One problem is that in most cases interviewers won’t spend much time on each candidate, its natural. That’s why they say don’t send in a 10 page C.V, because they will go directly to the trash.
Saying here look at my 20K L.O.C. on the web to see how good I am, is practically the same thing. Unless you shine in their interview process, no one will look at the code, it’ll go directly to the trash
Someone mentioned the guy being a mediocre programmer.
Sad fact is that most of us programmers are mediocre programmers as most plumbers are mediocre plumbers.
I am probably a mediocre software engineer just as you are.
If that hurts you then tough.
If the standard of work by the mediocre engineer is not acceptable by society then there is a problem for all.
Damn! I miss being able to upvote comments/answers.
perhaps open source experience is only valid if you work on a project that attains some moderate level of critical mass and user base.
Harumph! I’d actually go along with that for the most part, but there are very narrow projects out there for very specific niches. We need them too.
For instance, try searching the web for how to develop Flash on Linux. There’s maybe four tiny living projects out there, the rest are DOA. But having a complete FOSS toolchain for making Flash apps is honey to me. In fact when I have been blogging about SWFTools and the cool stuff I’m making with it, people are starting to quote me as an authority on the subject. That’s right, idiot little me!
Take another example, ReactOS. An open source Windows! Should be big news - hardly anybody on the planet seems to know or care, and they’re still piddling along in Alpha versions after 10 years.
Really, I wouldn’t rip open source experience out of a resume based on this one anecdote. There’s plenty of jobs that even involve working directly with open source software. Companies that make Firefox toolbars and Wordpress plugins, for two examples.
But yeah, walk in saying ReactOS or SWFTools or Nethack, I’m sure there’s some headhunters whose eyes would glaze over. That’s because software in general isn’t nearly the glamorous job we all wish it were.
I would say that merely contributing to some random open source project isn’t necessarily a helpful addition to your portfolio. Anymore than spending X years at some random job would. Making solid contributions to a reasonably high-profile open source project (mozilla, apache, jquery, linux, chrome, etc.) definitely punches up a resume. Though to be honest I think having a well-written blog would be even better. Determining code quality is non-trivial, even for open source contributions. But it’s far easier to get information about someone’s skill level and passion for software development from a blog.
I put on my resume that I had written and published a free/open source World of Warcraft add-on. In one of my interviews, 2 of the 3 interviewers played World of Warcraft, and asked me about the add-on…I think it may have (slightly) helped my chances of getting the job, but I wouldn’t say it was a key item that swayed their opinion (for one thing, WoW add-ons are written in Lua, which is not used much elsewhere in the industry). But I guess what Jeff said is true–what you contributed to or authored may be more important/relevant than the fact that you did it.
I agree completely with Bruno. I’ve worked with people who have comp sci degrees, install different OS’s, learn new languages, jump on all the latest tech bandwagons, contribute to open source projects. And they are terrible at their jobs, I’m so glad they’ve moved on to other jobs and I no longer have to correct their work. You’re either a great programmer or a mediocre (and in some cases terrible) programmer. When I hire programmers now, I base it solely on coding tests. I never trust resumes or prior experience anymore. Both can be and usually are exaggerated.
If I’m hiring an actor for a movie, and one of my applicants tells me that he’s been pretty active in Sheboygan community theater, I’m not impressed.
I think this person’s experience has less to do with open source v. commercial biz experience (he seemed to have both), but rather with the total inadequacy of most recruiters - and some interviewers. Let’s face it, most recruiters don’t have a clue - they send spam emails to anybody and everybody that might remotely qualify for a position, then shoot them down for the most trivial things which they don’t have the slightest understanding of. Most recruiters don’t have the foggiest idea regarding the differences between different languages, APIs, frameworks, technologies, protocols, etc.
I try to avoid recruiters at all costs. No independent recruiter has ever resulted in me getting a job and they are mostly a waste of time. At least half of the recruiters can be bypassed because they don’t have an exclusive relationship with the employer and the employer is often accepting direct resume submission (if they are smart).
As for coding tests - eh. I would rather see code someone has put some time into, that has gone through some refactoring, testing, thought and user feedback. If there is a source repository with a history, then it would be nice to see how the code evolved. That could tell me a lot about how well a person can write/design code, and how deep their understanding is of any frameworks/APIs they used.
I also like to see the docs. If at that point the code (and docs) suck, then I can eliminate them from the candidate pool. What most people come up with off the top of their head in five minutes on a white board, or on paper at an interview stands a good chance of being crap. Coding tests that where you give a person a day or so may suck less - depending on how much time they could devote to it (they may have a day job, kids, be taking five other coding tests, be sick, whatever).
Ok, I’m not going to read through all of the 93 comments currently attached to this post, so I may be redundant at this point.
However, businesses work off of a bottom line. They want someone that either saved X corp Y amount of money, or helped to improve X corp’s process.
Saying you worked in open-source, however significant, has no bearing on the bottom line. They want active, tangible achievements from a recent employment.
Oh my, aren’t we pretentious. Also, you rush to judgment pretty quick based over little evidence.
I guess not all the companies and software segments work the same, but my personal experience is that contributing in Free Software projects have opened many job opportunities for me.
When I hire someone I receive between 20 to 40 resumes. I don’t look at cover letters, but just at the experience simply because I don’t have the time. Based on the experience/skills and what I’m looking for, I call for an in-person interview.
During the interview, open source experience is not relevant because:
I guess the main reason is #2. I’ve been lied so much, so often, and so blatlanty, that I don’t put much faith in what I’m told.
For me hiring comes down to answering well to some key questions (data structure and caching questions are my favourites), writing code in front of me, and having a personality my team can go along with.
I’m no Linus Torvalds, but I’m high profile enough that I was beating out a congressman and a big name professor at the top of all the search engines for awhile.
I can’t get a job operating the computer at Burger King.
I do have to agree with the others. Saying you worked on an Open Source project won’t mean much to corporate grunts. No one cares but even if they did they probably wouldn’t believe you.
Especially if you can’t code to their satisfaction right in front of them. I think there was a Daily WTF about a guy that went online during the interview to get answers to a coding test…
So! Asking them what they are looking for is akin to asking them what answers they want. Ask for clarification, make sure you understand the problem, then code in your own style and if they like it they like it.
Then again they may just be incompetent and don’t want you to get the job because they know they’ll be working for you in a few years.
A couple of years ago, I took a year off from working, for personal reasons. When I was ready to get back to work, there were some recruiters who assumed that after a year off, I knew nothing about how to code any more (despite seven years of experience), and was basically starting over at an entry level position. I was glad that they said so up front, so I could avoid wasting my time, and instead I talked to the 20 other recruiters who actually had useful things to say.
There are always going to be idiot recruiters. As long as you can find some of the good ones too, it doesn’t matter how many idiots are out there.
That recruiter was probably reviewing hundreds of applications and didn’t have time to go through everyone’s examples of work. Plus, they were not satisfied with his coding solution on a test. When you have a lot of potential candidates to choose from, you don’t loose your time on those who didn’t pass the test you gave them, and check their additional coding work they suggest.
I think this case isn’t good example of underrating open source experience, but just a poor job interview.
There’s a simple reason why firms put so much store in ‘commercial experience’ - basically it means someone else thought you were competent enough to get paid for coding, which assures your potential employers of a certain level of competence. How to get it in the first place though…mmm…
have to agree with what ‘bruno’ said days back, people who program in their spare time just scream no life, cheesy puffs and tab clear in a darkened room to me, once you’re past the undergraduate stage you really have to snap out of that, and you have no choice if you have a family or significant other (or ever want one). If you want me to program, you have to pay me, I’ve got more enjoyable stuff to do if I’m not.
In most of cases where OpenSource developer is rejected, HR/Job recruitment company are culprit.
It’s true, currently the amount of employers who’d check your free-software track record are few and far inbetween.
But, on the flip side of the coin, I believe that within 5 yrs of time, if you haven’t worked on free-software for at least 10 yrs, you’ll have a hard time landing a job with any serious employer.
There’s also a vast difference in the general quality of open source software, depending on how high level the language is.
Scripting languages such as java, PHP etc. will never lift your portfolio as much as a programming languages.
Most of the serious free software is written in C (kernel, gnu etc.) and that’s where most of the action and qualified code review is happening.