I attended both Pycon UK and Pycon Ireland to talk about lessons learned while maintaining mongoengine, a MongoDB-based framework for Python developers. I found that attending conferences like these helps increase adoption of MongoDB among Python developers and is a great opportunity to thank users and learn from them. When working on mongoengine, I've discovered the importance of metaclasses in adding metadata at declaration time, as well as managing a community by utilizing the GitHub network graph and encouraging pull requests. Additionally, I've learned that it's essential to ask for help when needed, whether from the core team or other contributors. Overall, my experience has been valuable in shaping mongoengine into a powerful tool that complements MongoDB.