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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.
Only source I know of outside the rare internal position is as a consultant being hired piecemeal to make modifications to existing open source software. Basically company A saying we want to use software B because its free (aka open) but we want it to do Y so hire X to make the changes. Dont know that you can make a carrier out of it, especially if you refuse to bid on non-open source jobs.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Why, there are plenty of open source jobs! Just last week I started working in Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!
Come join me, and bring your friends. We're having a tea party later.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
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?
I'm afraid this question is unanswerable as we don't know what type of job you:
a. Like to do
b. Have already done
c. Are good at
Please be more specific in future requests for assistance.
I 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.
That can be arranged.
Pretty hard to find. Microsofts tentacles are everywhere and even the shops that are as much open source as possible, get infected somehow. We're pretty much a Debian shop, but accounting needed a Windows 2008 server for their proprietary accounting package and left and right there were supporting servers for little tasks where it was best suited. However, now developers are requesting a MSSQL server for a real production platform. Why? I don't know... Doesn't make much sense.
Pure open source jobs are very very rare. It's the level of Microsoftism that you want to accept, that opens some jobs. It is, alas, reality. I'd say: suck it up. I have no choice either. Well, except for the choice of starving and not being able to pay the rent.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Stop thinking of "desktop PC's" and start thinking embedded hardware products. Tons of things are moving that way anyway.
In general, I find that the embedded community is much more into open source solutions.
Windows is the king shit desktop OS. Linux is the king shit embedded OS.
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.
... we're hiring. Are you any good?
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.
Bad joke in the subject, but it's true. I've found that submitting patches to a established open source project is the easiest way to find a job, in fact without moving a finger.
Starting a decent open source program is even better. My pet project ccextractor is a very niche things yet I get offers for customizations / deployment / etc very often (to me often here is something like twice a month).
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.
I work in a large but otherwise nameless company. They picked up "linux" on my resume, gave me and interveiw and hired me without any real certs based on my linux knowledge.
I get a lot of emails looking for either linux admins or linux system tuners. its the hot new thing.
keep looking through monster and career builder. or mabey your city is just open source unfriendly?
The Mozilla Foundation is hiring. They even have a billboard on 101 near San Francisco: "Work for mankind, not for the man".
Most of the hosting, "cloud", data mining, and data warehousing industry is Linux based. The infrastructures of the big players like Google and Facebook are all Linux. Once you get off the desktop, Microsoft isn't dominant.
...most of the times, it's the Open Source job that will look for you. Create or join interesting projects. Let you skills shine. If you're good, someone will ask you if you're interested in applying for a job with them.
Check out my cross-platform apps
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.
Not at all.
Vast amounts of open source code are written as official, company sanctioned projects by paid developers.
- all the Linux stuff contributed by RedHat - kernel and userland
- IBM's work on Eclipse, LVM, lots of other stuff
- er... lots more!
I've seen tons of Drupal, HTML 5, jQuery and jQuery Mobile job openings (those are all "open source" if you will).
It also seems that at least in the past few weeks the number of job hunters that have been contacting myself and co-workers has increased, which is hopefully a good sign for my unemployed brother and sister college grads...
Fermilab in Batavia, IL is almost a pure Linux shop. If in the area, I'd check there.
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.
Things can change year to year. One year our company was using Black Berry Phones with a Black Berry Server, and the next year we got rid of all BB phones and the server in favor of iPhones and Android. If you're not willing to adapt to changes, then you don't deserve to be in IT. Don't get me wrong, I like Open Source, but I'm not going to risk my job because I refuse to work with Microsoft Products, that's just stupid.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
No matter how nice and clean and safe a country is, if it has laws like that, IMO it's a shithole.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
First, disregard all the posts calling you a douche. If you're unhappy in your job, you're unhappy in your job. Anyone criticizing you for a 1 paragraph ask /. question that is just one piece in a much larger picture needs to have their head looked at. In my mind, you're being called a douche for staying on-topic and NOT going into detail on all the conflicts you may have had with management. I really can't express how frustrated I am with those posts and the lack of thinking that had to have happened to not only get them posted, but to get them moderated as INSIGHTFUL of all things. /rant
More on-topic, most major trading firms (at least the ones in Chicago) are heavily Linux/Unix based shops who are more interested in using tools that can get stuff implemented *now* (usually to fix an issue) than tools they have to negotiate a price on and implement in the next month or two. Obviously enough, however, this is only one side of the open-source coin. If you want to do more than just *use* open-source software and you want to be part of a company that is actively building and developing open-source tools, then I suggest you target specific companies like RedHat or specific roles in companies that own major open source tools. Most companies have job postings somewhere on their site, so if you target the right companies and sell yourself in the right way, you should be able to find a good fit.
There is something of a slope of what FLOSS in an organization is, from Richard Stallman, who is a purist, all the way to companies which will use (but not contribute) Apache/BSD source in their code, or run a GPL application.
I've used FLOSS associated with my job for a long time. From the mid 1990s on this was as a Unix Systems Administrator. I've installed Linux (and back then, FreeBSD also) servers at companies since the mid 1990s. I've installed open source software like Apache, BIND for DNS, and Tomcat. Various mail packages like sendmail, exim, qmail. Some of the comments mention small companies, but I've installed and/or maintained open source tools in everywhere from small startups to Fortune 50 companies.
Also, over the past year I have learned the Android API better, and Android is, of course, an open source platform. My entire development process for Android is very open source based. I do development on an Ubuntu Linux desktop with the open source IDE Eclipse. I also often include Apache code in my code, or sometimes LGPL, or sometimes even GPL code. I even released Android open source - I was building a spreadsheet, got pre-2007 Microsoft Excel (.xls) loading OK, but hit a snag with Excel 2007/2010 (.xlsx), so I open sourced what I had so far ( https://github.com/dennis-sheil/android-spreadsheet ) and will do some more work on it if I have the time.
I released several of my own Android apps over the past year. You're talking about making money on this - I made over $15 in ad views yesterday. Not enough to earn a living, but an extra couple of hundred dollars a month does not hurt. Some independent Android developers have put up blogs, like Droid Blog, or Kreci, or others, they've been doing it longer than me and are making thousands a month, not hundreds.
Plenty of people have written advice on how to push for open source solutions at a company. Just suggesting often it isn't going to do the trick, you have to package it in a certain way, get buy-in from the stakeholders and so forth. You might not always succeed, but sometimes you will.
...that your company is probably better off without you whinging about how Bill Gates and Darth Vader have the same accountant, if you want to have 100% control over your technology stack, start your own business or become a freelance consultant. That way you'll be free to pick and choose what you work on.
Of course, the kind of person who would quit their job because they're scared of Microsoft probably doesn't have the right temperament to run a successful business.
First, put together a resume of your marketable skills. Then contact recruiters in the region you would like to work in (they can often be found via LinkedIn, careerbuilder, etc.). Research potential employers. Do not go into interviews to discuss "open source" or your philosophy, go in with the intention of leveraging your skills to deliver real value to the organization.
"Open Source" covers a lot of area. Are you a C/C++/Java/Whatever language-de-jour developer, a system administrator, a web developer, a network engineer, ... ?
I've been everything from a developer to a sysadmin, an engineer to an architect. While I have worked in environments heavily biased toward Linux and Open Source (management burned by too many orphaned 3rd party libraries and apps), in my experience most environments are heterogenous, and will have some combination of Windows & Linux Desktops, Linux and Solaris servers, with a smattering of Windows servers. One environment I've worked in was heavily biased toward Windows on the server side, and while they lived to regret it, they did not change direction as a result. The reality is you cannot dictate platforms, and your recommendations should be driven by value to the business, not personal bias or philosophy, however galling you may at times find that to be.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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."
I never did ~~stink~~ on those big corporate job boards, though I guess I eventually got into some recruiters' DBs from there, which helped a bit over time. Oh, and "keep your day job until your night job pays!" :)
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
To the OP, this looks like one of the 'start your own business' projects. In particular, take the landscape of Open Source projects out there, identify the missing elements that potentially prevent them from becoming major winners (apart from marketing issues) and pick a few of them to work on. But before you do, try contacting those projects and let them know that you're willing to do certain things - such as writing drivers, bug fixes or whatever you think you can achieve - but for a fee, w/ terms & conditions to be agreed on b/w you. The problem w/ most FOSS projects is that people do the fun things in it, while not focussing on the less interesting parts, such as the bug fixes. Making a career out of those parts might be the best way to go. But make sure that you have people willing to buy into your results once you achieve them.
I work for a C# / Microsoft shop. Previously I worked for a PHP shop (developed on Mac but hosted on Linux). I gotta tell you... I understand wanting to leave a Microsoft shop. There are just so many unnecessary daily annoyances that come from Microsoft software. But... in my case... the owner/boss of the PHP shop was an a$$h0l3. The Microsoft shop I work for now is ran by really nice people and treats us great. I'm probably going to stay a very long time.
Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not crediting Microsoft for the goodness of my current employer or blaming PHP for the last one. I'm just saying that platform IS important but it's not the MOST important thing in a computer job. If your current employer (you didn't leave yet right?) are good people then I would recommend staying. At least be very cautious before switching. Make very sure you won't regret it.
It's rare to see so much hate for a specific programming language, unless it happens to be C++
The submitter didn't say "he does not have enough knowledge with" Microsoft products.
What the submitter said was:
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.
The submitter literally states that he is going to leave his job solely because he doesn't want to work with Microsoft products. He says nothing about not having the knowledge and skill needed. His decision is based solely on management choosing MS over a FLOSS solution.
You are not just assuming things, you are putting words in other people's mouths.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Woohoo, what is it today, a generalization day? People have drives and ambitions. I'd much rather someone who is outspoken and has a passion, than someone who will just nod at the meetings, but wish he was doing other things.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
There's tons and tons of open-source jobs out there. One of the keywords here is "Android". The other keyword is "embedded". Linux and Android are being used for all kinds of embedded devices now, and there's tons of jobs for people using C and C++ (C more at the low levels, kernel, device drivers etc., C++ at the higher levels for applications). People who can work with and build embedded Linux systems are in high demand, and there's good demand for Qt C++ programmers too as that's being used a lot on these embedded devices that have touchscreens.
Now, this doesn't necessary mean you'll be doing a lot of contributions upstream to the open-source community, but you will be working with a lot of OSS components, and developing proprietary software that interacts with them. And you definitely won't be doing any work with MS technologies, as those have no place in an embedded system (there are some places using WinCE, but they're dying out and many are switching to Linux or Android).
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.
I can't speak for other areas, but there are plenty of places in the SF Bay Area that will hire you (or not) based on your support of FOSS - bonus points if you can point out actual contributions to FOSS software. Many of these places were started by and run by people who also embrace FOSS software. Tell them that you can only work on a Windows desktop and the interview will end quickly.
Granted, he's probably not going to get a job at a large fortune 500 (or even fortune 1000 company), but there are small companies and startups that embrace open source since it was FOSS software that helped them get their company off the ground at little cost.
Me? I'm somewhere in the middle - I prefer FOSS solutions, but will use the right tool for the job. I work with (and sometimes manage) Linux, Microsoft, and Apple zealots, and you know what? They all have valid points about their preferred platform - I don't expect our PHP developers to code a .Net sharepoint interface, nor do I expect our SQL/Server Admin to set up MySQL replication. Of course, I don't expect our SQL/Server admin to design a web page because that's not what he's paid for and that's not his core strength.
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.
Of course, some would say that if you're willing to whore yourself out to whatever technology your company deems appropriate, you need to get some balls and take control of your life. If you don't want to be a .Net programmer and you have the skills to get another job doing what you want, why shouldn't you?
One where you won't get the death penalty for drug trafficking, where you don't have to get a permit to protest, where you won't get your ass fined off for minor littering, and where there is freedom of religion for starters?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
There's tons and tons of open-source jobs out there. One of the keywords here is "Android". The other keyword is "embedded". Linux and Android are being used for all kinds of embedded devices now, and there's tons of jobs for people using C and C++ (C more at the low levels, kernel, device drivers etc., C++ at the higher levels for applications). People who can work with and build embedded Linux systems are in high demand, and there's good demand for Qt C++ programmers too as that's being used a lot on these embedded devices that have touchscreens.
Now, this doesn't necessary mean you'll be doing a lot of contributions upstream to the open-source community, but you will be working with a lot of OSS components, and developing proprietary software that interacts with them. And you definitely won't be doing any work with MS technologies, as those have no place in an embedded system (there are some places using WinCE, but they're dying out and many are switching to Linux or Android).
Your options are good ones, and so is going to work for academia, National Labs and other government agencies like NIST, NASA, etc. All use open source extensively with Microsoft and Apple all in the same bag. It's a fun environment if you get the right management and people around you. The nice thing about academia in particular is that it is relatively easy to move from department to department, college to college, or to any central IT unit if you find yourself in an unpleasant situation due to personalities, changes in management, etc. Most of my open source experience comes from working in academia for almost 20 years, supporting and managing software development and IT resources. It's one of the best places to experiment and contribute to some exciting projects using open source, closed source, crowd sourced (hehe!) IT tools and research projects, depending on where you might end up. Good luck!
But not for a baritone I take it?
Get a PhD. Write more challenging software. Release it open source. Get hired by google if you burn out.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
You'll be surprised what you can find in the major markets. Seattle, for instance, often has lots of jobs asking for some experience with Linux.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
That would be called "ADD 1 TO COBOL".