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Finding a Linux Job
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier writes, "Kirrily 'Skud' Robert, CEO of Netizen [and part-time
freshmeat appindex maintainer], gives Linux job-seekers a few tips on landing a job with a Linux-friendly company. Netizen is an Australian Open Source and Internet training and consultancy company." It's a fun read, but eminently practical. Among her advice: Have opinions on beer, get involved in open-source projects, keep track of your source code ... just not necessarily in that order.
All i can tell is, the good people live out side the states or already have killer jobs elsewhere. I've been thinking about just running down all the linux kernel comment looking for hackers that might be unemployeed or looking for better jobs.
Maybe i'll run down http://advogato.org/person and see if i can find some canidates. We are looking to hire anywhere from 10 to 20 coder over the next 4 months, so, i'm sure it, behoves us to start looking now.
If anyone has any idea on how to go about hiring this kind of skill or what sums of money its going to take, i'm interested in hearing from you.
It seems to me most people here talk a brave fight, but i have to wonder what its going to take to put together the team of coders/hackers that is going to form our development department. There has been talk about 'raids' on tech companies such as intel, but i'm not convinced thats a road we want to go down. We might wind up with a largly inefectual big-business framework without having the techincally savy we need. Sure everyone wants to make programming a process that monkeys can do, but for a startup you don't want the dead weight these processes impose upon talent in the organization.
matt at cgibuilder.com
BTW - As far as the word format on your resume...sorry to burst most Ub3r h4x0rz bubbles, but most
companies have lots of management, and management uses Windows...word is still the way to go in a
resume, but that doesn't mean you have to like it.
Depends on the company. If it's an old corporate behemoth then layers of Microsoft-dependent pointy-hairs are likely. If it's a small startup or Linux consultancy, or it comes from an academic/UNIX background, that is not so.
Perl monger meetings, usually held once a month, are better than LUG's if you want to meet other programmers in your area.
Don't. If the person your sending it to doesn't already know who you are and isn't expecting your resume, this is a bad idea. If there are a hundred applicants for a new job, which do you think a manager is likely to chooseWhat it takes is a little research of a few companies that interest you and some contacts. If you haven't met somebody from a perl monger meeting or LUG working there, then just call up an engineer at the company. That is tough, I know. But you're not calling them to ask for a job, just for info. You want to find out about the open job, what skills it requires, the group manager, and the company in general. Remember, the guy at the other end is a geek just like you.
You mean other than for or (gasp!)against? O.K.
Q."What's your favourite beer...?"
A. cold
--or--
A. free
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If you belong to a LUG or writing a OSS you can always find some type job related
on my LUG'S listserve they always have job postings.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
Where I live, there are practically NO linux systems deployed in such a manner that they need folks yesterday. This is industrial/agriculture/lumber country, so the tendancy is toward AS/400. The only major IT shop in the area wants Windows and Mac folks to write code on those platforms. The employer offers the same hypercasual, laid back dress code; the same Mountain Dew supply and the other perquisites to attract what they need. Pay is less than average, but expenses like rent and electricity can be less than average, too. What really matters when it's all said and done is how much disposable income is left in your pocket when the paycheck is received.
This doesn't mean folks aren't wanting employees yesterday; they do, but in skills like truck driving, nurse's aides, machinists and home care aides.
All the folks flocking to programming has seemed to leave a void in skills like machining, sheet metal workers and tool and die makers. I can't swing a dead cat around the classifieds in the paper without finding decent industrial jobs.
And, no, I cannot move. There are many reasons someone older cannot easily pick up and move.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
This is extreemly important. I have so many tools on my resume because I was always been willing to say, shure I'll try, learn, and do it. It sure helps that I bothered to learn the fundamental computer science theories and am willing to learn more.
My own technical book collection is now a couple of shelves larger than the 4 foot wide floor to ceiling book case I originally allocated for it. Sure some of the books are now old and dusty, but then I've been collecting for 2 decades. The dustier ones will soon be cataloged evicted to boxes till I get a larger place. Sure it's expensive to maintain your own persomal technical library, but I've found it indespensible. I use books as refferences nearly daily. I consider it much more important to know how to research and look up something than it is to know it off the top of the head. More often than not the memory isn't quite all there, but you know that printed page ratains what it was told very faithfully. It's also much easier to hand to somebody else so you can off load the task and get on to some more important task.
Networking, networking, networking.
-- ;-)
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux,
you have to be a sneaky bastard too
-- Linus
Why keep yourself to only US workers? Notice the way that list of kernel hackers has lots of email addresses that have something after the ".com" or ".edu"? There are some pretty good coders outside the US, you know!
They are cheaper, too, and don't even try saying that you need all the people in the same place for a project to work well - there's that whole kernel thing, again.
You also get the benefit of having people in different timezones, so when you get to work in the morning you'll find a days work has been done while your asleep.
(I'm in Australia, so I'm a little biased. OTOH, I'm not really looking for a kernel hacking job, so I'm not that biased. YMMV, though.)
Just out of personal experience, the most important skill any potential candidate can have for ANY position at all is:
A willingness and ability to learn.
We recently hired an employee to do Linux / PERL work, not because of his skills (no PERL at the time) but because he was willing to go learn it over the weekend. So far, he's worked out better than we had even hoped.
Cheers
And, while I've dabbled some in beer coding, it has, at times, produced some interesting results. But, sometimes these can be refreshing and re-educating, such as boning up on Linux installation techniques. Since I already have 15 machines running Linux in various parts of the world, it's becoming a little pointless to build any more. Unless of course, it's to make a little more progress on my Alien Searching. Actually, I may need to do this soon, since I'm almost losing ground at this point. Almost......
So, returning from my tangent, a good beer-hacking session sometimes gives you an opportunity to go through the process of re-installing Linux. Plus, you never know when someone's going to have a system get DDoS-ed while you're out singing karaoke, and, maybe a little toasted, and, you'll have to do some drunk typing in a production environment. I would encourage people to do their beer-coding in a test environment, however.
Also, remember that brain cells are darwinist in their operation, and, the weak brain cells are the first to die. Since we only exploit 15% of our brain cells at any given time, I would think killing off the weaklings with a Coors Light, or a Sam Adams would be a fairly intelligent thing to do. So, cheers, everybody! Drink up and
As for Jolt Coders, they can be pretty manic, at times, but, they do have their place. I mean, who's gonna do the debugging for the Beer Coders?
>:)
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
I dont know about anyone else's experience in landing a job, but I know I had to work the crap jobs for 2 years before I have had companies consider my resume. Its hard if you have no experience, only a degree. Its even harder if, like me, you have no Computer Science degree. I went to college for Philosophy fer cripes sake. But if you do have a CS degree, its gonna be a lot easier. Take those crap jobs. Get your bastard lessons, take your lumps, do your time. Keep your eyes on the job postings. Sooner than later you'll get a crack at a good job. Best of luck.
I would think that other than in ISPs and small to medium Linux saavy companies, one might be wise to have some experience in the other OS as well.   Reason being that many companies have had Linux hiding in the background in the backend, and the higher ups having discovered it, have often appreciated its usefullness.   Thus places such as these are slowly becoming more "Linux friendly" as well.   However, these companies often have a large user and/or server base of something else, and often need migration-saavy IT staff, knowledgeable in multiple OSes.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
There's something about convincing the CEO that Linux has significant advantages for some project or other, and that it costs less too! The look of enlightenment on the face of a PHB who suddenly groks the advantages of OpenSource is priceless. And it gives a real chance for OpenSource advocacy when the BSA audits you and finds that you're using a whole lot of OpenSource software, so they can't say a damned thing! :)
Plus, it lets me put BSD in where I see fit too...
--
: remove whitespace to e-mail me
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
...the sort of questions that come up at interview time are:-
1) Can you survive outside Visual Studio?
2) Which edition of the "C programming Language" did you learn from? (trick question)
3) Which kernel version do you use?
...and if you get offered a job, they point at the tie you're wearing to the interview and say "You won't be needing that!"
All your ghosts are just false positives.
I have rarely had any difficulty ascertaining the skills of a fellow hacker. Its like a painter judging the technical skill of another painter, its easy, you can see why they do what they do and how. A few examples and a fairly short chat will do it. On the other hand, when I try and figure out whether a painter is a good painter, or whether a banker knows what the hell he's talking about, I'm in the dark, and pretty much no amount of evidence that they can provide will enlighten me beyond "gee thats a lot of stuff".
:) if they're trying to pull something. Simply find a friend or employee who is a Good Hacker (tm), explain carefully what you want in a new employee, then let them sit in on the interview, and if they want ask questions.
My personal urging towards employers at least is ensure that when you go to speak to your prospective hacker, bring along another one, one you trust, because they will see right through them (assuming a reasonable social ability
As far as going for a job, I'd be concerned if I was merely interviewed by management, unless said management is particularly technical. Kirrily may not see this from where she is, she is surrounded by the tech world and more importantly, a good judge herself, but if the interviewing group doesn't consist of at least one person fairly familiar with the stuff that you do, you simply aren't going to get a good show. The job will go to the person with the best social skills and the ability to sell themselves, which is all fine and dandy unless the person concerned can't actually do the job.
They say interview technique is important, but more so these days is Who you have at the interview, than what you do there.
You can't win a fight.
This is a really weird article. Getting a job that's Linux-based isn't necessarily a good thing, or at least it has very little to do with your personal satisfaction. Linux is, after all, just an operating system. What's more important is the type of work you're doing, the people you're working with, how well a company is managed, and so on. If you want a Linux job solely because you think Microsoft is evil, then you need to pull back and look at your personal crusades in perspective. If you enjoy programming, then you'll get the same problem solving and code writing pleasures regardless of whether you're working on a mainframe, a proprietary embedded system (much more common than either Windows or Linux in the job market), a handheld device, or some form of desktop PC. Ranting about how Linux is superior to Windows really does give the same impression as arguing whether Captain Picard could take down Captain Kirk. It looks really weird to most people, because most people, even the techies, don't fixate on which operating system their computer is running.
I'm currently a college senior looking for work and I'm having the hardest time finding a job for after I graduate. Just about all of the companies that I talk to are looking to fill immediate opennings, i.e. within two weeks. No one is interested in looking for someone who has the skills and the education, but isn't available for another two months.
At my school, most (if not all) of the recruiters looking to fill full time positions come in September. The Career Center says you should have a few offers by December. Then you should make a decision by Janruary. Well, that was true for CivE, ChemE, and MechE, but the only jobs available for CS at that time were from companies that "need people." Those are the jobs where you go to work eight hours a day and come home ready to die. *bleah* I had one this summer, I don't want another.
How am I supposed to get one of these "linux friendly" companies to take a look at me months in advance? I have the education and an excellent GPA (3.5). I go to the conferences to learn about new technologies, not the freebies. I've been using Linux for four years and I finally use it on my desktop. I do linux programming when I can, but my coursework takes up most of my time. And most of all, Linux really excites me. All the IPOs are cool, but I really don't give a damn. I just want a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and small part in the Linux Revolution.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Nate
Two summers ago, I tried to find a job at a startup company. My resume is pretty good, at the time I had done a lot of work on Java, had been published in books on Java, etc etc. I had worked at Microsoft. I figured my chances were pretty good.
But, to my tremendous surprise, none of the resources that I had at my disposal resulted in any really strong leads. I emailed my resume around, I posted on HotJobs, Monster, etc. all the big sites. I did a lot of searches for open job postings. And although I got a few offers, it was an awful lot of work.
So, a friend of mine and I started our own company, which we called Catalyst Recruiting. It's designed to help students and recent graduates who are smart and have a high skill level get connected with startup companies. We've been in business since last August, and have a web site built 100% from free and open-source components. I designed most of the technology, and I think it's pretty revolutionary relative to what's out there for recruiting today. We even plan to open-source the software (check out enzyme.sourceforge.net)
But enough about me. I think that we are a great resource for
Anyway, that's my spiel, hope you didn't read it if you're not interested. If you are interested, there's a link in my sig. We don't spend a lot of money on advertising (except for our sponsorship of The Onion), so I try and get the word out any time I have a chance and a sympathetic audience.
Thanks,
Eric
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
I was looking for a new job recently and I had some interesting experiences. I have been a C and C++ programmer for about 15 years (mostly C, only a little C++), with about 17 years of professional programming experience. My last two jobs, a total of 11 years of work, have been doing Unix work. My first Linux kernel was 1.2.8, back in about 1996. I live in San Francisco and was looking for work near home - I did not want a car-only commute. At my last job I used almost all the popular commercial Unicies - AIX, HP, Solaris, SCO, Digital, NCR and so on.
I was looking for Linux work, and got two hits on my resume from Linux-related companies. The first was a company making a Linux-based product. I had a somewhat unusual phone interview - the guy who was the chief tech wanted to know how much Debian experience I had. My preferred ditribution is Slackware but had installed Debian twice. I really didn't use it with any regularity, or have any specific experience. He semed to be interested in Debian install packages, and didn't seem to think that my experience building install packages for seven different Unix native installers meant much. I guess my lack of Debian-specific experience counted quite a bit against me, but I also got the impression that because I didn't use Debian I was somehow politically incorrect. The other problem I had was that I could not offer any code samples from my last job. All the code was proprietary and even though I am quite proud of my coding skills I could not prove anything. I have not had time to work on any outside of work Open Source projects so I could not show any code from that source. I think that this also counted against me in the "politically incorrect" category. The thing that most annoyed me was that after the phone interview, I never even got a call back from the company or their in house recruiter. I figure if you bother to do a phone interview, you should at least have someone call back and say "Sorry, we are not interested."
The other job was with a big name Linux distributor who was interested in doing alot of new kernel feature work, plus some interesting user space stuff. They were a much more professional operation, but once again I felt that the fact that I had not contributed to any open source projects counted against me to some extent. I felt I had a good shot at a position there because I had skills that matched one of their specific needs fairly well. Their main drawback was that they were a very bad car-only commute from my place.
In the end, I decided to take a non-Linux job doing Java Programming. This was because the vast majority of jobs I saw listed were Java jobs and I decided that I better pick up some new skills so I could continue working for the next few years. Also, a good friend works with me at my new company, and the staff is mostly older people who have a good sense for "quality of life" issues and are more interested in experience and proven skills than flash.
There were not many really good looking Linux jobs, from my rather narrow perspective, but this will change over time. The current jobs seem to prefer a certain amount of Open Source credibility. In the end I think I made the correct decision for my future, but I would have liked to have a job in the community. Maybe next time!
I've had my resume out there for a while, and while I wouldn't consider myself even close to the top echelon of linux coders out there, I get a whole lot of calls just based off of the fact that my resume is out there, and people are interested in hiring me.
I'm in college, and I'm going to be looking for a "career" soon, but so far, I haven't really had to look, companies seem to just find me on the internet.
It seems at times that with the economy that we've got now, and with the job market in our sector the way it is, here's my checklist --
1: Do you have a pulse?
2: Are you a crack/heroin addict?
3: Do you plan to immediately defraud the company?
4: Do you have any convictions for homicide?
If you answered 'Yes' to all of the above, congratulations, you're qualified for practically any job out there.
While that is a bit exaggerated, it has seemed to me recently like a lot of employers are desparate for employees. Good economy means expansion in business, expansion in business means that you need more employees. And there aren't any to be had as far as I can see....
(Note: stay away from consulting firms - I've interviewed with 2 - and they seem to be of two breeds - the sharks, and the pimps)
My $0.02
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Plain text or simple HTML are very good universal formats. If somebody can't deal with either of them, are you sure you want to work for them?
I once maintained my resume in MS Word format, but decided that it was a waste maintaining a Windows system at home just so I could maintain my resume. I now have my resume posted on my web site. I keep the HTML in it and my web site simple as it is there for information transfer, not glitz. If someone needs it in text format I will transfer it over to text buy having Lynx translate it. The resume is currently in flux as I'm updating it for a new job search. I'm looking for a place that will allow me to only work 30 hours a week preferably in web security or programming.
However, at the end they recomend four job portals: Linux.com, Linux Today, User Friendly's GeekFinder and Linux.org.au. I agree with the first two, and (since I'm in North America) have no valid opinion on Linux.org.au.
The problem with Geek Finder is that it is really just a front for Dice.com. Unlike all the other resources mentioned, dice.com charges employers for listings, instead of being community-based and advertiser-supported.
Instead, I would recomend the following additional job portals, where I have actually posted jobs:
- Superexpert.com: not great, but it does host linux jobs.
- JustLinux: a smaller Linux portal, with a nice jobs page.
- Free Software Jobs Page: This is the GNU jobs page. It is strictly for free software jobs, so only hard-core open source jobs get posted there.
Finally, WireX's research jobs are here and our production jobs are here.Crispin
-----
Crispin Cowan, CTO, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Free Hardened Linux Distribution
Jobs!
OK - Item number 1 (actually the 2nd item) dealt exclusively with source code. Do you have to be a programmer to be a player in this game? I hope not, I gave up programming about 10 years ago, I really got tired of dreaming about the code I was currently working on. I've now moved on to other things (project management, specifically) but I still love the whole Open Source/Linux thing. What percentage of /. 'ers are actually programmers? Would this make a decent poll?
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
This isn't really anything new. To find a job in any field, the key is to demonstrate that you know what you're doing. Open source involvement and having the skills that you're looking to get employed in is of course good. But this article seems to be for the geeks out there who would like to code for 36 hours straight rather than actually develop some social skills as well.
Sorry to burst your bubble - but for most of you looking for a job, there's probably someone at least a qualified. The KEY to finding a job is how well you come off in person. Are you a likeable person...do you work well with others? This is a VERY important aspect of finding the right employee being that the IT industry seems to have a very hight percentage of assholes in it. (read: tech support). Many seem very aloof and overconfident in their skills.
Your resume should speak for your skills/interests, but that's only about %25 of it. Your resume gets you in the door. The interview gets you the job...so concentrate on that.
BTW - As far as the word format on your resume...sorry to burst most Ub3r h4x0rz bubbles, but most companies have lots of management, and management uses Windows...word is still the way to go in a resume, but that doesn't mean you have to like it.
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume