Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Platform switches tend to shake out people. There is nothing at all surprising or shocking about this. If he doesn't want to deal with Microsoft crap in his day job, there are plenty of places that are Unix shops. Plenty of places that use Unix also use Linux. All you have to do is search in the places you would usually search.
It's a total non-problem really.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
... 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.
Personally, if my employer switched to something I didn't have experience with I'd take it as an excuse to gain experience with something new while getting paid for it, rather than going "wha wha wha, must find a new job and limit my skill set even more".
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.
Having a job in this economy is something to be thankful for. Still, you spend much of your waking hours at work and you'll be a much happier person if you enjoy your job.
If he can find work he likes better, - for whatever reason, why shouldn't he switch?
I've left a job because I didn't find it challenging enough. I left another one because I didn't like the way they ran their projects and I wasn't in a position to change it. An important aspect of any job I take is that the company or organization be one that benefits society in some way. I tend to end up at non-profits. So I'm kind of picky. Luckily there's been enough opportunities that I can afford to be.
When I'm hiring I look for someone who's going to be enthusiastic about the position and the company. If he's at odds with management, they are both better off if he goes some place else.
It's pretty clear this guy got fired for being a preachy douche.
Read between the lines..
Actually, it sounds more like someone else is being the preachy douche. These days, you don't get a business advantage by letting your IBM (or Microsoft) rep run your IT department. Most shops may be primarily Microsoft (or more rarely, primarily open-source), but most successful shops realize that no one solution exists for everything, and thus have little pockets of alternative solutions.
When you flat-out slam the door on alternatives, you also slam the door on opportunities. Better to bail before things get worse.
Nonsense, of course. What he is...is a professional. Professionals do sit idly by while inferior people make extremely stupid decisions -- of which "going Microsoft" is most assuredly one. They utilize their best professional judgment, they protest, they complain, they argue, they do everything that they can to argue their case. And if they fail? Then they resign in protest, as this person has. (And were I hiring: I would hire this one in a minute. Most people are simply too weak to demonstrate this kind of courage, to put their own job on the line.)
The people who most deserve our admiration are not the ones who meekly go along with incompetence and short-sightedness and stupidity; no, they're the ones who stand up to it. And in a week where we learned of the death of Roger Boisjoly, a man who did that very thing, maybe we should remind ourselves that if we really want to call ourselves professionals -- and not cheap whores who will do anything for a paycheck -- then we are REQUIRED to stand up for our principles. Anyone who can't or won't do that is a spineless, worthless coward.
I wouldn't father children with a woman who doesn't fucking pay attention, and doesn't extrapolate, to begin with. But hey that's just me. Apparently this is more about you and your family or something?
So do political systems. You could say that about everything, it's just sophistry filler. Would you say the same to someone in 1940s Germany quitting their job for the Nazi party? "oh, but everything has pros and cons *scratches beard in a wise manner*". Well, so does having priorities other than you, for example.
Now feel free to go nuts over me making that comparison, but you basically say food over principles, and I say that doesn't leave much food in the long run to be used for anything worth a damn. Everybody dies anyway, see heat death of the universe. It's how we spend the time is what makes the only difference. Nobody surives, no memories survive, everything is irrelevant and dust. What matters is wether your soul soars or is tethered to the fears of mediocre people and blind, doomed materialism. That is all there is. But I digress.
Oh, and maybe ask slashdot for pointers? What exactly is your problem then?
At my last job our team had 6 developers, 4 of us used Linux on a daily basis. The company decided it was going all Windows, we were able to hold out a while but the Linux portions of the environment were getting more and more marginalized.
We all had the option of moving over to the MS side, but frankly if we wanted to work with MS there were better options, and within a year all 4 of us were gone.
A job should be something you enjoy, and if you have the ability to find enjoyment in the tools you use that counts for a lot.
As for those complaining about him looking for a new job while everyone else is struggling with unemployment... Well I hear there's about to be an opening for someone willing to work with Windows.
I stole this Sig
Right! Screw principals!
People should be forced to work in their position regardless of the practical and moral personal guidelines they may have. And if they decide not too, we can use guilt and shame to persuade them otherwise...don't forget to mention the torment they will be putting their family through.
If that doesn't work, you blackmail them into staying by threatening their ability to gain future employment elsewhere. One of my personal favorites is the "do-not-poach" agreement I have with several other related (and non-related) industries. Collectively, we maintain a registry that we put these rejects with "principals" into...slavery...err...(cheap) employment then becomes quite easy. I have even been able to issue paycuts and salary reductions to those individuals that I have caught on Monster and Craigslist...
I am on board with you 100%. It is time that we as employers stood up to these bullies, who always demand better pay and health insurance, and put them in their place. They work for us at our leisure. If I call programmer X at 3am because I want a new programmable interface for my coffee-pot that allows per-day timer functionality, he better have it done by 8am and he can forget about extra-pay, overtime, or and type of bonus...he should be glad I didn't fire him on the spot for the hesitation I heard when I told him to do it. I don't care if his wife is currently in labor and about to deliver...how the hell is he going to support a child if he doesn't have a job.
That brings me to healthcare. Our efforts at lobbying and media-manipulation have not been as successful as we have hoped. Within 3-years, employees will be able to decouple their insurance plans from their employment. This has often been the primary tool that we us to keep these people in-line and their salaries capped. We need to implement more public disdain for ObamaCare...maybe leak plans for those that take early retirement to include mandatory enrollment at age 85 to a nursing facility...we can call these "death-camps". Imply that participation will result in them killing their grand-parents. We should be able to gain a few more years of enslavement security or maybe even repealment of the bill.
However, our efforts in deunionization are finally taking hold. With any luck, we will be able to reinstitute mandatory 7-day work-weeks (at reduced pay) by the end of the fiscal year.
With your help, I am sure that we can reduce further occurrences of these idiotic people jumping ship every time we make decision they claim is irrational. I find it refreshing find such a like-minded ally, thank-you.
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
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).