this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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Programming
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Step one - do some open source work in various commonly used* languages.
Step two - apply for jobs, include a link to your open source work specifically highlighting projects that might be relevant to the company you're applying for.
Step three, while applying, keep improving your open source projects. Don't spend all your time writing code - spend at least half your time on planning and documenting your work - such as discussing issues with other people in the issue tracker (this is obviously easier if you're contributing to an established project rather than a new one that you've created yourself).
It's not enough to have knowledge. You have to demonstrate that you have that knowledge. Also you need to demonstrate that you are able to work in a team environment which is a very different skill set to actually writing code. If you don't know how to schedule/plan/budget a project... learn that skill.
(* Rust is a popular language but it's not a commonly used one. It doesn't even get a mention on GitHub's lost of the top languages when you count code being written, though it is the fastest growing language according to the same source - I recommend you learn JavaScript, Python, C#, C++, bash scripting... build a decent understanding of all of those. And learn some common non-programming languages too - such as SQL, HTML, Markdown).
Does that actually work? I don't think any technical interviewer has ever mentioned my github, and the most difficult part of getting a job is to get HR to forward your resume, and those obviously don't know a thing about code.
Point it out explicitly in your resume. Don't expect them to figure out your github activity on their own.
It's definitely better to have open source experience than no experience.
Obviously, but you don't answer my question. Do people really get interviews thanks to their open source work? OP is more likely to land a job by networking than by contributing to open source, is what I am getting at.