Fedora Operations Architect

The Fedora Operations Architect (FOA) is employed full-time by Red Hat to assist the community in managing technical change. This includes change wrangling, schedule management, communications, and ownership of key strategic efforts. The Operations Architect also serves as a member of the Fedora Council. This role was created in 2023.

Current Fedora Operations Architect

Aoife is currently away on maternity leave from 24 October 2025, and will return on 18 May 2026.
Aoife Moloney (she/her)

Aoife Moloney is the current FOA. She is based in Waterford, Ireland and has been using Fedora Linux since 2018 when she joined the Red Hat Community Linux Engineering team. There, she served as a project manager, product owner, and general “cat herder”.

You can find Aoife on chat.fedoraproject.org as @amoloney:fedora.im, and she is happy to talk about anything.

Responsibilities

The Fedora Operations Architect is primarily responsible for coordinating technical change in the project. They work closely with a number of groups across the Fedora Project and have a range of responsibilities in each.

During Aoife’s absence, the responsibilities of the FOA role are being managed by the following people:

Manage the Changes Process (@alking)

From 27 October 2025 - 18 May 2026, Allison King will cover the following responsibilities as Change Wrangler for the Changes Process for F44 and F45:

  • Shepherd Change proposals through the Changes process

    • Send reminders about upcoming deadlines in the release cycle for changes

    • Create tracker issues for accepted changes

    • Track the status of Changes during the development/testing cycle

    • Create and submit the Incomplete Changes Report to FESco

    • Maintain the Change Set Pages

  • Manage the Spins and Labs Keepalive process

Allison can be reached via:

FAS Username

alking

Email

alking at redhat dot com

Fedora Chat/Matrix

 — 

Release Coordination and Management (@jspaleta & RelEng)

From 27 October 2025 - 18 May 2026, Jef Spaleta and members of Release Engineering (RelEng) will cover the following responsibilities for the Fedora Release Coordination and Management:

Jef:

  • Go/No-Go Meetings

    • Schedule Beta and Final meetings for F44

    • Send reminders that these meetings are upcoming

    • Facilitate the meeting

    • Announce outcomes

  • Release Coordination

    • Work within the Release Day Fedora Chat/Matrix room to ensure all important details are raised for the upcoming release

    • Create Red Hat internal blog posts announcing F44 Beta and F44 Final releases

    • Work with Fedora Magazine for F44 release announcement article

Jef can be reached via:

FAS Username

jspaleta

Email

fpl at fedoraproject dot org

Fedora Chat/Matrix

@jspaleta:fedora.im

RelEng:

  • Perform mass updates of bugs at branch and end-of-life time

Elections (@jflory7)

From 27 October 2025 - 18 May 2026, Justin Wheeler will cover the following responsibilities for the Fedora Elections:

  • Running the F43 and F44 Elections

    • Opening elections cycle

    • Collecting and publishing candidate interviews

    • Creating and opening ballot box

    • Closing voting

    • Announcing the results

Justin can be reached via:

FAS Username

jflory7

Email

fca at fedoraproject dot org

Fedora Chat/Matrix

@jflory7:fedora.im

Council Administration (@jflory7)

From 27 October 2025 - 18 May 2026, Justin Wheeler will cover the following responsibilities for Council Administration:

  • Creating council meeting agenda

  • Running the meetings

  • Assign and following up with action items

  • Post meeting agenda (ahead of), minutes and summary (after)

Justin can be reached via:

FAS Username

jflory7

Email

fca at fedoraproject dot org

Fedora Chat/Matrix

@jflory7:fedora.im

Fedora Forge Executive Sponsor for Council (@jspaleta)

From 27 October 2025 - 18 May 2026, Jef Spaleta will take over as the Executive Sponsor for the Fedora Forge Initiative. He will:

  • Act as Council stakeholder to the project team, communicating Fedora Council (and at times, the wider Fedora Project’s) needs and requirements ahead of team sprint-planning

  • Support the development team by resolving any blockers within Council’s control or needs Council’s acknowledgment to proceed

  • Keep track of progress and encourage regular reporting from the team and provide regular status updates to the Fedora Council on the work

Jef can be reached via:

FAS Username

jspaleta

Email

fpl at fedoraproject dot org

Fedora Chat/Matrix

@jspaleta:fedora.im

Release Party Team (CommOps)

For the F44 Release Party, the following tasks need volunteers to support the Community Ops team members in organizing the Release Party. If you would like to get involved, please join the Community Ops team channels and work with this group:

  • Speaker Management and Coordination

  • Create and maintain the Release Party Schedule Wiki page

  • Build a shortlist of speakers and invite them to present at the event

  • Confirm speaker acceptance and schedule them based on their availability

  • Update schedule Wiki page with session information

See the Community Ops Fedora Docs page for how to contact and get in touch with the team.

Flock Organizer Team (Lidija)

For Flock 2026, Lidija Balija will support the Flock Organizer Team by managing the CfP review process in Aoife’s absence. Lidija is a member of the Red Hat Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and works closely with the Fedora Community Architect.

Details for the Flock 2026 Call for Proposals, once finalized, will be communicated via:

  • Community Blog and Fedora Magazine

  • On the event website

  • In the Flock Fedora Chat/Matrix Room (#flock:fedoraproject.org)

  • Emails to devel-announce@ mailing list

History

This is a new role for Fedora, as of October 2023.

What about Fedora Program Manager (FPgM)?

In 2007, Red Hat began providing Fedora with assistance through a funded role in the company’s Program Management organization. In 2023, structural changes at the company eliminated this position. The Fedora Operations Architect is a new role situated in Linux Engineering at Red Hat, designed to be more closely aligned in both definition and practice with Fedora’s unique needs.

Former Fedora Program Managers

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