writing about it — stay tuned for my reflections!
First Job Change#
From my university internship through graduate school and into my first full-time role, I was involved in many IT/SRE tasks. Starting from QEMU + KVM-based Kubernetes clusters, I gradually developed a private cloud cluster built with Proxmox VE and IaC.
Honestly, leaving my original team was truly bittersweet. The members always supported and learned from each other. I really loved the team atmosphere and am deeply grateful to my manager Patrick for nurturing me into a capable SRE and helping me establish a presence in the Cloud Native space.
Panel Discussion with Chris Aniszczyk#
I was honored to receive an invitation from Cathay’s open source group, asking if I’d like to attend their open source meetup and participate in a panel discussion with the CNCF CTO.
I sat next to Chris, with Singing — who has been involved in the open source community for a long time — on the other side. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. After all, I’ve only been contributing to open source for 3–4 years, while others have been working in or participating in the community for much longer. Why would anyone want to hear what I have to say?
But looking at it from a different angle, being a CNCF Ambassador doesn’t mean you’re the most technically skilled — it means you can serve as a bridge between CNCF, the community, and companies, facilitating dialogue among all three parties to achieve balance. Being honest with yourself and your audience, and expressing your own perspective, is what matters most!
IT Matter Awards - Open Source Contribution Award#
The IT Matter Awards is an event organized by the Information Management Association of the Republic of China. This year they introduced the Open Source Contribution Award for the first time, so I signed up.
There was quite a lot of material to prepare. Starting in August, I compiled all my GitHub contribution data from the past 2–3 years for the written review (including finding screenshots and writing narratives — the latter wasn’t too difficult since the memories were still fresh). After passing the secondary review, I had to prepare a presentation for the finals in October. The content was essentially a filtered version of the written review, keeping only the images and explaining everything verbally.
And then…
I was honored to receive the Open Source Contribution Award in its inaugural year. After winning, I still had to prepare a presentation and video wall content for the awards ceremony to showcase our work.
When I get the chance, I’ll share my preparation materials publicly so that anyone interested in applying in the future can reference my contribution path.
Conclusion#
To sum up 2025, it was a year of professional breakthroughs. Community engagement also gained meaningful traction. I hope to continue contributing to Kubernetes and keep striving towards becoming a SIG Lead!