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What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for

What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach out for introductions to people hiring for remote jobs that you just wouldn't have had access to before. I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. Just make sure that you choose wisely on the language and project. If you want to do frontend then it's probably going to be a project in TypeScript or JavaScript, but if you want to do backend then there are a lot of projects in tougher languages like Rust. Python isn't a bad choice either, even though it is easy to learn. Google has a Python style guide that is pretty good so look it up. If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank. Set your aim hirer than what you need to survive.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Top notch comment.
- jordanpg 6y ago
  Agree, but OTOH, this advice is pretty well disseminated at this point. It can be hard to find an opening to contribute in a decent OSS project that one can keep up with, especially as a beginner, with many others clamoring to do the same.
  - bayesian_horse 6y ago
    I think an alternative would be to create and finish a simple open source project yourself, for the purpose of showing off. Scratch an itch. But keep it finishable. It's not about being perfect, it's about showing you can solve many problems.
    - nsl73 6y ago
      I think you missed the main point. The most important part of root comment’s advice is networking —- to meet and work with other devs. If you start your own open source project there’s not guarantee people will work on it with you.
      - 2squirrels 6y ago
        As a beginner myself I wouldn’t even know where to begin to contribute to something like Kubernetes and agree with your point. Those projects have a lot of eyes on them and the talent to follow, what value could I add as a beginner that someone with experience couldn’t do in a heartbeat(or hasn’t already).
        icebraining 6y ago
        People with more experience have all their time taken up by big features and refactorings. In a big project, there are always small things to fix or improve. It's not like they run out, because those big changes create more small things to fix all the time. Linux is 30 years old, and it still accepts patches from beginners regularly. I don't know about Kubernetes, but lots of large and well-managed projects have issues labelled as "good first issue" to help you know where to start.
        ghaff 6y ago
        Agreed. There are certainly challenges to working on big, high-visibility projects as a beginner. But, if it's primarily part of a strategy to get a well-paying job, it makes a lot of sense to work on something that has people from the companies that are hiring developers at decent salaries working on it.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- tiborsaas 6y ago
  Also, it's a very risky path to take. If you made an error in your assumptions about your open source investment, tech stack choice, etc, then you won't see any good return, but you burned through your savings.
  - aantix 6y ago
    Contribute to something that has gotten big, quickly. I chose Rails 14 years ago and have been riding that train ever since. If I were choosing a new space and starting out, I’d contribute to Kubernetes. Lots of need in that space and I’m sure you could demand top dollar once you have a few merged PRs under your belt.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
tiborsaas 6y ago
> I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. That even crazy in California onsite level and you've seen that in remote? I liked the part about positioning in your comment, it does matter a lot.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  It’s textbook survivor bias. Who is going the reveal their anecdote? The person who knows someone with a story. And 500k is a hell of a story. My bet is spending 3 months doing free OSS work on average has a lower EV than applying to a shitload of jobs, levelling up on interview challenges and technique et cetera.
cancerSpreads 6y ago
I wish someone told me this sooner.. Instead people told me to do personal projects. Sure they are impressive, but I can't get an interview.
- donedealomg 6y ago
  but yet, you make the same mistake again. You are listening to strangers on the internet.
deleted 6y ago
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latenightcoding 6y ago
This is bad advice for someone who has only been coding for 3 years (according to OP). People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to open source projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly. It is way more common to see brilliant developers make $0 from open source projects.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to opensource projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly This vastly overestimates the efficiency of FAANG hiring channels.
  - myth_drannon 6y ago
    Yes, like the Brew guy interview at Google.
    - cpascal 6y ago
      For context: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
      - lukeramsden 6y ago
        The tweet from Brian Acton[0] that someone replied with is truly legendary. I want to frame that and put it in the lobby if I ever found a successful business. [0] https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383 https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383
    - yCombLinks 6y ago
      Maybe he's a douchebag and was efficiently filtered out.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      People seem to assume Google was wrong not to hire him. Is Google in the business of building open source package managers? If not, why should his experience there mean he should have gotten the job?
rodrigodlu 6y ago
This is nice way to sum it up. Let me say what what not to do. Context: 10 year developer in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Mostly Ruby on Rails (6 years), now Python (1 year). I've dedicated my entire career for the companies and projects I worked for. So I didn't built a profile, or strong connections. The only thing right I got is financial reserves. So I quit from a interim CTO position (previous I was a Tech Leader), with 18 people below me, due to BURNOUT. The only thing I got dedicating full time to one basket at time is: 1. financial reserves, that here in my country is enough for some months of food and shelter, but is less than that value you said in US Dollars. 2. Extreme BURNOUT. I'm 80% recovered after two months. Right now I'm doing some online courses in DataCamp and Real Python. It's easy to stay focused. Tried to start working contributing on FOSS and Tech Blogs, building some reputation, but I got worse some weeks ago, got back to these algorithmic online courses. $ 1.5k / month for me is food and shelter right now. Companies here demanding Spark certifications are offering this for late full and initial senior positions (I'm trying to go to Data Engineering field, because I love data). Even big companies here are more picky than this, by not returning calls, emails, etc. 3 people from a big co. here called me, having multiple positions open right now, but no response (remember I have no perceivable reputation or connections, except a CompSci degree in a reputable Uni here). So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now. Big COs. in developing countries are picky anyways. You'll need to spend a lot of energy to receive US$ 3k/month tops (it's the 80th percentile). Try different. 10 years later you'll be much better than me.
- darknessmonk 6y ago
  > So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now. Fuck dude, are you me?
- ooobit2 6y ago
  I did an MSDA, and I wanted to let you know that you're cutting off the majority of your opportunities for Data roles if you aren't specializing in a business component as well. For me, it was Sales. Started out as a Jr. Analyst and within a year owned all Sales Ops and Sales Enablement. Was a small 60-person, $23MM training company, but my skill with data paired with projects like forecasting models, process optimization, etc. made me a critical asset during a re-org. I'd say about 80% of my daily work was on data projects. The other 20 was in the sales channel itself. Kept things exciting. I worked 14-16 hour days. Never got tired of the grind. So, consider pairing your data expertise with a business function. Really, anything from Marketing to Finance will open you up to a swarm of opportunities.
snide 6y ago
I actually think this is excellent advice right now. I would add the caveat that I would target contributing to OS software that is maintained by a large company, not an individual. There are lots of them floating around. This is by far the best way to get recognized at those companies that are hiring. I will admit it's a long sell, but it has fairly predictable results if you're steady with your contributions. As a former college drop-out that made it into the industry this is the route I would have taken were I joining the workforce today when I was younger. Great way to learn on something real and get your foot in the door. Note too this is possible for designers as well. There are lots of design libs floating around and contributions to those repos is so rare it's very easy to get stand out.
Blackstone4 6y ago
Many companies will not hire outside of certain countries i.e. US, UK....you may need to setup a corporate entity i.e. a Delaware LLC and work through a contract.
tmaly 6y ago
I would also add, try doing a keyword analysis on remote jobs to help guide the choice of the open source project.
langitbiru 6y ago
This is correct. One has done it. He needed 4 months to join Gitlab from the day when he started contributing to Gitlab. https://medium.com/@shinya_55783/how-i-joined-gitlab-and-went-from-nothing-to-a-backend-developer-c68777264d64 https://medium.com/@shinya_55783/how-i-joined-gitlab-and-wen... I heard from my friends that because of pandemic, Gitlab is focusing on outbound recruiting. So I don't know whether the way still works or not in Gitlab. But I concur that contributing to opensource is one of the best way to get a high-paying job. I recommend these opensource projects: React, Vue, Angular, Typescript (because everyone is crazy about JS). If you don't fancy JS, pick Rust, Go, Deno (Deno is written in Rust), Python, Kubernetes, Flutter.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Is that the Gitlab that famously only pays proportional to your cost of living?
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    It sounds as if you don't like that -- in which ways would it be better from their perspective to ignore location?
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      This is how I think of it. The cliche is “software is eating the world” and it’s true - most companies hiring engineers are doing so because their bottom line is doing well thanks to specifically how scalable software is and how many real world problems it can help with. So companies should be willing to pay a fair wage to good developers. I say should - obviously this is capitalism and if they can get it done for a penny then why not - but if developers refuse a bad deal it will create pressure for them to do so. If I’m selling enterprise software in New York and someone from New York who happens to be residing in Mexico at the moment is working for me, I’m selling $10k/y licenses and paying him 20k/y something seems off. OTOH if he moves to San Fransisco, Kensington in London, Monaco or Hong Kong I say ah ok here’s $200k. He’s doing the same stuff! Doesn’t make sense to me. Instead say well he is worth $100k to us, he then chooses to live wherever in the world makes sense and is affordable. For a remote first company that’s make sense.
brainless 6y ago
I am from India and this is how I started my career about 14 years back. I used to contribute bits and pieces to Drupal and other open source projects. Drupal was really new in India but also like globally. I got my biggest clients (all over the world) from there, then got into Google SoC, contributed to Drupal Google GData plugin. Made lots of money (through consulting)*, lost all in bootstrapping, rest is history.
ravioli_fog 6y ago
Just wanting to add support for this strategy. As I mentioned in another similar post awhile back[0] I did an in person version of this and have seen it first hand from those who were online. I've worked with a bunch of people at this point who primarily were connected by a shared language or project and relationships that developed online. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21167473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21167473
ericmcer 6y ago
If his goal is to guarantee a reasonable (actually very low) developer salary this feels like bad advice. There is no guarantee he will get hired, no backup plan if the project does not hire him, and he could very well walk away with nothing. If your goal is to get a job just look at trends in job boards (probably very skewed towards web/mobile/data science), figure out which area you like/excel in and hone in on that. Keep iterating on your resume, upping your skill set, and learning from interview failures. Remember: selling yourself and your skill set is more important than actual ability. That is something you can really only hone with practice and repeated interviews.
foxbarrington 6y ago
I second this. I regularly hire remote devs who can prove themselves with react or node for $2500/mo
- ribas 6y ago
  Can you point out some repos that you go looking for developers?
localhost 6y ago
+1. I found my most recent hire at Microsoft this way. She was the top performer on my team and continues to do excellent work at the company. Also it’s important to choose your project wisely as well. I wasn’t looking to hire anyone in particular. The recommendation came out of a casual conversation with the creator of the open source project.
- andreygrehov 6y ago
  I'm curious, how does the interview look like for these people? Do they still have to go through all the coding/system design rounds?
  - matt_s 6y ago
    I also would assume and sincerely hope the stupid tests around "can this person write software?" are eliminated when you have people on the team _using_ software the candidate wrote.
    - katsura 6y ago
      Not at google: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
  - localhost 6y ago
    It would be the same as for anyone else. I also recused myself from her loop to make it as impartial as possible. She got the job on merit. That's the important thing here.
dominotw 6y ago
> I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. Any example of this or good project to pick?
deleted 6y ago
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Volrath89 6y ago
Any recommendations of open source projects to work on for a C# dev?
kthartic 6y ago
How likely is it that one will get a job at the end of this? "Three or four months. Full time." is a hell of a commitment for a, what sounds like, 'maybe someone will notice you, and maybe they're hiring'.
- asdff 6y ago
  It seems like it's better suited advice for between semesters in undergrad, and not while you are entirely dependent on your own sustained income.
jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
Jobs paying 500k a year are very rare. You need to be a top programmer and you need luck. It is like recommending to be an elite athlete.
- ijidak 6y ago
  Ok. Haha. That was my thought as well. $500k seems outlandish, not that some aren't making that, but who pays that... Maybe 1 in every 1,000 dev jobs can even approach $500k.
starpilot 6y ago
This just seems impossible. Any nontrivial open source project with a decent amount of stars (i.e. something that will give OP visibility) is impenetrable for a noob. I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev. It will take a couple months just to setup a testing environment AND get familiarity with the codebase where you can actually start modifying it. Then you need to identify an issue and hope it'll pass muster with the maintainers who have a bazillion years of experience. Can you name a single example project on Github where you think a Python programmer with 2-3 years experience could contribute?
- downerending 6y ago
  It's not just that they're impenetrable from a technical stand point. It can also be rather difficult to identify contributions that are useful and will get past the core gatekeepers. Probably the best bet there is to target several projects, and then move towards the ones that seem to appreciate your work.
- nonines 6y ago
  >> I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev 2 reasons IMHO: 1. It is a powerful albeit mostly imaginary image/story. A sort of American dream incarnated in SW. Everything is out there, open and within reach so anyone can do it and make it big. 2. A lot of the HN crowd are actually committers to high profile projects (this is the most popular hacker community after all) so they tend to judge by their own story or stories from their circle. I suspect though that the average dev is quite away from this paradigm. Having tried a few times to just build kubernetes (by now I honestly believe that you need a server farm to do just that) I have to agree with the point you're making. The sheer magnitude and the speed that this behemoth is growing just makes me loose any incentive after a while. Not to mention that you have to actually antagonize with a lot of other noobs to get to these "good-first-issue" PR first. (Diclosure: I'm quite familiar with kube and an experienced dev). And then there is the other thing. I'm afraid somewhere along the way we missed the point. OS is (was) about doing what you want with no strings attached. Something inside me is twitching in the thought that it has become a (difficult) way to get a nice job and that it is mostly controlled by big Co (which you are effectively begging to throw its eyes over you and your contributions). Dunno if I want to be part in this grind. I prefer doing my own stuff (and GPL them like the good old days). My 0010 cents.
xondono 6y ago
This sounds like a “follow your dream” pitch. Great for the survivors, bad for 99.99% that did not make it. I’d be curious to know how many people tried that got nothing for their effort.
downerending 6y ago
> If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank. One way to avoid exploitation like this is to try to develop a number of offers simultaneously. Go in with the plan of getting a couple of offers early, and then let them twist in the wind while you develop better ones. Having an offer is good leverage for getting a better offer from another place without seeming "greedy". (Be courteous and humble, of course, or at least fake it.) Also, the FAANGs seem to recruit endlessly, even when they're not really hiring. Good place for practice interviews, even if you don't care to work there. My offer from one got me a lot more money elsewhere.
ijidak 6y ago
Who is making $500,000 per year as a developer? That seems outlandish. Edge case-ey. Outside of maybe quants, what type of developers are pulling that kind of income?
- stale2002 6y ago
  > what type of developers are pulling that kind of income? So, the subset of developers who make this much money basically amounts to "The senior engineers, at top tech companies, such as google/FB/ect" Which.... is less unlikely than you'd think, if you are talking about the democraphic of users who read hacker news. 500k is still definitely up there, but making even something like 250k, at any of these top tech companies, as a mid level engineer, is completely standard. I'd expect anyone who has 5 years of experience, at these types of companies to be making at least this amount. So, within that context, the people who are making twice that, would be maybe the team leads, or possible even a bit higher ranking than that.
deleted 6y ago
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NicoJuicy 6y ago
I wouldn't recommend this method personally though, only a small amount of people can achieve it. To give an alternative way: Find a successfull expensive software product in a country that isn't in the same language as yours. Ask to translate it and if you can sell the product in your country. Acting as a middleman. Start selling, get the commission. In my experience, I've seen this work more than the one i'm replying too. And I think it's unknown in big countries, eg. The US

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Top notch comment.

jordanpg 6y ago
Agree, but OTOH, this advice is pretty well disseminated at this point. It can be hard to find an opening to contribute in a decent OSS project that one can keep up with, especially as a beginner, with many others clamoring to do the same.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  I think an alternative would be to create and finish a simple open source project yourself, for the purpose of showing off. Scratch an itch. But keep it finishable. It's not about being perfect, it's about showing you can solve many problems.
  - nsl73 6y ago
    I think you missed the main point. The most important part of root comment’s advice is networking —- to meet and work with other devs. If you start your own open source project there’s not guarantee people will work on it with you.
    - 2squirrels 6y ago
      As a beginner myself I wouldn’t even know where to begin to contribute to something like Kubernetes and agree with your point. Those projects have a lot of eyes on them and the talent to follow, what value could I add as a beginner that someone with experience couldn’t do in a heartbeat(or hasn’t already).
      - icebraining 6y ago
        People with more experience have all their time taken up by big features and refactorings. In a big project, there are always small things to fix or improve. It's not like they run out, because those big changes create more small things to fix all the time. Linux is 30 years old, and it still accepts patches from beginners regularly. I don't know about Kubernetes, but lots of large and well-managed projects have issues labelled as "good first issue" to help you know where to start.
        ghaff 6y ago
        Agreed. There are certainly challenges to working on big, high-visibility projects as a beginner. But, if it's primarily part of a strategy to get a well-paying job, it makes a lot of sense to work on something that has people from the companies that are hiring developers at decent salaries working on it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tiborsaas 6y ago
Also, it's a very risky path to take. If you made an error in your assumptions about your open source investment, tech stack choice, etc, then you won't see any good return, but you burned through your savings.
- aantix 6y ago
  Contribute to something that has gotten big, quickly. I chose Rails 14 years ago and have been riding that train ever since. If I were choosing a new space and starting out, I’d contribute to Kubernetes. Lots of need in that space and I’m sure you could demand top dollar once you have a few merged PRs under your belt.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

tiborsaas 6y ago

> I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. That even crazy in California onsite level and you've seen that in remote? I liked the part about positioning in your comment, it does matter a lot.

quickthrower2 6y ago
It’s textbook survivor bias. Who is going the reveal their anecdote? The person who knows someone with a story. And 500k is a hell of a story. My bet is spending 3 months doing free OSS work on average has a lower EV than applying to a shitload of jobs, levelling up on interview challenges and technique et cetera.

cancerSpreads 6y ago

I wish someone told me this sooner.. Instead people told me to do personal projects. Sure they are impressive, but I can't get an interview.

donedealomg 6y ago
but yet, you make the same mistake again. You are listening to strangers on the internet.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

latenightcoding 6y ago

This is bad advice for someone who has only been coding for 3 years (according to OP). People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to open source projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly. It is way more common to see brilliant developers make $0 from open source projects.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to opensource projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly This vastly overestimates the efficiency of FAANG hiring channels.
- myth_drannon 6y ago
  Yes, like the Brew guy interview at Google.
  - cpascal 6y ago
    For context: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
    - lukeramsden 6y ago
      The tweet from Brian Acton[0] that someone replied with is truly legendary. I want to frame that and put it in the lobby if I ever found a successful business. [0] https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383 https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383
  - yCombLinks 6y ago
    Maybe he's a douchebag and was efficiently filtered out.
  - NateEag 6y ago
    People seem to assume Google was wrong not to hire him. Is Google in the business of building open source package managers? If not, why should his experience there mean he should have gotten the job?

rodrigodlu 6y ago

This is nice way to sum it up. Let me say what what not to do. Context: 10 year developer in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Mostly Ruby on Rails (6 years), now Python (1 year). I've dedicated my entire career for the companies and projects I worked for. So I didn't built a profile, or strong connections. The only thing right I got is financial reserves. So I quit from a interim CTO position (previous I was a Tech Leader), with 18 people below me, due to BURNOUT. The only thing I got dedicating full time to one basket at time is: 1. financial reserves, that here in my country is enough for some months of food and shelter, but is less than that value you said in US Dollars. 2. Extreme BURNOUT. I'm 80% recovered after two months. Right now I'm doing some online courses in DataCamp and Real Python. It's easy to stay focused. Tried to start working contributing on FOSS and Tech Blogs, building some reputation, but I got worse some weeks ago, got back to these algorithmic online courses. $ 1.5k / month for me is food and shelter right now. Companies here demanding Spark certifications are offering this for late full and initial senior positions (I'm trying to go to Data Engineering field, because I love data). Even big companies here are more picky than this, by not returning calls, emails, etc. 3 people from a big co. here called me, having multiple positions open right now, but no response (remember I have no perceivable reputation or connections, except a CompSci degree in a reputable Uni here). So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now. Big COs. in developing countries are picky anyways. You'll need to spend a lot of energy to receive US$ 3k/month tops (it's the 80th percentile). Try different. 10 years later you'll be much better than me.

darknessmonk 6y ago
> So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now. Fuck dude, are you me?
ooobit2 6y ago
I did an MSDA, and I wanted to let you know that you're cutting off the majority of your opportunities for Data roles if you aren't specializing in a business component as well. For me, it was Sales. Started out as a Jr. Analyst and within a year owned all Sales Ops and Sales Enablement. Was a small 60-person, $23MM training company, but my skill with data paired with projects like forecasting models, process optimization, etc. made me a critical asset during a re-org. I'd say about 80% of my daily work was on data projects. The other 20 was in the sales channel itself. Kept things exciting. I worked 14-16 hour days. Never got tired of the grind. So, consider pairing your data expertise with a business function. Really, anything from Marketing to Finance will open you up to a swarm of opportunities.

snide 6y ago

I actually think this is excellent advice right now. I would add the caveat that I would target contributing to OS software that is maintained by a large company, not an individual. There are lots of them floating around. This is by far the best way to get recognized at those companies that are hiring. I will admit it's a long sell, but it has fairly predictable results if you're steady with your contributions. As a former college drop-out that made it into the industry this is the route I would have taken were I joining the workforce today when I was younger. Great way to learn on something real and get your foot in the door. Note too this is possible for designers as well. There are lots of design libs floating around and contributions to those repos is so rare it's very easy to get stand out.

Blackstone4 6y ago

Many companies will not hire outside of certain countries i.e. US, UK....you may need to setup a corporate entity i.e. a Delaware LLC and work through a contract.

tmaly 6y ago

I would also add, try doing a keyword analysis on remote jobs to help guide the choice of the open source project.

langitbiru 6y ago

This is correct. One has done it. He needed 4 months to join Gitlab from the day when he started contributing to Gitlab. https://medium.com/@shinya_55783/how-i-joined-gitlab-and-went-from-nothing-to-a-backend-developer-c68777264d64 https://medium.com/@shinya_55783/how-i-joined-gitlab-and-wen... I heard from my friends that because of pandemic, Gitlab is focusing on outbound recruiting. So I don't know whether the way still works or not in Gitlab. But I concur that contributing to opensource is one of the best way to get a high-paying job. I recommend these opensource projects: React, Vue, Angular, Typescript (because everyone is crazy about JS). If you don't fancy JS, pick Rust, Go, Deno (Deno is written in Rust), Python, Kubernetes, Flutter.

quickthrower2 6y ago
Is that the Gitlab that famously only pays proportional to your cost of living?
- cutemonster 6y ago
  It sounds as if you don't like that -- in which ways would it be better from their perspective to ignore location?
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    This is how I think of it. The cliche is “software is eating the world” and it’s true - most companies hiring engineers are doing so because their bottom line is doing well thanks to specifically how scalable software is and how many real world problems it can help with. So companies should be willing to pay a fair wage to good developers. I say should - obviously this is capitalism and if they can get it done for a penny then why not - but if developers refuse a bad deal it will create pressure for them to do so. If I’m selling enterprise software in New York and someone from New York who happens to be residing in Mexico at the moment is working for me, I’m selling $10k/y licenses and paying him 20k/y something seems off. OTOH if he moves to San Fransisco, Kensington in London, Monaco or Hong Kong I say ah ok here’s $200k. He’s doing the same stuff! Doesn’t make sense to me. Instead say well he is worth $100k to us, he then chooses to live wherever in the world makes sense and is affordable. For a remote first company that’s make sense.

brainless 6y ago

I am from India and this is how I started my career about 14 years back. I used to contribute bits and pieces to Drupal and other open source projects. Drupal was really new in India but also like globally. I got my biggest clients (all over the world) from there, then got into Google SoC, contributed to Drupal Google GData plugin. Made lots of money (through consulting)*, lost all in bootstrapping, rest is history.

ravioli_fog 6y ago

Just wanting to add support for this strategy. As I mentioned in another similar post awhile back[0] I did an in person version of this and have seen it first hand from those who were online. I've worked with a bunch of people at this point who primarily were connected by a shared language or project and relationships that developed online. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21167473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21167473

ericmcer 6y ago

If his goal is to guarantee a reasonable (actually very low) developer salary this feels like bad advice. There is no guarantee he will get hired, no backup plan if the project does not hire him, and he could very well walk away with nothing. If your goal is to get a job just look at trends in job boards (probably very skewed towards web/mobile/data science), figure out which area you like/excel in and hone in on that. Keep iterating on your resume, upping your skill set, and learning from interview failures. Remember: selling yourself and your skill set is more important than actual ability. That is something you can really only hone with practice and repeated interviews.

foxbarrington 6y ago

I second this. I regularly hire remote devs who can prove themselves with react or node for $2500/mo

ribas 6y ago
Can you point out some repos that you go looking for developers?

localhost 6y ago

+1. I found my most recent hire at Microsoft this way. She was the top performer on my team and continues to do excellent work at the company. Also it’s important to choose your project wisely as well. I wasn’t looking to hire anyone in particular. The recommendation came out of a casual conversation with the creator of the open source project.

andreygrehov 6y ago
I'm curious, how does the interview look like for these people? Do they still have to go through all the coding/system design rounds?
- matt_s 6y ago
  I also would assume and sincerely hope the stupid tests around "can this person write software?" are eliminated when you have people on the team _using_ software the candidate wrote.
  - katsura 6y ago
    Not at google: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
- localhost 6y ago
  It would be the same as for anyone else. I also recused myself from her loop to make it as impartial as possible. She got the job on merit. That's the important thing here.

dominotw 6y ago

> I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. Any example of this or good project to pick?

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Volrath89 6y ago

Any recommendations of open source projects to work on for a C# dev?

kthartic 6y ago

How likely is it that one will get a job at the end of this? "Three or four months. Full time." is a hell of a commitment for a, what sounds like, 'maybe someone will notice you, and maybe they're hiring'.

asdff 6y ago
It seems like it's better suited advice for between semesters in undergrad, and not while you are entirely dependent on your own sustained income.

jfkebwjsbx 6y ago

Jobs paying 500k a year are very rare. You need to be a top programmer and you need luck. It is like recommending to be an elite athlete.

ijidak 6y ago
Ok. Haha. That was my thought as well. $500k seems outlandish, not that some aren't making that, but who pays that... Maybe 1 in every 1,000 dev jobs can even approach $500k.

starpilot 6y ago

This just seems impossible. Any nontrivial open source project with a decent amount of stars (i.e. something that will give OP visibility) is impenetrable for a noob. I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev. It will take a couple months just to setup a testing environment AND get familiarity with the codebase where you can actually start modifying it. Then you need to identify an issue and hope it'll pass muster with the maintainers who have a bazillion years of experience. Can you name a single example project on Github where you think a Python programmer with 2-3 years experience could contribute?

downerending 6y ago
It's not just that they're impenetrable from a technical stand point. It can also be rather difficult to identify contributions that are useful and will get past the core gatekeepers. Probably the best bet there is to target several projects, and then move towards the ones that seem to appreciate your work.
nonines 6y ago
>> I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev 2 reasons IMHO: 1. It is a powerful albeit mostly imaginary image/story. A sort of American dream incarnated in SW. Everything is out there, open and within reach so anyone can do it and make it big. 2. A lot of the HN crowd are actually committers to high profile projects (this is the most popular hacker community after all) so they tend to judge by their own story or stories from their circle. I suspect though that the average dev is quite away from this paradigm. Having tried a few times to just build kubernetes (by now I honestly believe that you need a server farm to do just that) I have to agree with the point you're making. The sheer magnitude and the speed that this behemoth is growing just makes me loose any incentive after a while. Not to mention that you have to actually antagonize with a lot of other noobs to get to these "good-first-issue" PR first. (Diclosure: I'm quite familiar with kube and an experienced dev). And then there is the other thing. I'm afraid somewhere along the way we missed the point. OS is (was) about doing what you want with no strings attached. Something inside me is twitching in the thought that it has become a (difficult) way to get a nice job and that it is mostly controlled by big Co (which you are effectively begging to throw its eyes over you and your contributions). Dunno if I want to be part in this grind. I prefer doing my own stuff (and GPL them like the good old days). My 0010 cents.

xondono 6y ago

This sounds like a “follow your dream” pitch. Great for the survivors, bad for 99.99% that did not make it. I’d be curious to know how many people tried that got nothing for their effort.

downerending 6y ago

> If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank. One way to avoid exploitation like this is to try to develop a number of offers simultaneously. Go in with the plan of getting a couple of offers early, and then let them twist in the wind while you develop better ones. Having an offer is good leverage for getting a better offer from another place without seeming "greedy". (Be courteous and humble, of course, or at least fake it.) Also, the FAANGs seem to recruit endlessly, even when they're not really hiring. Good place for practice interviews, even if you don't care to work there. My offer from one got me a lot more money elsewhere.

ijidak 6y ago

Who is making $500,000 per year as a developer? That seems outlandish. Edge case-ey. Outside of maybe quants, what type of developers are pulling that kind of income?

stale2002 6y ago
> what type of developers are pulling that kind of income? So, the subset of developers who make this much money basically amounts to "The senior engineers, at top tech companies, such as google/FB/ect" Which.... is less unlikely than you'd think, if you are talking about the democraphic of users who read hacker news. 500k is still definitely up there, but making even something like 250k, at any of these top tech companies, as a mid level engineer, is completely standard. I'd expect anyone who has 5 years of experience, at these types of companies to be making at least this amount. So, within that context, the people who are making twice that, would be maybe the team leads, or possible even a bit higher ranking than that.

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NicoJuicy 6y ago

I wouldn't recommend this method personally though, only a small amount of people can achieve it. To give an alternative way: Find a successfull expensive software product in a country that isn't in the same language as yours. Ask to translate it and if you can sell the product in your country. Acting as a middleman. Start selling, get the commission. In my experience, I've seen this work more than the one i'm replying too. And I think it's unknown in big countries, eg. The US