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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.
Just put it "willing to work for free" in your resume!
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...?
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 know, I know, I have been extremely lucky :). Exactly one year ago, I was asked to join the internet team of a public broadcaster in the Netherlands. Their sites are based on the Open Source CMS mmbase. Of course, my work doesn't consist of 100% open-source programming, a lot of projects are more based around implementing the CMS for sites then on extending it. Nevertheless, I have been able to write significant bugfixes / applications that have been or will be released under an Open Source license.
:)
Please don't hurt me now
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
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.
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.
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.
Gee, thanks! I just submitted my resume for a job at one of the ticketmaster subsidiaries...
My resume is now lost in a huge, even bigger then usual pile of resumes.
404 - Career Not Found!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
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.
Does he have any tips on running the sort of monopoly that a company like Microsoft could actually take notes from?
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I guess it's probably just a reflex action against spam-like resume submission (he cites 3000 applicants for a PC support tech), but I have to cringe that resumes get pre-processed by machine.
Soon applicants will achieve homogeneity in resumes, devoid of any real persona...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Resume Resume Resume Resume Resume
Java C Windows Windows Motivated C++ C SQL Teamwork C++ Perl C GDI C++ Perl Teamwork Windows Perl SQL SQL Motivated Windows GDI C++ Windows Self-Starter Perl C++ C C++ C++ GDI Motivated Self-Starter Python C++ Java Java C++ Python C++
Motivated Teamwork Python Motivated C++ Perl Motivated Perl C Java Self-Starter Windows GDI Self-Starter Java GDI Motivated C++ Windows Windows Windows Teamwork Self-Starter GDI Self-Starter C C Windows SQL Windows Python Python GDI Motivated GDI Perl Teamwork SQL Perl Self-Starter Java Python GDI Teamwork Teamwork Motivated Java SQL Windows Perl Teamwork SQL C++
Self-Starter C++ GDI Java Python Windows Perl C++ GDI Windows Teamwork C GDI Python Perl C++ Perl C C++ Self-Starter Teamwork Motivated Python Java Teamwork Java Motivated Motivated Teamwork Motivated Python Self-Starter Java Python C++ SQL Python Teamwork Python Self-Starter Java Teamwork Teamwork C++ C++ Self-Starter Motivated GDI Motivated Windows Motivated GDI C++ GDI Windows Python Perl C Python Teamwork Python Self-Starter Windows Motivated SQL C++ GDI GDI SQL SQL C Self-Starter C++ Java GDI SQL GDI Self-Starter C Teamwork Motivated Motivated SQL SQL Self-Starter
Self-Starter Motivated C Teamwork Motivated Teamwork SQL Windows Java Windows C Windows SQL C++ Teamwork Python GDI Java C++ Python GDI
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.
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
And be sure to link /. as a favorite technical website on you resume:
:)
Another thing is to include your favorite technical Web site list in your online resume or personal Web site. I'll look for people who specialize in a certain area -- if they also have a list of favorite Web sites that show their interest in the top Web sites in a certain area, I'll notice that.
But then again, telling a potential employer that you read a lot of slashdot might not be a good thing
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
all your base belong to a beowulf cluster of natalie portman's with hotgrits down their pants
3) PROFIT!!!
... hi bingo
Sometime during the last few days at my last job I happened to ask my employer why he hired me. The reason was rather caught me by suprise.
Because I hated Microsoft. Im not kidding. He figured that if I was smart enough to dislike Microsoft that I probably knew what I was talking about.
Payment:
I'll buy beer for you and won't tell your parents.
You get to look at my personal collection of nudie magazines.
You can code at my office, and tell your parents that you're at a sleepover. I'm an adult. They'll believe me.
I can pick you up from school, posing as your parents.
I have a PS2 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City!
You can have all of the soda and candy you want.
Please send resume and/or high score list.
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.
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
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
1999: "How To Get Hired As An Open Source Developer"
2001: "How To Get Hired As A Developer"
2002: "How To Get Hired"
Table-ized A.I.
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
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'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
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.