OpenStack Ironic and the MLH Fellowshipwith CID

August 18th, 2026

29 mins 14 secs

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technology podcast gr-oss out podcast infrastructure maintainer code review python automation devops security alx mlh fellowship mlh gross out podcast tabitha deena minneko cid bare metal ironic openstack technology oss open source gross gr-oss g-research coding

About this Episode

In this episode of the GROSS Out Podcast, host Tabitha DiDomenico talks with CID, a software engineer and maintainer on the OpenStack Ironic project at G-Research. CID explains what OpenStack Ironic does — provisioning and managing bare metal (physical) servers the same way you'd manage a cloud instance — covering the full server lifecycle from enrollment and cleaning to firmware updates and deployment.

CID also share his journey from ALX (African Leadership X), the MLH Fellowship to full-time open source maintainer of OpenStack Ironic and how it changed his life.

The conversation covers:

  • What OpenStack Ironic is and the problem it solves for bare metal provisioning
  • Runbooks, a feature for predefining and scoping automation steps across servers, and the upcoming Version 2 (V2) improvements
  • Why this release cycle has focused heavily on security advisories and vulnerability backports across four stable release branches
  • CID's path from the Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellowship and the African Leadership Experience (ALX) software engineering program to becoming a full-time open source maintainer
  • The realities of open source code review, the anxiety of working in public, and why backward compatibility is one of the most overlooked but critical skills in maintaining large infrastructure projects
  • CID's advice for anyone facing rejection from a fellowship or open source community

Links
CID's Blog - https://auditorical.com/
OpenStack Ironic - https://opendev.org/openstack/ironic
MLH Fellowship - https://fellowship.mlh.com/
ALX - https://www.alxafrica.com/
Eventlet - https://evenlet.net/
Runbooks - https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/admin/runbooks.html

G-Research is hiring in Dallas, TX and London, UK! Apply at https://gresearch.com/vacancies.

For a video version of this podcast, check out https://youtu.be/fbsI8l-MaFA.

The GR-OSS OUT Podcast is produced by Ben Wiley.