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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?
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.
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?
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).
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
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.
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."
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?
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FTFY
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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!
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
That would be called "ADD 1 TO COBOL".