Red Hatter here. If you want to work full-time on engineering within an open source project, the easiest way to get noticed by a commercial backer is making many quality contributions to the project. If we need to hire additional engineers, we'll typically ask some of the community developers first, prior to recruiting publicly.
That being said, there are many opportunities to work on the projects, albeit a little less "directly". Companies like Red Hat have large teams dedicated to QA, support, etc. Most of them are actively involved in contributing bug fixes, test cases, and directly working with customers. These types of positions do not usually require as much direct experience with the project as the engineering teams do.
That being said, there are many opportunities to work on the projects, albeit a little less "directly". Companies like Red Hat have large teams dedicated to QA, support, etc. Most of them are actively involved in contributing bug fixes, test cases, and directly working with customers. These types of positions do not usually require as much direct experience with the project as the engineering teams do.
And as one commenter already pointed out, we're definitely hiring! http://jobs.redhat.com/