Add Contributor Spotlight Jaime Silvela

content/blog/contributor-highlight-jaime-silvela/index.md

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+---
+title: "Contributor Spotlight: Jaime Silvela"
+date: 2025-07-07
+draft: false
+image:
+    url: jaime.jpg
+    attribution:
+author: fdrees
+tags:
+ - kubectl
+ - ciclops
+ - kubernetes
+ - postgresql
+ - open-source
+ - spotlight
+summary: "In a mini-series on this blog we highlight the work of the community.
+  Today we meet Jaime Silvela, experienced software developer and system 
+  builder and CloudNativePG component owner." 
+---
+
+Building and maintaining an open source project takes a village. In a 
+mini-series on this blog we would like to highlight the work of our
+maintainers, component owners, and members of the larger community.
+
+
+Jaime Silvela ([jsilvela](https://github.com/jsilvela) on GitHub), is an experienced software developer and 
+system builder, and a component owner for the CloudNativePG project. If you've 
+ever visited cloudnative-pg.io (spoiler: you have now), you've seen his work. 
+Jaime is currently on a sabbatical of sorts, after working at EDB from 2021 to 
+2025, first as a Senior developer, then as a Principal.
+
+When he started at EDB, the operator (then called CNP) had not yet been made 
+open source. "I was so lucky to land in the team building CloudNativePG." His 
+first real contribution was adding the `report` command for the kubectl plugin. 
+Other significant ones were declarative roles and tablespaces, documentation, 
+and creating [Ciclops](https://cloudnative-pg.io/blog/introducing-ciclops/).
+
+"CloudNativePG already does most of what I need; it's what I'll use in any 
+project where I have a choice." It's not the project that needs to change, 
+says Jaime. What he most wants applies to Kubernetes, and only by refraction 
+to CNPG: "I would like to see more consolidation and refinement in the K8s 
+ecosystem. There is too much complexity right now, and at the same time, I 
+see this careless attitude of _just deploy this manifest on your K8s cluster_ 
+that reminds me of ... NPM."
+
+Like many in his generation, from a young age Jaime was attracted to computers, 
+which still felt arcane and unexplored. "I have fond memories of my family's 
+Commodore VIC-20. But it was not until reading [*Structure and Interpretation 
+of Computer Programs*](https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/books_pres_0/6515/sicp.zip/index.html) in my early twenties that I thought of writing code for 
+a living." That book also motivated him to move to the US for graduate school. 
+
+To the question what he wants to be when he grows up, Jaime answers: "I just 
+turned 50, and you don't find so many developers of that age. But I intend 
+to keep writing code; I have more contributions to make!" Even if these days 
+there's a lot of hype around generative AI / LLM tools, Jaime is betting and 
+hoping that when the dust settles, there will still be a big need for human 
+software developers. "Do not obey in advance!" We know who to go to battle 
+with when the singularity comes.
+
+If you wanted to get in touch with Jaime, you can find him in the 
+CloudNativePG channels on the CNCF Slack workspace, or on [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/jaimes.bsky.social), 
+[Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@jsilvela@mas.to), or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimesilvela/). He also writes a [blog](https://blog.silvela.org/). You can follow the CloudNativePG project on [Bluesky](https://cloudnativepg.bsky.social) and [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@CloudNativePG) too!