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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.
I thought the point of a company hiring you is so that they may make money off of you (i.e. What can you do for the company?).
I understand there are some companies that can somehow make money off of you creating open source software for them, but does it really make sense to look for a job in which you create open-source software? I mean, isn't working about bringing in money at the end...?
This is almost psychic though. I was just talking to my flatmate (we both work for former ministry of defence research) whether it'd be possible to get a project code for my open source project and try and get a grant from the LinuxFund, the idea being that I could "bill" the Fund for my time working on the project. Often the fund gives out money and the projects don't really know what to do with it, I think the best use I can think of is to let me work on it fulltime.
Of course, as Dan rightly pointed out, there are all sorts of ugly issues with that plan, noteably the overhead my company would charge, and the fact that they have a tendancy to eat IP for breakfast. Even though the project doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before, they might try to "own" the code, which wouldn't do any good at all.
Still, I think I might talk to my boss about it tomorrow. I get paid jack all basically so I'd be able to make $1000 go a long way.....
From the article:
We create an index of all incoming resumes and search on keywords. That's why it's important for job-seekers to repeat the major skills multiple times in their resume.
WTF is this? It's bad enough having to compete for a job with people who flat-out lie. Now am I going to lose out just because some dickhead spammed more buzzwords around his resume?
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
What's the difference between sorting out 3,000 resumes and 3,000 irrelevant google links? Secondly, if someone is not actively seeking employment, then they are probably employed. Why not give the job to one of the thousands of highly qualified unemployed Open Source professionals? Seriously, it's like a geek can't get a break in this business ;)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
In part this is because (in the US anyways) people are raised believing that you're sent to school to get the degree so you can get a good job so you can get the pretty and vapid girl so...
And it's just a farce. People that have succeeded, or seen someone else succeed without the degree will realise (generally) before people that've gone through the schooling and the job, and have the pretty and vapid girl, and are oblivious.
As a contractor, it is easier to avoid getting locked into internal (and infernal) NDAs development agreements, the bane of my current position.
The concept of open source and development is finally gaining ground and it's a lot easier these days to sell your development services, based on open sourced and free licensed software, to other interested parties.
Individual jobs come and go, but GPL and LGPL licensed source is forever.
Another reason is that some recruiters use applicant tracking programs that do automatic skills assessment based on keywords found in the resume, and will rank resumes based on that assessment.
Having seen my fair share of resumes padded with every acronym under the sun, I have to say this is a pretty crappy way to do recruiting.
There's a reason why people get hired based on "who they know"... it can be an effective filter.
Looking for a job? Get to know people!
My wife Starflower and I have been volunteering for the Rescue Mission of Roanoke, a Christian organization that provides meals, shelter, and other needed services to the homeless in the Roanoke area. It's a great place and Starflower and I are very proud to help out there.
One evening I was having dinner with Joy, the director of the mission, and she mentioned that her computer had crashed a dozen times that day. Out of habit I said that that sort of thing doesn't happen in Linux. She got very interested and said that I was the fourth person to say that, so tell her more about this Linux thing. Well, I gave her the standard pitch, talking about the value and quality of open source in general and Linux in particular. I told her about LTSP and how the mission could make life a lot easier with a set of thin clients and one good server. I talked about how great and helpful the open source community is. I even mentioned that Larry Wall (I'm doing the database project in Perl) is an evangelical Christian. Joy was very interested in all of this.
The following week, I presented a requirements document for a new database system using Apache, PostGres and Perl. I call the system Joyis, and you're welcome to read through the document yourself.
My intention was to develop the system on a volunteer basius. The management team had a better idea: they offered me a full time job on the spot. I accepted on the spot. I'll be developing Joyis for the next couple months, then migrating the entire mission to a completely open source infrastructure: Linux, LTSP, OpenOffice.org, Evolutions, and of course, Joyis.
The pay ain't much, but we can get by on it. On the plus side, I get to spend all my time in my favorite development environments, working my own hours, and creating a system that will actually help people and make the world a better place. When I'm done, Joyis will be released open source so that other homeless organization can use it. Keep an eye on SourceForge for the first release in a month or so.
Miko O'Sullivan
The headhunter called the prospective employer numerous times every day trying to pressure them to make a decision and lied to the employer by saying that his client was currently weighing a couple of offers, "So they'd better hurry and make up their minds". The prospective employer told my gf that they would've hired her if she hadn't used that headhunter.
That quickly turned me away from headhunters.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
My question is: what is Google doing that requires a top security clearance: http://www.google.com/jobs/openings.html#deploy
This was the best thing I could find on short notice, but heres a link showing median income by education in farfax county virginia.
I'm not saying you can't prosper without a degree -- first rule of science is you can't prove a negative. However, your chances are *much* greater with a college degree. In US Society right now a degree is what you need just to be let on the playing field.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
nobody should really expect to get out and immediately get a $75000/yr+superduperbenefits job.
Around here (near Clemson, SC), the expectation is to get a job, and even that is horribly unrealistic. Where'd you come-up with the $75K/year idea? The last tech job fair I attended, the only two companies that were hiring were paying less than $20K/year. After just over 30 years in this business (no, not a misprint), I'm about fed-up with the low pay and terrible hours. My brother is a plumber and makes just over three times what I do. $75K per year? Who really expects that?z
No no no no... the missing step is make something of value! OSS can do that. The problem is extracting profit from it... if the software itself is free, then there must be a alternative, such as service and support.
I was in college back in the early 80s. At the time, new grads were having a hell of a time landing jobs. I was really worried about graduating and finding nothing to do. By the mid 80's, things warmed up just a little. I was looking for a part-time job that would provide meaningful experience, because it looked like experience was the only way to get a "real" job later.
I applied for what I thought was a temporary, part-time, third shift operations job in a data center that ran a bunch of DEC VAX machines. The job they offered me was first shift, and 91% of full-time (state employee benefits included). I was a junior in college, who accidently landed a job that was no worse than what a new grad would get. I decided to take a break from school and go back when the job ended. Well, the job that wasn't third-shift or part-time wasn't temporary either. The original employee on leave never came back, so I became an accidental full-time permanent employee. I never went back to school, because I stayed 13 years, with five promotions, ending as the Director of Technical Services.
If I had stayed in school, I would have finished in 86 or 87, and the job market was really hopping by then (but who knew back in 85?) I was so happy to have found a job, I thought it would be stupid to finish school if that meant graduating into a down market. Having seen how many employers "required" degrees but "hired" experience, I determined that experience would win out over degrees most of the time, or at least often enough to keep me working. My cynical view of employment has served me well. After 17 years of uninterrupted employment, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of quitting college early.
So, why do I post this mini-autobiography? To illustrate just how cyclical the IT has always been. When it's hot, anyone who can type can get a job. When it's cold, having a Ph.D. won't help. So, I think the strategy is to build credentials and manufacture your own experience in the "cold" years, as you wait for the "hot" years. If you live in a high-cost area, consider moving someplace cheap. There is no reason to tolerate a high cost of living unless you have a big paycheck to cover it. Go back for an MSCS or MBA degree if you can; work outside IT if you must. Either way, start your own little empire of computers, using open source (Linux) or free downloads from Oracle (free for non-commercial use, including home hacking). If you can pick up contract work of any type, then you'll be in a position to do something when the market heats up again. Timing is everything.
The fact that we have a down market combined with a glut of H1Bs makes me wonder if we are going to see a massive correction when the market heats up. I predict a shortage of IT people, because it makes no sense to invest 4 years of tuition just to compete with H1Bs. Then again, my prediction plus $1.10 gets you a medium coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
6. Dont bring your resume to the interview. Instead, when they ask for it, give them the URL where they can view it.
Are you joking? Paper is so much easier to read. Typical interview: you hand the the guy your resume (even though he already has a copy), he circles a couple of things to ask you about them.
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.
More likely, the developers and admins use OSS but the secretaries, HR, and management use Microsoft like the rest of the world. There's really nothing wrong with this.