The SciPy project welcomes your expertise and enthusiasm! Your choices aren’t limited to programming, as you can see below there are many areas where we need your help.

If you’re unsure where to start or how your skills fit in, reach out! You can ask on the mailing list or GitHub (open an issue or comment on a relevant issue).

Those are our preferred channels (open source is open by nature).

We also have a biweekly community call, details of which are announced on the mailing list. You are very welcome to join. If you are new to contributing to open source, we also highly recommend reading this guide.

Our community aspires to treat everyone equally and to value all contributions. We have a Code of Conduct to foster an open and welcoming environment.

Writing code

Programmers, this guide explains how to contribute to the codebase.

Reviewing pull requests

The project has hundreds of open pull requests – meaning many potential improvements and many open-source contributors waiting for feedback. If you’re a developer who knows SciPy, you can help even if you’re not familiar with the codebase. You can:

  • summarize a long-running discussion
  • triage documentation PRs
  • test proposed changes

Developing educational materials

SciPy’s User Guide deserves attention. We’re in need of new tutorials, how-to’s, and deep-dive explanations, and the site needs restructuring. Opportunities aren’t limited to writers. We’d also welcome worked examples, notebooks, and videos.

Issue triaging

The SciPy issue tracker has a lot of open issues. Some are no longer valid, some should be prioritized, and some would make good issues for new contributors. You can:

  • check if older bugs are still present
  • find duplicate issues and link related ones
  • add good self-contained reproducers to issues
  • label issues correctly (this requires triage rights – just ask)

Please just dive in.

Website development

We’ve just revamped our website, but we’re far from done. If you love web development, these issues list some of our unmet needs – and feel free to share your own ideas.

Graphic design

We can barely begin to list the contributions a graphic designer can make here. Our docs are parched for illustration; our growing website craves images – opportunities abound.

Fundraising

SciPy was all-volunteer for many years, but as its importance grew it became clear that to ensure stability and growth we’d need financial support. This SciPy'19 talk explains how much difference that support has made. Like all the nonprofit world, we’re constantly searching for grants, sponsorships, and other kinds of support. We have a number of ideas and of course we welcome more. Fundraising is a scarce skill here – we’d appreciate your help.