Hi there, I actually found most of the projects either here on HN or on GitHub explore, and a few of them I thought of because I used the projects myself (e.g. Brian of node-postgres). Quite a lot of developers put their email address on their GitHub profiles, or otherwise their personal website, so contact info was easy to find. Maybe that's more difficult for students than maintainers though?
For the email, I was just straightforward in saying what I was working on, what I hoped to get out of interviewing them and what I hoped they would get out of it. And I did the interview over email which made it easy for them.
Your content is good, although if I could give a small criticism it would be on your typography - the pink headings in all caps with big letter spacing just makes it much harder to read, and I would make the body text a little larger too. (this site is great for reference: https://practicaltypography.com)
Best of luck and happy to answer any more questions.
Sample piece:
https://www.freshgrads.info/post/meet-prashant-kikani-who-ka...
Would be great if you could share some advice on contacting people and getting stories.