Benjamin Nickolls - President at Open Source Collective

Benjamin Nickolls

President at Open Source Collective

England, United Kingdom

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Summary

🤩

Rockstar

🎓

Top School

Benjamin Nickolls is a seasoned software and product leader with 16 years of experience building developer-facing tools and sustainable open source infrastructure from the UK. Currently President of the Open Source Collective and co-founder/director of the Open Finance Consortium and Ecosyste.ms, he blends strategic leadership with hands-on product work to secure and sustain critical open source projects. He co-founded Octobox, improving GitHub notification workflows, and has been a frequent maintainer and full‑stack contributor to projects like Libraries.io and Octobox where he shipped UI, API and privacy improvements. His background spans roles at GitHub, Tidelift and mySociety, giving him deep expertise in product development for developer ecosystems and open source sustainability. With an MSc in Computer Security and a track record of founding successful ventures (including a Kickstarter-backed board game), he pairs technical rigor with practical entrepreneurship. Notably, he focuses on making invisible infrastructure visible and fundable—turning maintenance work into measurable, supported outcomes.

16 years of coding experience

15 years of employment as a software developer

BSc Computer Science: First Class (Hons), BSc Computer Science: First Class (Hons) at University of Liverpool

MSc Computer Security: Distinction, MSc Computer Security: Distinction at University of Birmingham

Github Skills (17)

ruby-rails10

javascript10

github10

css10

rails10

ruby10

html10

ruby-on-rails10

api-design9

erb9

sass9

open-source8

capybara8

dependency-analysis7

dependency-management7

Programming languages (13)

CSSRustCHTMLPerlTypeScriptShellOpen Policy Agent

Github contributions (5)

octobox/octobox

Aug 2018 - Jul 2019

📮 Untangle your GitHub Notifications

Role in this project:

Full-stack Developer

Contributions:106 commits, 105 PRs, 315 pushes in 10 months

Contributions summary:Benjamin primarily focused on enhancing the Octobox UI and adding new features. They implemented a documentation page, expanded keyboard shortcuts, and added functionality for viewing notification threads. The user also addressed mobile-specific issues by improving scrolling behavior and fixing layout elements. Furthermore, they incorporated visual acceptance tests using Percy and added a vulnerability disclosure policy.

inboxrailsrubynotificationsnotification

librariesio/libraries.io

Feb 2017 - Sep 2018

:books: The Open Source Discovery Service

Role in this project:

Full-stack Developer

Contributions:8 commits, 28 PRs, 61 pushes in 1 year 7 months

Contributions summary:Benjamin implemented the privacy policy page, including the necessary routes, controller actions, and the HTML content. They added contribution notices to improve user guidance within the search and explore sections. The user also updated the homepage to prioritize the /data release, adjusting panel content and layout. Furthermore, they improved the API documentation with fixes and formatting.

discovery-servicediscoverydependenciessearchpackage-manager

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