
Ask HN: Does contributing to open source, increase job offers chances? - evex
I saw a company that basically run like Gitlab in a sense that they&#x27;re code is open source and any oninge can contribute,<p>So this company opened a job offering that I want to get, I know there are +200 developers that applied for the job.<p>Will contributing <i></i>heavily<i></i> to their project for 1 month, help land me a job there?<p>Do you have any advice on how I can increase my chances of getting the team&#x27;s attention or get noticed by who&#x27;s responsible there?
======
__d
In the general circumstance, when I'm hiring, I like to understand candidates'
skills and experience. Looking at their contributions to open source I can see
how they code, how they behave in code reviews, how they behave in email
discussions, etc -- all directly relevant to what I'd be hiring them to do.

So ... yes, having a history of open source contributions can demonstrate your
abilities, which can help get you hired.

In this specific instance, I suspect it's too late. If the position is already
advertised, and there's already 200 applicants ... I don't think contributions
_now_ are going to help much.

~~~
evex
> I don't think contributions now are going to help much

Makes sense, thanks man!

------
ozten
Completely depends on the job and the interviewers.

For me personally, it is a big plus.

Aside from the obvious reasons:

* I can see candidates code quality
    
    
      * I don't penalize for sloppy code, but looks for examples of solid code / architecture / technical aptitude / comments
    

I've had interviews where the candidate froze up and so I couldn't get enough
data points, but I was able to use commits or blog posts from their open
source history to augment by evaluation.

I also double-check for copy/pasta to avoid giving them credit for code that
is actually just a fork of another codebase.

~~~
evex
Aha, so how much do you think is good contribution to proceed to apply to the
job, or to contact HR?

~~~
ozten
This is really hard to answer. Just make it part of your process and don't
block on it for that first batch of applications to jobs.

