We announced our intention back in May to fill this role with generous funding by Amazon Web Services (AWS), and after a thorough search, we are delighted to announce Mike Fiedler is joining the team! He joins the PSF for the next year as our first ever PyPI Safety & Security Engineer. Mike is already a dedicated member of the Python packaging community – he has been a Python user for some 15 years, maintains and contributes to open source, and became a PyPI Maintainer in 2022.
This critical role would not be possible without funding from AWS: "We are happy to be able to invest in the sustainable and secure development of Python and PyPI, and we look forward to Mike's contributions." - Tom Callaway, AWS.
Mike begins his work with the Python Packaging Index (PyPI) this week. He says, “Very excited to join the team in improving the safety and security of PyPI for end users, package publishers, maintainers, and PyPI moderators and administrators - that’s a huge audience!” We hope that everyone in the community will join us in welcoming Mike and supporting his critical work for Python packaging!
We are thrilled that for the first time we are able to bring on an engineer who will be dedicated full-time to PyPI. PyPI is a massive project that has become key digital infrastructure serving millions of users. Up until now, PyPI has been almost entirely volunteer-run, depending on a tiny team with only one fraction of one person’s paid time. We’re expecting all PyPI users to have a tangibly improved experience from Mike’s work over the next year. Some of the outcomes we are targeting include increased support for package maintainers including multi-maintainer projects, improvements to reporting infrastructure for malicious projects, as well as a reduced response time for malware reports and account recovery requests. Mike will work closely with our also-recently-announced Security Developer in Residence, Seth Larson.
This role is funded by a substantial investment from AWS, inaugural Security Sponsor for PyPI. AWS has been one of the top sponsors of the Python Software Foundation for the last five years, and our long-term partnership with AWS has also included important in-kind donations of cloud computing infrastructure and services to support PyPI.
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is the non-profit organization behind Python and PyPI. Our mission is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers. The PSF supports the Python community using corporate sponsorships, grants, and donations. Are you interested in sponsoring or donating to the PSF so it can continue supporting Python and its community? Check out our sponsorship program, donate directly here, or contact our team!
