Using F/OSS and Unpaid Experience to Find a Job?

andphi asks: "How has volunteer F/OSS experience helped or hindered Slashdot readers in finding paid programming jobs? I have been involved with a F/OSS game engine development project (Adonthell) for a few years now. I've become the primary story and plot developer for the project. I hardly even look at the code, though I do try to follow the traffic on the developer's list. I've learned C++, VB6, Perl, IA32 Assembler, and exposed myself to a great many other languages (JavaScript, HTML, XML, SQL, C, awk, sed, bash, etc.). But I wonder, what can I do to sell myself using my post-graduate project involvement?"

Comments

Try thinking about it from a different POV

[Safety Cap]

Your future employer wants to hire you to do a job.

If that employer is an ISV, then she wants to use use you to turn code into money, as efficiently as possible. If the employer does something else, then he wants you to make it easier for other people to make money.

So, with that in mind, does it matter what you did in the past? No. "Past experience is no guarantee for future performance."

So what, then? What matters is can you do the job the employer wants now, can you fit in with the rest of the team, and will you take the initiative to grow yourself? If you can answer the first two in the affirmative, you won't have a problem getting yourself a job*. If you can answer the last in the affirmative, you can keep yourself gainfully employed long term (in the field).

.

*Not applicable if the interviewer is incompetent (i.e., asks questions from the Big Book Of Interview Questions).

it helped me.

[ajayrockrock]

I used to be one of the main programmers of phpSlash (phpslash.sf.net) back in 2001. In 2002 I was unemployed for pretty much the entire year. There was a small company in LA where the programmer knew me from the phpslash mailing lists. He thought I was helpful and nice so even though they didn't have enough work for a full-time programmer, they threw several freelance progjects my way. Later they offered me a full-time job but I was already employed out in Riverside.

--Ajay

F/OSS development GOOD

[GryMor]

F/OSS development experience helped me land my current job. It did not help my resume very much, and game development likely won't help yours (unless you are trying to get hired by a game developer). It helped because it kept my skills sharp over two years of unemployment and braindead contract work in a way that simple learning couldn't have.

As someone who hires (kind of)...

[Spoing]

I don't do the hiring. If you get by the HR guy -- a total moron; just some guy stuck in the HR position who goes exclusively by key word -- you get me.

If your resume is sloppy, it gets tossed. Of the remaining resumes, I look for someone who has specific experience with a tool or language. Keep in mind that many standard tools are OSS, so mention them even if you are not on that project and simply use them.

Next, I look for someone who has similar project experience.

Then...it's who I think I can sell to the project lead and who I want to work with. If they work cheap, that's a plus. If they are not cheap, but can do the work in a superior manner, that's also a plus. Depends on the job.

The tie breaker (before the interview) is often how much passion the person has for the work we will do.

Being on an OSS project of any sort, especially if the lead, is a definate plus. If it is high profile -- if I've heard of it or find that it is well respected by the community -- I move the person up in the list.

Is OSS the only thing I'm looking for? Nope. It helps, though, because it shows interest not just "I'm in it as a job".

My situation was a little different

[velo_mike]

I had 5 or so years in the field, than left in 2002 for a three year "sabatical", semi-voluntary unemployment. I took a small contract gig, 1 or 2 months doing some analysis, played with Linux kernel dev for a bit, expermented with some OSS development, etc. When the time came to go back to work, I listed it on my resume just like any other job:

Sabbatical
January 2002 - September 2004 Paris, France

I maintained my skill set by working on small and personal projects, expanding my knowledge of networking, software development and system administration.

• Develop requirements, model, and prototype an EDI system to enable Medicaid submissions under HIPAA.
• Explore advanced system administration, network administration, kernel and device driver development under Linux and FreeBSD.
• Develop several personal database solutions using MySQL, JDBC, Servlets and XML/XSLT.
• Implement many of the "Gang of Four" design patterns in Java.

And had no problems or negative remarks about my time off. Closer to your situation, when I was finishing grad school and needed some technical experience, I included the grad asst I worked in the identical manner. Once I had some real experience that entry dropped off, but it worked at the time.