It's difficult problem to solve. Lemmy's stack is a bit unconventional. The rust backend is not idiomatic and the ui is based off a template of an isomorphic not-quite-react framework. Its not impossible, but it will take a while for alot of programmers come onboard.
That being said, there's more to it than writing code. Better bug reports, reproduction, updating docs and triaging/managing the issues is possibly more important than writing PRs. Don't be discouraged!
Article is a bit dated and hard to read. The gist of the author is relatable though
15 years later: redundancies have been hella annoying, especially if they are unknown.
Bad abstractions, however, create dilemmas, dead-locks and chicken-and-egg situations.
And it's impossible to create good abstractions unless you have no colleagues and no customers.
I would take some frustration over grinding to a halt any time.
What I love most about Krazam is that in every video they make, you see the guy move up the usual tech career ladder xD