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).

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