Open source is one of the best ways to learn faster, build real experience, and grow your career, but many people don’t know how to start. In this talk, I share a very practical approach to contributing to open source, based on real experience. We’ll cover how to choose the right project, understand large codebases, start with small contributions, and communicate clearly with maintainers. Using FiftyOne as a real example (but keeping everything general), I’ll show how small actions like fixing docs, improving tooling, or opening a simple PR can lead to long-term impact, visibility, and growth.