Open source experience is the best resume

There's a joke in the IT community: how do you call programmers who wrote six patches to the Linux kernel? The answer is: The person hired.

Did you understand? Let's ask Linux Fundation colleague Greg Kroah-Hartman to explain: "The joke is that amateur developers will not develop more than five kernel patches because when you develop five patches, you tend to It's not a joke, because there's so much to see.

This may be one aspect of those professionals who are highly engaged with open source and open source communities: Interest is the most crucial factor for anyone who is passionate about open source projects. It's also hard for developers to turn unpaid work on open source projects into a powerful tool for getting jobs.

Bikas Saha is a technologist at Hortonworks who is also active in the Apache Software Foundation, while the Apache Foundation has projects that include Hadoop (a distributed system architecture) and other open source platforms. Saha believes his work at Apache is his "most valuable resume." He said his code in the open source community is just as important as his reputation and his resume on the recruitment platform.

"Your work can be seen by anyone," he said. "People clearly see what you did and how good your job is."

Saha did not say that such a public resume should replace the traditional resume. Nor are people who lack the experience of open source professed the bad things about people who have open source experience. Saha joined Apache's open source job after leaving Microsoft to join Hortonworks in 2011. The huge contribution you make to open source projects is a plus for your career, and although you may not be looking for a job at the time, it is actually the best time for you to find a job.

Kroah-Hartman, a recruiter, hired people with Linux kernel technology to help IBM and Novell, a company that acquired SUSE in 2004. He told us: During the interview, recruiters will always be very impressed by the contribution of candidates in open source work.

"It (a contribution to open source work) shows that one person can participate in a development team and has excellent communication and technical skills." Kroah-Hartman said, "Many of my hires even have a formal resume None, we just know what they're doing with open source, but these are good indicators of their skills. "

Saha said Apache's elite management model fits well with the concept of "public resume." (Publications) Unlike traditional resumes, it is hard to gloss over our past experiences and achievements as these are works that anyone can see and use. In Apache, great contributors win the respect of their peers, for example, they are promoted as "project leaders" and thus have a greater impact on Apache projects.

There is no shortcut to becoming a "project manager", you not only need to submit some patches, but also need to participate in the development project and help users solve the problem, but also to complete the document and track the progress of the project, and show you Long-term interest in this job. Apache website says so.

According to Saha, the mechanism recommended by such co-workers and the contribution to open source work are the cornerstones of a public curriculum vitae, and these have more influence over anything you say in a face-to-face interview.

"Sometimes, (for a recruiter), it's better to know someone who's been interviewing a person for three or four hours than he is in the open source community." Saha said, "Learn about candidates in the open source community through social networks in the open source community The background makes it easier for you to know if this person is worth your hiring. "

"Social networks" refers to online communities throughout open source projects, especially those with high profile like Hadoop or Linux kernel. Kroah-Hartman points out that for recruiters, it's easy for them to tell if a person is active in the Linux kernel: you just have to look at the mailing list and the source tree on the Linux kernel, because there are a lot of them The names of people involved in these jobs and their email addresses.

There is another component of "public resume." Kroah-Hartman tells us that one of the most effective ways to find a job for a Linux developer is to tell their coworkers that they want a job. "Let other developers know you're looking for a job that's different from what they are now," he said. "Every week, companies come to me and ask if I know some developers who have N years of kernel experience and are looking for work." "

Saha said social networking and personal reputations are very useful because Hadoop and its associated big data and distributed computing technologies are relatively young. "It (Hadoop) is actually a rather complex engineering platform," said Saha. "Finding someone who came to work right away was not easy, and it was not just because of the complexity of programming, It's also about how to think, and many people are good at portable software, but often they do not yet have a good understanding of distributed software and no relevant experience. "

Although Saha says employment has risen in recent years for employers, for those who have great technology in the Hadoop ecosystem, candidates are still the ones who dominate the job market.

Finally, Kroah-Hartman added: "If you are involved in the development of open source projects, there will always be companies looking to recruit you in the future."