Open Source Helps New IT Grads Get Foot in the Door

Yes, some US IT jobs are disappearing, but Linux.com (which shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has a recent story emphasizing the job advantage that involvement in open source projects can give young programmers who aren't planning to ditch their dreams of making a living in the field. The article focuses on one programmer's experience with Google's Summer of Code, which led directly to her job working on the Drupal content-management system. But the underlying message (that involvement in open source projects provides a background of experience otherwise difficult to obtain because of the chicken-and-egg problem of "experience required" job opportunities) is generalizable to many other forms of open-source involvement. Do you have a job that you landed because of your unpaid open-source programming?

Comments

Sounds like...

[Shados]

Sounds like its not so much open source involvement, but generally ANY involvement with your field, helps. And thats true for any job, any field, anything. In IT, you could simply do unpaid internships and get similar results. Its just a bit easier to get involved in open source, because you can jump in a project just by writing patches and open they get accepted, and go from there...

But really, any field. Doing some volunteer work has always helped landing a job, its nothing new.