Every Open Source Maintainer Is Burned Out | Kat Cosgrove

Burnout isn’t an edge case in open source. It’s the default.

In this closing clip, Kat Cosgrove, Kubernetes Release Team Subproject Lead and Head of Developer Advocacy at Minimus, speaks with rare honesty about burnout among long-time open source maintainers. Her message is blunt: she’s burned out, her peers are burned out, and if someone tells you otherwise, they’re probably just hiding it well. The work doesn’t stop, but the toll is real — especially when maintainers are expected to always be “on,” always positive, and never have a bad day in public.

Kat shares the small but critical rituals that help her stay functional: stepping away from people during conferences, taking real breaks, disconnecting completely from technology, and protecting time off.

Billy Thompson, Senior Global DevOps & Platform Engineering at Akamai, adds his own perspective, talking about burnout cycles, creative resets, and why balancing technical work with music and analog creativity matters.

This is an honest conversation about sustainability, mental health, and the human cost behind the software the industry depends on.

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