Slashdot Mirror
How To Get Hired As An Open Source Developer
An anonymous reader writes "Todd Cranston-Cuebas, tech recruiter for Ticketmaster, offers
insider tips and tricks for landing an open-source job -- or for recruiting new talent to your IT staff." Make yourself googleable.
My experience is this:
Sex - Find It
Have skills applicable to the job and a few others that might come in handy.
Be flexabile on salary, understand that pay has come down in a lot of markets.
Interview well when it gets to that point.
Get lucky.
How is any of this different than getting any job?
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
I find it almost funny to hear Ticketmaster being associated with free software since they provide a service that adds almost no value and charges a boatload. Good thing they are saving so much money on software systems.
Here's a free insider tip, here's another.. do something to get noticed. A CV with something concrete in it looks much better than one without.
Thats why it's open source, not "free source". Do you really think working for free would feed the programmers and their families? One of the biggest benefits of open source is diverse collaboration to create good, stable software.
As far as I know, I never have, and never will equate "Open Source" to "Free". The fact that you get it for free, is just a benefit IMO.
I would truly love to know where this misconception comes from. It is simply not true that MOST Software developers write code for thier company as a source of revenue, Many, Many compamies have software built for them that is so highly speicalized that it has no use to any one else, and is for internal use. Going to open source wouldn't hurt these compnaies in the slightest.
While that does sound bad...... In context it's a bit more understandable.
He's talking about how he deals with a flood of 3000 resumes for a Support Tech position. Strategies for filtering out the folks who know nothing about computers and just applied because they thought they could fake it. Trying to get the pool down to a manageable level, that sort of thing.
They'll do all the work for you, and (usually) get paid by the hiring company for finding you.
This article is good advise if you want to work as a support tech at ticketmaster, but in my experience, a good headhunter is the only way to go.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
There is already too much bullshit in the resume world... and his strategy is simply asking for more bullshit.
While it may seem like the screening process is simplified with these screening tools, in reality he's passing up many qualified candidates for people who plugin repeat certain keywords over and over again, with bullshit acting as the glue to connect words together.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
We see this issue from a slightly different angle -- open source coders for LimeWire offer us an extended "interview" period where we can truly judge the value of their code. This lets us make hiring decisions easily. There's no interview that can substitute for months of open source code. Interestingly, we've seen that one of the primary attributes of people who write good code is also one of the primary attributes that involves them in open source to begin with -- passion for the project. The best coders often don't have the most impressive degrees. Rather, the best coders are the ones who care enough about the project to write good code for it. Experience and training help, but it's passion for the project that makes average code good, or good code great.
Adam Fisk
It's somewhat disheartening when I read an article like this. If you are one of only 20 people that can do a particular job, do you really need this advice? If you are not, according to Todd Cranston-Cuebas, don't bother applying - you're not at the top of your field. I guess the -98%- rest of us hard working experienced programmers, project managers and architects can just suck eggs.
As a manager with no degree, I am in a position to comment.
I give careful consideration to all applicants, but I take a sceptical view of those people whose only claim to fame is a degree or certification. I want experience, or concrete evidence that the candidate is prepared to do the job with minimal babysitting. Another thing I want is some longevity. If I'm hiring for a full-time position, I view it as a purchase as opposed to a rental. You would be amazed to see how many people have years of experience, but never more than 12 months at any one place. What assurances do I have that such people are not simply hopping from one contract to the next, leaving behind a trail of destruction?
My hires have ranged from a high school dropout [long story omitted], to an MSCS. I'm quite proud of my people; all except one have worked out well. I don't actively seek to avoid hiring people with degrees, I'm just not convinced that the credential means much. This means I'm tough on recent grads, but who isn't? For the record, I hired a recent grad after he spent some time in my department as a temp -- another success story.
I believe that managers will repeat any behavior that works, and abandon that which does not work. After you get burned on a few bad hires, you will seek to avoid whatever led you down that path.
Hmmmm... If only google was open source. Then maybe you would have a relevent comment.
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
Do you think that maybe one of the reasons he got the 3000 was more due to the market flood?
That's part of it. And that number is probably low for this area (Denver -- lots of former telecom high tech workers on the streets, and most of the new jobs (Lockheed, Raytheon) require security clearances).
Another part is that typically the unemployment insurance system tends to encourage it -- if you're required to make N job contacts per week, if there's only one or two that really match your skills you'll send out resumes to places you know you don't have a hope in hell of getting hired at just to meet your quota. (Of course, just responding to ads is one of the worst job-search strategies, but it's the one most people default to.)
-- Alastair
"Remember the whole point of computers and software is a means to an end. The only reason there are companies that produce and sell software is other companies then use this software to generate wealth."
Yeah but by far most corporate software produced is not for sell. It is for use. So for most cases the only reason companies produce software is because they percieve a need for that software to do something for them. Thus, in the majority of cases, GPLed software is a free jumpstart. Since distribution in a non-issue, there is no problem with the GPL.
Even with a College/Uni degree, or diploma, nobody should really expect to get out and immediately get a $75000/yr+superduperbenefits job. Really, what you should look for is a job that you would like, make you enough income to survive the first year, and looks really good on a resume.
Barring that, you can also spot the companies you'd wish to work for that do pay the big bucks, and try getting in on one of the lesser positions.
It's 100% easier to climb a ladder when you're already working in a company. It's also (ironically) very often easier to get a job when you've already got a job. You don't have to mention on your resume that you're "undervalued and underpaid", just list what you're capable of, and the fact that you are currently doing it helps prove so.
There are a lot of small/starter companies who need computer support that frankly can't afford to pay big bucks in the beginning. They do look good on a resume though, and the work generally isn't too hard. Oftimes if you are lucky, said companies can end up growing, and as they grow - so often does your paycheque.
It's hard to think of with the cost of living nowadays, but sometimes the value of a position is not in the paycheque, but in the respect, references, and experience it gains.
Oh, and a big problem with small companies is that it gets really hard to leave when you're ready to move on... they tend to grow on you.
There are 3 distinct major groups of developers:
1 - people who earn money developing software for sale as a product: to them, open source generally != good
2 - people who earn money developing software (embedded, hardware device drivers, etc.) to support another product that is sold: to them open source: sometimes == good and sometimes != good (gives away, architectures, secrets)
3 - people who earn money developing software for IT purposes and/or in-house use: to them, open source generally == good
Of course, there are many other groups of developers (academic, recreational, etc.) and there is intermingling, so the above is not a hard and fast rule.
I also think that this is also one of the reasons that you often see acrimonious debate here at /. - each group has a different set of objectives and priorities.
Sigs are bad for your health.
I spend a lot of time dealing with hiring for the IT staff at my company. These days, I pretty much instantly trash any resume doesn't include some sort of background with creating or maintaining an Open Source projust of reasonable size. It may be an unfair bias, but experience has shown me that OSS developers are almost always an order of magnitude more skilled and more responsible than applicants from other backgrounds.
The self-motivation, self-discipline, organizational skills, and willingness to write code that the author isnt ashamed to display to the whole world are exactly the sort of traits that employers look for (or should be, anyway).
You should probably check to see whether or not the places they've "hopped" to in the past 12 months are still in business. I've had 3 jobs in the past 3 years and I have YET to voluntarily LEAVE a job. :)
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Join a LUG or create your own. I know a guy who kind of "took over" a LUG I helped started and then became to busy to participate in. He got a really good gig through the LUG and paid for the LUG's new site, as a token of gratitude.
He knows his stuff and was always patient with everyone he explained stuff to. I lot of people come to LUGs thinking they can learn how to solve their own IT problem but instead they find it is easier pay a signficant amount of $ to this friendly guy they met at the local LUG.
What can I say, Open Source is a give and take institution. Give freely and often, and you are bound to be noticed.
Good luck!
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I've never been turned down for a job I interviewed for, and I dont have a degree, and I've never been fired. My skill sets are sparse: PHP, Postgresql Perl, MySQL, Apache, Linux etc... Here's what I did:
1. Went into detail what I did in the last 3 jobs, I mean serious detail. It means that the people that I'll work well with, will appreciate my resume instead of some PHB looking for acronyms.
2. Include links to articles I wrote, and postings I made in forums for all the above technologies. The last job I got was because they received help from some silly posting I made and forgot about years ago.
3. Include links to interactive sites that you helped build. Forget the pretty stuff, the fancy HTML, that's not what you will be hired for, instead, link to the interactive portions of the site that actually do something.
4. Always have some code samples handy with lots of comments. Include some OOP examples along with traditional procedural code.Even if they dont use OOP, at least they know that you can.
5. Make sure that you will have lots of hits in google, which will turn up all your online activity.
6. Dont bring your resume to the interview. Instead, when they ask for it, give them the URL where they can view it.
7. Refuse a job where they require your resume in Microsoft Word format. It means that they are not really an open source shop, and the PHB's probably use Outlook, Exchange, Office and IE. Tell them that you are refusing the job because of that reason. They will respect you for having the balls to do it, and in the same vein, always submit your resume in text format in the email to the recruiter (not as an attachment).
8. Be assertive in your resume, tell them exactly what you want to do. Dont be vague about what you want to do. Tell them how you can help them, and that you will make a great fit in their org. If possible, tailor your resume for each job you are applying for.
9. Don't mention that you can use a word processor, browser, or spreadsheet. That's passe, everybody's expected to do that. Don't mention that you can admin an NT/2000 box (even if you can), instead, tell them in the interview.
I guess there are more tips out there, but for last 2 jobs and 4 interviews in 6 years, those have worked well for me.
Newsfollow.com
How to get hired as an open source developer. I'm sorry, I don't understand how this is possible. Mod me down, I don't care! How on earth can someone get paid for developing free software. Yes, I know all the pro-open source people are going to attack me. Bring it on.
I guess I have to own up and say that I think that 'self-taught' guys are better than graduates because they have the burning passion for computers, technology and programming - and they want to do something tangible with it now!
The self-taught are usually not as good as those who are self-taught and formally educated. Why do so many think the two are mutually exclusive? At age 37, I'm there too, you should be able to recall a time when those entering computer science programs did so because they had passion and interest, not because the high school guidance counselor said it was a good career path. College can give you access to a lot of equipment, resources, and experience that can be used for personal project and interests.
Yeah but by far most corporate software produced is not for sell. It is for use. So for most cases the only reason companies produce software is because they percieve a need for that software to do something for them. Thus, in the majority of cases, GPLed software is a free jumpstart.
/.) to see a convincing economic argument.
Why would any company want to give a "free jumpstart" to its competitors?
There might be a philosophical argument for Open Source, but I have yet (in almost 6 years of reading