If you're thinking about contributing, it's really quite simple. There is no need to feel daunted. You can contribute in a variety of ways:
Report bugs Bug fixes New behaviour Improve the documentation Write tests Improve performance Add additional support i.e. new versions of Python or PyPy You can view a list of tasks that need work on the todo page.
The api section also has a wealth of information on how the server works and how you can modify it or use parts of it.