I am a software developer by craft and a linux system admin by hobby. I cannot commit to moderating and managing my own instance, but I would be glad to help someone with the technical aspects.
The most common complaint I saw in Reddit and here about switching to Lemmy is the difficulty of setting it up, so I thought I would help bridge this gap.
While I have never hosted my own instance before, I already checked the setup guide and it looks pretty simple to me, so I am confident I can do it. Please feel free to comment or DM.
It would be great if you can comment general questions. I can then respond to you here and maybe others will see it and know how to host their own instances too.
I likewise have a similar background to the OP. I wouldn’t say I struggled (thanks to the Matrix chat room), but the docker instructions straight up didn’t work a couple of days ago. I and another guys submitted a couple of PRs and I think the instructions should at least work for common setups now, but the edges are very rough.
By far the best way to contribute IMO is submitting PRs. The devs seem very willing to take contributions without making you jump through hoops.