Some of the guys on here have been adding functionality to Shotcut such as @MusicalBox and @Namna withe their “timeline markers” (Timeline markers add-on) and @Austin with his "deband filter (Introducing a new filter: "Deband").
There are others working in various areas (Pull requests · mltframework/shotcut · GitHub), and although it is a small fraction of what Dan and Brian are doing it still helps to improve the product. One guy is producing a dynamic GPS filter for MLT, to see the suggestions and help he’s been getting from Dan and Brian see https://github.com/mltframework/mlt/pull/703 and new GPS text filter UI by dany123 · Pull Request #1120 · mltframework/shotcut · GitHub
Modiying code, especially code written by someone else, is not easy. I’ve been doing it for over 50 years and although object-oriented programming languages have simplified the process it still requires quite a bit of effort. In many cases though it is helpful just to be able to get pointers from the inital code developers rather than full-blown tuition. So don’t be put off diving in and trying to help.