
Ask HN: How open source contributions helped you land a job - mraza007
So I have been consuming hackernews daily. I have seen many great open source projects that were shared on hackernews and I have even used those project. but the real question is how open source contributions helped you land a job at your dream company or just in general.<p>Furthermore,Can open source contributions help you land a consulting gig.
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shakkhar
Participated in Google Summer of Code back in 2011. Worked on a project that
involved adding a large-ish new feature to an existing open-source project.
Helped me land a job in the US straight out of college. Otherwise, I don't
think anybody would have even looked at my resume, considering that I am not
from the US, don't have a CS degree and went to a no-name school outside the
US.

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mraza007
Nicee

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bruce511
Others can answer your actual question, as my personal getting-hired
experience predates open source.

I have however hired many people over the years, so I will comment from that
point of view.

The key word in your question is Help. just having done some open source isn't
some sort of magic bullet. But it does open the door to discussing what you
did, how it helped you, what you learned and so on.

In other words it supplements your "experience" factor. Especially for folk
starting out it's an obvious solution to the "but how do I get experience if
everyone only hires experience?" question.

Put another way, given unemployment you can either do nothing, or find a way
to add value to something for free.

When it comes to hiring - for a small shop - the willingness to add real
value, and the demonstrated ability to do so, goes a long way to getting
hired.

But it's only one of several factors, not the only factor.

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mraza007
Agreed Very well written answer. I’m just waiting for more people to comment
on this so i can hear different perspectives

