Area 01
Day-2 for data
Upgrades, backup and restore, failover, operators in production.
Program guide 2027
DoK Contributor Program
How the Data on Kubernetes Community is organized, how contributions are recognized, and how to take part.
About the community
The vendor-neutral home for people who run data on Kubernetes
Founded in 2020, the Data on Kubernetes Community (DoK) brings together platform engineers, SREs, DBAs, data and ML infrastructure teams and operator maintainers to share how they run databases, streaming, analytics and AI data on Kubernetes in production.
4,300+ Slack members, 600+ talks and videos, two DoK Days a year at KubeCon EU and NA, and the annual Data on Kubernetes report.
Mission
Help every team run data on Kubernetes in production without guessing.
We do it through four areas of work.
namespace: dok-mission
Area 02
Storage that keeps up
I/O, CSI, local and network storage, cost.
Area 03
Data for AI
Vector stores, feature stores, lakehouses on Kubernetes.
Area 04
People and skills
Learning paths, DBA to platform, mentoring.
Ways to participate
Participation starts at 15 minutes
kind: Contribution
01 · 15 min
Help
Answer in #help.
02 · 1 to 2 hrs
Share
Post a #friday-fail.
03 · 2 to 4 hrs
Review
Test a pattern.
04 · 1 to 3 days
Create
Write a pattern.
05 · Monthly
Host
Run a Dock.
06 · Weekly
Lead
Pilot or SIG lead.
Getting started
The path to a first credited contribution
- Join the DoK Slack.
- Pick a task from the good-first-contribution board.
- Pair with a buddy, who replies within 48 hours.
- Ship it using the templates in the dokc GitHub org.
- Credit: your name is on the work within a week.
Target: a first credited contribution within 14 days. Bring questions to the monthly New Contributor Hour on DoK Live.
What counts
Code is one contribution among many
| Area | Examples |
|---|---|
| Patterns and docs | Write, edit or maintain DoK Patterns and guides |
| Talks and content | DoK Day, DoK Live, podcasts, blog posts, Postmortem Club |
| Reviews and testing | Review patterns, test them on real clusters |
| Research | State of DoK report, Operator Scorecard |
| Community and events | Run a Dock, moderate Slack, organize meetups |
| Translation and design | Translate patterns, create talk art, templates |
| Infrastructure and web | Website, GitHub tooling, streaming setup |
| Advocacy | Press, social, representing DoK at conferences |
DoK Pilots
Ambassadors who represent DoK and help new contributors.
- 30 Pilots in 2027: 15 in March, 15 in September
- 4 hours a month, one contribution per quarter
- Eligible after 2 contributions at review level or above
- Vendor staff capped at 40% of each cohort
Docks
City chapters that run local meetups.
- 10 launch cities: Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bangalore, New York, SF Bay Area, Austin, São Paulo, Tokyo
- Two organizers each, quarterly meetups
- Meetup-in-a-box kit and funding support
Recognized contributors
Five levels of recognition
| Level | Who |
|---|---|
| Core Team | Runs the community and its infrastructure |
| Major Contributors | Sustained, significant work over a year or more: SIG leads, Pilots, lead pattern authors |
| Significant Contributors | Repeated contributions: several patterns, talks, reviews or events |
| Contributors | Anyone with a credited contribution: a review, a talk, a translation, a fix |
| Emeritus | Past Major Contributors, listed for their lasting work |
Every recognized contributor is listed publicly on the contributors page, grouped by level, in alphabetical order. Contributors update their own profile.
How recognition works
A Contributors Committee reviews nominations twice a year
- Nominate. Anyone can nominate, including themselves.
- Review. The committee checks the public record.
- Decide. A level is assigned, with a short reason.
- List. The profile is published on the site.
- Revisit. Levels are reviewed yearly; Emeritus on request.
Reviews run in February and August. Results are announced at DoK Day EU and NA.
Benefits
What each level receives
| Benefit | Contributor | Significant | Major | Core |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public profile and credits on your work | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Slack badge and newsletter shout-outs | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Contributor pin | ● | ● | ● | |
| Priority review for DoK Day talk proposals | ● | ● | ● | |
| DoK Day ticket from the sponsor pool | ● | ● | ||
| Travel grant eligibility | ● | ● | ||
| Can stand for end-user steering seats | ● | ● | ||
| Reference letter from the steering committee | ● | ● |
Travel grants and tickets depend on budget and sponsor support each year.
Structure
How DoK is organized
| Body | Role |
|---|---|
| Steering Committee | 5 seats: 2 end users, 2 sponsors, 1 maintainer |
| Sponsor Council | Advises, no vote |
| Core Team | Runs the community |
| SIGs and WGs | Operator, Storage, Data for AI, Security, Report |
| Pilots and Docks | 30 ambassadors, 10 city chapters |
| Program committees | Select DoK Day talks, half end users |
Core team
The core team runs DoK day to day
Three seats are open. Interested? Write to core@dok.community.
Our commitments
What contributors can expect from DoK
- Credit within a week. By name, in public.
- A reply in 48 hours. For every first contributor.
- Your work stays yours. CC BY 4.0, you as author.
- Neutral by design. No sponsor logos in patterns, Scorecard or report.
- All work counts. Non-code contributions count as much as code.
- Code of conduct. The CNCF code of conduct, with a named contact.
Where to find us
- Slack: #contribute in the DoK Slack
- GitHub: github.com/dokc
- Recognition: contributors@dok.community
- Core team: core@dok.community