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Ask Slashdot: Where Are the Open Source Jobs?
stry_cat writes "My company has bought into the FUD and is going 100% Microsoft. Rather than work in this environment and be continuously at odds with upper management, I have decided to seek employment elsewhere. Where do I look for an open source job? I've started with the local paper's Sunday classifieds. I've looked on dice.com and monster.com. However almost all are Microsoft related. The few that aren't are some sort of dinky contract or temp job. So is there a place to find a job in an open source environment?"
Well, that may be a little more difficult.
You could always work as a contractor specializing in customizing software. Even companies that use FOSS often need someone to make custom modifications to said software to meet their specific needs. But I doubt you'll find many of those jobs posted in "Help Wanted" ads, and I'm not sure how many of them are actually out there or how you would find them.
And if you just want to avoid MS stuff on principle, you could always work as a Unix admin, Cobol programmer, Java developer, etc. depending on your skill set.
I would suggest you avoid Cobol programmer, though. I had to learn that godforsaken son-of-a-whore language in college and would rather eat glass while being raped by an angry Mike Tyson on top of a pyre of burning feces than to ever have to deal with it again. But some seem to find it a somewhat less suicide-inducing-please-god-give-me-the-strength-to-pull-this-trigger-and-end-it-all prospect than I.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You're a douche. In an economy where many people have been unemployed for so long that they're just dropping out of the workforce altogether, you're fretting over "FUD" because your company did a normal thing and switched products? Get over it. Do you realize how insane you have to be to take platform wars so seriously that you actually quit your job and avoid any other jobs that have anything to do with Microsoft products? For god's sake, get some perspective.
Are you looking for a company developing something, which is to be released under an open source licence?
Or to support open source platforms, irrespective of what the company itself does?
Are you looking for employment, rather than offering consultancy services / self-employed? If you have expertise with particular open source platforms, are there jobs available to work with those platforms — even if the companies in question do not realise that they are open source?
Could you be looking for jobs where the company wants a solution which does [x], and is not worried how you get to [x] as long as you are on time and on budget, and so would be amenable to an open source solution?
Are you a janitor? Programmer? DBA? SA? Middle manager?
And what is "an open source job"? Is that a job where anyone can come by and do your work for you?
Your knee-jerk reaction makes no sense. You didn't say what you do or how the change will affect you, only "OMG M$!!!!!". In the end your company will be better off without you.
The entire setup seems bogus.
If you don't want to work with Microsoft products, there's plenty of room for you out there. Dice and Monster are full of such jobs.
The idea that you can't find any seems like some sort of lame attempt at propaganda.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you spent "hours upon hours" trying to configure samba to talk to a Windows 7 box then you need to turn in your college degree and ask for a broom.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
There are a lot of "open source" jobs out there, whether you mean working with open source products like Linux or PHP or Android OS, or working for a company that is an open source provider like Red Hat or Google, and the article is nothing but a troll. Mr. stry_cat completely neglected to give so much as a hint about his technical skill set, let alone enumerate anything specific. There are programming, admin, project management, and management positions in all parts of the country, across almost every industry imaginable, and the only constraints for any given individual are personal preferences as to where to live, and current responsibilities for where they are currently located.
Every time a slashdot editor allows a completely worthless article like this to hit the front page, they are devaluing slashdot as a brand. Given how often timothy does this, I am amazed he is still permitted the opportunity to do so.
Even if you like, or dislike, a given technology you can work with it. For example I hate Macs, their enterprise support is shit. However, we have some faculty that use them, so I support them. I've worked out how to integrate them in to our system. I feel we would be better without them, and I'll advocate that, but I'm not a dick about it and I'll work with them.
I have some serious reservations about responding to this, but so many red lights go off:
-What employer would hire someone who makes rash decisions based on emotion? You're not Steve Jobs.
-Considering the number of Fortune 500 companies that use Microsoft technology, I can tell you the decision upper management has taken is not just on FUD. Just as a way to put a check on your assumptions, revisit the company you have left in five years. Are they still in business? Did they grow? My guess is that moving to Microsoft was a business decision as much as a technology decision. There are pros and cons to all these vendors and ideologies. You want to stake your paycheque on it, don't blame the industry or others.
-The biggest error I see here is, regardless of why you wanted to leave...you were getting a paycheque. Storming off without securing your next employment hurts nobody but yourself. Unless you are in a position where you are being abused, taken advantage of, subjected to unsafe working conditions...why would you leave first? Being unemployed makes you that much more undesirable to any potential employer.
-Sunday classifieds? What are you, some sort of dinosaur? Even my non-technology friends do not "start" with the classifieds.
I'll just end with my personal feeling that perhaps you are the one who is under the influence of FUD. I've worked in Linux shops, shops with various Unix flavours HPUX/AIX/Solaris (even SCO back in the day when they weren't just patent trolls,) Apple and Microsoft shops. As technologists, we're pretty adaptable. I'd never take my personal preferences on vendors as the limiting factor on choice of employment.
Best of luck to you.
I don't know what kind of work you do but I for sure would seek other employment if I was asked to do a wholesale move of the systems I work on to Windows. I'd also find other work if my employer told me the only work they had for me next month was mopping the floors.
It isn't beneath me to mop the floor. If they need me to do that *today*, I will. But janitorial work won't move my career in the direction I wish to go so if that's the core work they have for me, it's time to move on.
I feel the same way about managing and/or writing code for Windows systems.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
they could be a shop where as of now the Microsoft method is Preferred (but they will use FLOSS when needed)
or
a shop where if FLOSS is required to do something IT WILL NOT GET DONE
or
a shop where you will get escorted from the building by security for having FLOSS stuff on your person/computer
im thinking that the problem is he is dealing with case 2 or 3
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
You know who is going to be blamed when it all goes pear shaped. You have 10 years of experience in a mainframe product. Do you:
Some of the people posting here obviously think that changing architectures is just a five minute job. Perhaps, given the relatively simple applications on offer, that's the case for phones or tablets (I doubt it, in reality). But, say, a switch from SAP/Oracle to Dynamics for a senior developer? Not so simple.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
There are companies that would embrace him and his ideals.
No company will hire this guy or anyone else that is going to quit because of selection of software.
It shows that he's not reliable and maybe a flake. What next, he'll get hired at another company and quit because they're switching to Oracle?!
If you're that much of a zealot that you'll quit because your company isn't using FOSS, then you really need to get a fucking life.
Find your new job before quitting.
In the meantime, learn all you can about a MS shop. Who knows; your next gig might be migrating a shop from MS to OSS.
There's a reason MS stuff is out there.
I can't remember where I read it, but there was an article about how you can't make software too easy to use and install. That would not leave much work for the consultants and IT folks, and they would thus not push the product to their clients.
You need that right balance between having a good product and leaving enough work for the IT workers to really get that into the market.
Now, that changes a bit with 'the cloud' to some extent as now the goal the software creator can deliver and charge for the service directly. They don't need the IT consultants as much to 'push' their product.
This is one the bigger reasons for MS dominating the general PC environment including the office. They leave their products with boatloads of customizability and scripting and push the IT folks and consultants with training to build out that ecosystem all tied to their platform of course.
Open source environment typically lack this push. To emphasize again... this is not an engineer or technical push. There are generally equivalent open source projects... but a business and marketing and ecosystem push.
Even something as simple as how to develop for 'Windows'... it is easy for anyone to start... get Visual Studio is the answer.
This is why you typically find far fewer custom FOSS shops. Most companies I've seen want to use FOSS as a replacement. They don't want to/think to do the kind of customization you can often do with Windows for desktop apps.
So where are the open source jobs?
Generally you can find Linux development jobs in embedded systems. But if you have worked for a 'Microsoft Shop', I'm guessing this is not your niche.
You could also go with Java, and many corporations and banks use Java.
Many 'cloud' based solution typically have FOSS backends... as again... no need to have consultants push the solution.
But in the end, they are just different models. I've never had the kind of anti MS passion many people have.
Don't look for an "Open Source" job. Look for a "Linux" job or a "Apache/Mysql" job. Or a "PHP" or "Ruby on Rails" job.
And don't waste your time with the paper version of the newspaper. You won't find the high tech jobs there. Go for Monster, Career Builder, craig's list and other online job sites.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.