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As someone who grew up in India, contributing to OSS has always been the best way for junior developers to get noticed by recruiters. Due to the sheer number o

As someone who grew up in India, contributing to OSS has always been the best way for junior developers to get noticed by recruiters. Due to the sheer number of applicants, recruiters are only interested in the ones that are truly passionate about coding - exemplified by OSS involvement or side projects. I'm not saying that it is right, but it does give the much needed exposure to junior talents in order to foster their growth.

eesmith 6y ago
"passion" often seems like code for "will work more for free". From a business standpoint, it makes sense as it shifts risk to the potential employee. But like having unpaid interns, it biases the employment pool toward those who have extra money and time to work for no income.
- jabl 6y ago
  This so much. I can understand the motivation from the perspective of recruiters, but I'd really hate to see STEM fields be infiltrated with the filth of unpaid internships that is unfortunately so common in many other fields.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I’ll be honest: I do appreciate devs who love programming so much they sometimes do it for free. I still pay them (inc interns), but everyone I’ve known who was great at programming did some amount of it for free somewhere along the way (because they can and they like it), whether it was open source, programming contests, or just checking out some new tech on their own and never shipping the code anywhere. Even though every line you’ll ever write for me will be paid, the fact that you did something worthwhile for free is a positive signal to me. You don’t have to show that specific signal to be hired, but if you do, I’m not going to ignore it.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    If you see that something did some programming for free, is it because they love programming? Or they love the increased chances of getting a job/money? What do you think the ratio is? The recent Hacktoberfest/ pull-request/ T-shirt fiasco (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 among many) shows that signal is definitely gameable.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      You might be worrying that I can't tell the difference between a gamed/BS pull request and a genuine side project. If someone "games the system" well enough that they can cogently explain something interesting about their side project, do I really need to know if they grudgingly learned it because of money concerns or out of a love of solving puzzles with computers? By the time you can explain your side work and have some level of understanding/explanation that you can share, that's strongly positively correlated to me. If you happen to be bad at programming and grudgingly trudged through it, that might show up once you're employed, in which case it was a false-positive. But it's at least a somewhat expensive false-positive for you to generate.
      - eesmith 6y ago
        Which sounds like your signal is "cogently explain something interesting about their side project" and not simply "did something worthwhile for free".
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Sure. I suppose that if you go deep enough, my signal is "will write good code here", which is suggested by "can write good code", which is suggested by "has written good code" and "wishes to write good code", which is suggested by..."did a side project" or "doesn't only write code when someone is standing there to pay them for it" or <whatever else> Everything in an interview process is an approximation and guess.
        6y ago

eesmith 6y ago

"passion" often seems like code for "will work more for free". From a business standpoint, it makes sense as it shifts risk to the potential employee. But like having unpaid interns, it biases the employment pool toward those who have extra money and time to work for no income.

jabl 6y ago
This so much. I can understand the motivation from the perspective of recruiters, but I'd really hate to see STEM fields be infiltrated with the filth of unpaid internships that is unfortunately so common in many other fields.
sokoloff 6y ago
I’ll be honest: I do appreciate devs who love programming so much they sometimes do it for free. I still pay them (inc interns), but everyone I’ve known who was great at programming did some amount of it for free somewhere along the way (because they can and they like it), whether it was open source, programming contests, or just checking out some new tech on their own and never shipping the code anywhere. Even though every line you’ll ever write for me will be paid, the fact that you did something worthwhile for free is a positive signal to me. You don’t have to show that specific signal to be hired, but if you do, I’m not going to ignore it.
- eesmith 6y ago
  If you see that something did some programming for free, is it because they love programming? Or they love the increased chances of getting a job/money? What do you think the ratio is? The recent Hacktoberfest/ pull-request/ T-shirt fiasco (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658052 among many) shows that signal is definitely gameable.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    You might be worrying that I can't tell the difference between a gamed/BS pull request and a genuine side project. If someone "games the system" well enough that they can cogently explain something interesting about their side project, do I really need to know if they grudgingly learned it because of money concerns or out of a love of solving puzzles with computers? By the time you can explain your side work and have some level of understanding/explanation that you can share, that's strongly positively correlated to me. If you happen to be bad at programming and grudgingly trudged through it, that might show up once you're employed, in which case it was a false-positive. But it's at least a somewhat expensive false-positive for you to generate.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      Which sounds like your signal is "cogently explain something interesting about their side project" and not simply "did something worthwhile for free".
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Sure. I suppose that if you go deep enough, my signal is "will write good code here", which is suggested by "can write good code", which is suggested by "has written good code" and "wishes to write good code", which is suggested by..."did a side project" or "doesn't only write code when someone is standing there to pay them for it" or <whatever else> Everything in an interview process is an approximation and guess.
        6y ago