7 ms·

Github is Your New Resume

174 points by dblock 15y ago

unshift 15y ago
this may be true in startup land, where hires are evaluated by the engineers/managers/founders but it's absolutely not the case in the world of BigCorps. many recruiters (including internal ones) are less technical than anyone would like and have to operate on looking at key words in a resume before deciding what to pass along to managers. a github account with a bunch of code in it would be so confusing they'd just move on. if you're looking for work, it's worth knowing how to put together a good resume just so it gets you by the HR department. i've also had experience where i was required to write (non trivial) sample code with my application, only to find out months after i started the job that nobody even looked at it. code samples and projects are great to have, and especially helpful if someone cares, but the resume isn't dead yet.
- gaius 15y ago
  Nah, not really, because "a github account with a bunch of code in it" is the signal. Of course, it can be gamed by someone who just forks a bunch of other people's repos, which a recruiter won't be able to spot but "github" is a keyword that can be searched for on a CV like any other.
- icefox 15y ago
  Not everyone reviewing resumes at BigCorps are bad. For what it is worth I work for 'BigCorp' and when looking for new guys on my team I do read any code I am given and go out looking for any code on GitHub and elsewhere. Internal transfers are easier as I don't have to do any hunting and just go looking through our internal repository at their commits.
- galenward 15y ago
  Maybe a better title would be "Github is Your new Resume... At Progressive Companies With Strong Engineering Organizations." I think Daniel nailed it.
  - dblock 15y ago
    Thank you. I wasn't writing about dinosaurs :)
- almightygod 15y ago
  I agree, a recruiter is not going to know what to look for on github. But the engineering team should, if they are worth joining. I think sites like coderwall.com and vizualize.me are interesting in that they summarize your experience to get you past the initial quick screening.
- kjksf 15y ago
  I think you're mixing up BigCorps with IncompetentCorps. I've had plenty of BigCorps asking me to interview with them based solely on my open source work (they contacted me). Those were companies like Amazon, Google, Twitter etc. (companies I would consider working for). So I know that this advice works also in the context of BigCorps that are technical and competent. I haven't had similar offers from GM or WalMart or Shell (or name-your-own-bigcorp) even though I'm sure they also hire programmers. But given that I do have an option of working at a company like Google, I wouldn't even consider working for GM, which, and that's an educated guess, doesn't pamper their employees as much as Google, doesn't pay them as well and doesn't respect them as much. So add that as one more benefit of github-as-a-resume model: it attracts companies that treat programmers extraordinarily well so not only you get more work opportunities but those opportunities are of the highest quality.
  - unshift 15y ago
    for what it's worth, my experience comes from getting hired at vmware and ITA software (now google). in my experience, the recruiters who source and filter resumes at those companies are rarely technical.
sjs 15y ago
I use zerply. The name is terrible but I like their service and don't see myself updating my "traditional" cv in the near future. That could change but I'll resist it. Might be a nice recruiter filter too. If you tell them you don't have a resume and point them at your github or whatever else and it's not good enough you probably dodged a bullet. If they are fine with it then perhaps you found the proverbial needle in the haystack and could give the recruiter a chance.
sc68cal 15y ago
I came to this conclusion a while ago and tossed Github Badge (http://drnic.github.com/github-badges/ http://drnic.github.com/github-badges/) on my personal site.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- almightygod 15y ago
  cool, similar to coderwall
  - sc68cal 15y ago
    Ah - I just gave coderwall a try this time. Github's authorization prompt is much clearer now as to what I'm allowing access to.
lucian1900 15y ago
GitHub in particular is problematic for those of us that don't particularly use Git, and use other hosts for their code. Something like ohloh is much better suited to being a CV.
- jjm 15y ago
  Ohloh has everything but the code. It reminds me of those "CSS galleries" but for open source projects. In the end, I'm where the code is, and that place is GitHub.
- stevelosh 15y ago
  If you're using Mercurial instead of Git you can create a mirror on GitHub with little effort (unless you're doing something pretty crazy with your DAG): http://hgtip.com/tips/advanced/2009-11-09-create-a-git-mirror/ http://hgtip.com/tips/advanced/2009-11-09-create-a-git-mirro... This also lets git users contribute to your project, so you get the benefit of GitHub's community without having to deal with git.
  - eropple 15y ago
    Interesting, but this doesn't address the other problem--I fundamentally dislike Github! (I use Bitbucket because of consistently stellar support from Atlassian and an overall pleasant working experience.) And going outside my current, working ecosystem for benefits I consider dubious at best--the overwhelming majority of open-source projects get no outside commits, ever, and magic Github pixie dust doesn't really change that--isn't really a good use of time. For me, Git and Github are both problems with this "GitHub's your resume" thing, not one or the other.
    - bronson 15y ago
      So BitBucket is your resume. Where's the problem?
      - eropple 15y ago
        My resume is my resume. My personal code is closed-source, with the exception of a couple of bits for presentations and an archived project for which I am a maintainer. You could say that "well, that one archived project is your resume," but that would be foolish (not that you are saying that, but it does follow from all of this) because it has little to do with what I actually do. More than anything, though, I kind of find all this "anoint the buzzwordy startup as the new X" stuff silly. Maybe one company in ten would actually follow a link to Github or Bitbucket on my resume, regardless of the content. At least for now, the resume is the new resume.
courtewing 15y ago
Along these lines, David Coallier created a tool to generate your github "résumé" awhile back: http://resume.github.com/ http://resume.github.com/ As unshift mentioned, the entire development community is not quite at the point where a github account can be used as your go-to résumé, but it is certainly becoming more and more useful in the job market.
- dblock 15y ago
  cool, thanks for mentioning resume, I've never seen it!
arasraj 15y ago
I certainly believe this to be a trend. I have been interviewing with different startups and they all have seemed to respond more to my github page than my resume. They all want to hear about personal projects and your thought process through them. Maybe I'm biased towards startups though.
programminggeek 15y ago
I like the idea of GitHub as a resume, but most of the code I drop in GitHub is closed source and I don't spend a lot of free time hacking on other people's projects. So, while a GitHub resume is a great idea if you do a lot of open source hacking, it is not nearly as useful if you are working on private code.
- dblock 15y ago
  My day-to-day tasks are all around private repos too. But for some reason I keep having to patch, fix, edit, hack other people's open source projects. If you don't, maybe it's time to look for a piece inside a private repo that could be useful to others and spend the extra time extracting it into something open-source?
- gaius 15y ago
  Yeah. I mean, accountants and lawyers don't publish accounts and cases they've worked on pro-bono do they?
  - almightygod 15y ago
    not yet but I think as far as making use of the web, devs are on the early start of a trend. Think about blogs, they were widely used in the tech community before mass adoption, now my mom even has one. I suspect you will find more and more industries figuring out ways to share their professional experience online
krobertson 15y ago
I recently started a new job and their recruiter found me through my Github profile. Aside from that, I put my Github link on my CV and have for a while. Additionally, when I am interviewing others, I always like to see a Github link or will Google them to find a Github account. Even though people may work a lot in closed source, it is interesting to see the activity history, to see which projects they've forked, patched, written, or contributed to. It sometimes varies based on the community you're in, but the Ruby community is very collaborative and sharing contributions. Even when I've worked in largely closed source codebases, I'll still encounter bugs in other libraries, fork them, fix it, and send a pull request. Those all show in my repo list and activity feed.
timruffles 15y ago
If that was to become true, it'd be great to be able to curate your profile. At the moment your repos appear in order of newness, and an unchanged fork of someone's repo could be the first thing potential employers see.
freedrull 15y ago
Its really only true for startups at this point. I've had plenty of interviews with the interviewer scratching their head when I mention github.
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  I'd be fine working with devs who don't use github, but very alarmed at the prospect of working with anyone who never heard of it (or bitbucket or sourceforge). That betrays a striking ignorance of what's going on in the profession. Actually it might be a decent litmus test, if you have the luxury of avoiding navel-gazing employers.
tzs 15y ago
There are two issues with this. 1. It excludes developers who have managed to find jobs that are sufficiently challenging, difficult, and interesting that their jobs keep them fully occupied, and so they simply do not have the time or energy left over to contribute to a bunch of open stuff on Github. 2. What happens after you hire someone? Do you have any policy to ensure that the job won't take too much of their time, or won't be too challenging and interesting, so as to leave them the time and energy to continue working on various open stuff on Github?
- lowglow 15y ago
  I love Github, but I certainly must agree with point number 1. I work as a CTO at a start-up here in SF full-time (which means, 8am-2am). We have to a lot of developers and designers around the world which means when I'm not coding, chances are I'm managing. This leaves me very little time to contribute to my own personal projects, much less open source projects. I'd say that using Github as a resume is a great idea for Jr. Developers and students looking to get some "cred" in the real world. But that really just refers back to knowing your industry and being professional about your work.
  - dblock 15y ago
    Everyone missed the part where I found myself contributing to several open-source projects, naturally. Here's an example: we use this gem called "analytical". Its configuration didn't support test vs. dev vs. production. I could have hacked on top of it - it would have added some gross code to my project. Instead I changed the original - turned out to be less code overall and didn't pollute anything in my work project. My pull request (https://github.com/jkrall/analytical/pull/17 https://github.com/jkrall/analytical/pull/17) still hasn't been accepted, but we use the fork. I just think that the reason you're not contributing to OS is not time, it's that you choose to design within the box.
    - rreeves 15y ago
      Interesting considering he works from 8am-2am. How on earth do you come to the conclusion he's not contributing to OS because he chooses to design within the box?
wladh 15y ago
While this works for freelancers/students/startupers, it doesn't work very well for people working in bigger companies. If your interests are related to your day job, I think it's quite risky to put your code on GitHub, even if the code is not "official". While I do have a GitHub account with some code in it, that code is not really representative. If having a relevant GitHub account becomes a pre-requisite, you may be overlooking some good people.
- technomancy 15y ago
  > you may be overlooking some good people. Every heuristic overlooks good people. This heuristic has the advantage of having next to no false positives, even though it allows for lots of false negatives. Given that false positives are absolutely disastrous while false negatives are merely unfortunate, it's a trade-off I'm happy to make.
  - wladh 15y ago
    I guess the majority of repos are either bigger and useful open source projects or just small toys. If you're looking at somebody with repos from the first category, most likely his resume will mention "author/ contributor to project X". For the people in the second category, only thing you'd infer is that they can somewhat code. Which you could assume as well if they worked on any delivered project. There are obviously exceptions in both cases.
- heresy 15y ago
  Yep. Without thinking, I used code for an open source library I had written in my spare time in our proprietary software, and it came up during a due diligence check for acquisition. Wasn't a big deal in the end, I just made sure it was using a commercial friendly license, but you do have to take care. If it was a US employer they may have sued me if they didn't think that the OSS code came before the inclusion in the product (which it did).
shaggyfrog 15y ago
At first I thought "No, LinkedIn is my New Resume." But then I realized neither are. Because when a recruiter wants a resume, they want to see a concise document that details exactly how your experience matches their job requirements. Github can't be that because it would require that (probably non-technical) recruiter to slog through a lot of stuff to get to what they want to see. Which none of them will actually do.
cletus 15y ago
What about: - those that use different VCSs? - people who don't have the time (due to their job or other circumstances) to work on things they can open source? - people who work at companies that essentially own everything they might do so you can't work on open source? and - companies where hiring goes through HR who won't know what the hell Github is? Having work on Github is probably a good idea for college students and recent grads but once people are employed it's value drops off significantly (IMHO). From a hiring perspective, you're also greatly limited your field of candidates if you only look at Github profiles.
- jjm 15y ago
  While this post talks about GitHub, i think it very well applies to any distributed version control system. Having an open source project is another means of visibly showing your enthusiasm, and even skill set. Notice how I don't say actual 'skill'. That is always subject to the eye of the beholder. By your definition, someone better tell https://github.com/jeresig https://github.com/jeresig & https://github.com/zedshaw https://github.com/zedshaw they're JR developers and should go back to school.
  - mishmash 15y ago
    Both of your examples are of people who are and were extremely well known both before and outside of GitHub.
    - jjm 15y ago
      Well, I've met some extremely talented people through GitHub who would otherwise be unknown. People who have built now popular libraries and frameworks.
- kfalter 15y ago
  Github is to coders what an online portfolio/web presence is for designers. Look at the design industry... corporate designers and grads and freelancers used to all have a hard copy, artfully crafted portfolio on sensual-to-touch paper stock. That's gone. And no one cared if the corporate designers didn't have time to create a website. Even if you still have an amazing portfolio (which is the resume for the designer), you better have something online (whether they are personal projects done outside of work, or glimpses of projects done at work). The paper resume is going away anyway. And then when HR finally gets up with the times, do you really think they are going to say, "Aww, it's ok, we understand you didn't get on Github because you were waiting for us..." No. HR people hiring designers using their online portfolio is a lagging indicator. And the same will go for HR people hiring developers based on Github.
pkrumins 15y ago
Exactly what I said over a year ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472985 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472985
- dblock 15y ago
  Ah, but you were waaay ahead of your time! Now someone else (me) stole your thunder ;)
econgeeker 15y ago
One of the key motivators that made me start my own company was this kind of nonsense. Poor managers, having made bad hiring decisions, are always looking for some way to short circuit the process. The entire recruiting agency industry exists for this very purpose (and look how little they know about engineering!) This does provide a very useful feature for confident, quality engineers: Whenever someone asks for your github ID as part of the hiring process, you can say "Next!" Seriously, you're an engineer. You can be choosy. And signs of pointy-haired boss syndrome are a good way to choose. This is one of them. The correct way to interview someone is to have a stakeholder in the business, who is a competent engineer, look thru the resumes, pick the ones they want to meet with, and bring them in. Talk to them, one on one, for about 30 minutes. (You should know after about 5 minutes, but you want to give them more time so they don't feel like they're being brushed off if you aren't willing to give them the job right then and there. Also, be ready to make an offer, or tell them you'll be making an offer, right then and there.) If your startup doesn't have a stakeholder in the business whose competent enough to do this, then you still need your technical cofounder. Your technical cofounder cannot be "too busy" to interview engineers.
- llimllib 15y ago
  Frankly, I think you're out of your mind. You should hire people based on absolutely as much useful information as you can ethically get your hands on. Why waste the information in a person's github profile? Resumes suck, and are damned near useless. Bringing people in based on resumes wastes your lead engineer's time because the % hit rate on them will be very low. You will, at the very least, need to phone screen somebody that you only know from a resume, a process which takes a surprising amount of time. Talking to people is totally useful, and necessary, but not sufficient. It's prone to passing bullshitters (esp since you have your best technical person interviewing) and useless smart people (who don't get shit done), and to failing good employees who don't speak well or are having a bad hair/brain day or are very nervous. When you go to hire, use all the information you can. Look at their github, interview, have the person write code, have lunch with them to see if they get along with the team. Don't fail them for missing any one part of the interview, but take it all into account. Especially in a small team, you're making an decision with an enormous impact on the future of your company which is difficult and painful to undo. Don't waste any information.
jashmenn 15y ago
I recently interviewed at a Fortune 100 company's new "Innovation" group. I pointed them to the various projects I have on Github as examples of my work. They reviewed it and liked what they saw. However, my interviewer told me "we've seen your code on Github. It's great, but just so you know, you won't be able to keep that up if you work here." I asked more about what he meant by this and he told me that the company is extremely secretive and would not allow me to post any code to Github. Some other developers had already been told to take down some (very general, non-proprietary) code they had posted to Github. What came out is that my public work on Github helped me get an offer but I wasn't going to be able to contribute any new code during my years at this company. I certainly don't want a three-year blank spot in my public code "resume", so I turned down the offer. This is a bit of the tangent from the OP's point, but I think its related: Companies need to realize that the benefit of allowing employees to contribute to open-source isn't merely getting the community to work or review your team's code, but rather, open-source is a marketing and recruiting tool. Say you let your employees create and maintain open-source software. Say it is successful and other people start using that software. If it used widely enough, your employees are asked to speak at meetups and conferences and say "Look at this great software I built while working at company X. Company X is so cool, come work here!" (and every contributor to the project becomes a potential employee who will already know a portion of your code.) tl;dr - Companies: allow your employees to freely work on open-source and it will improve your recruiting.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Companies: allow your employees to freely work on open-source and it will improve your recruiting. Apple barely lets their employees blog even, and last I checked they're doing OK by all counts. Unfortunately, the intersection for people who are passionate about their 9to5 work and those that are passionate about their side-project seems to actually be fairly small.
  - jashmenn 15y ago
    So I agree with you in the case of Apple. But let's dissect for a minute why this is the case. Apple can be incredibly secretive and still hire with no problems because 1) they are literally creating world-changing products and people want to be involved with that 2) they have a reputation for hiring extremely bright people. If you take a job at Apple you will interact with them (/ be one of them) But outside of the big technology names (msft, google, fb, etc.) there's a huge collection of companies where either a) the brand is known but the company isn't know for being an innovative place in the hacker community or b) the company isn't known and neither is the team. In both of type (a) and (b) companies you hear a lot of moaning from managers right now about how they can't find any good folks to hire. So I'll qualify my advice a little bit: If you find you're having a hard time finding "rockstar-ninja-l88t programmers" by posting to Monster.com, maybe consider that you're approaching hiring in the wrong way.
Loic 15y ago
No, github is not your new resume. Remember the post from Marco? You need to own your identity[1]. You do not own your github account. If you really want to show that you are a good coder, you need your own website as a central point with aggregation of your information from other sources. Github is really nice, but in 5 years, they may have sold themselves to BigCorp for BigMoney and the BigCorp could completely destroy github. Be it github or the next "cool company", do yourself a favour, build your own site at the centre. Of course, you can open source the code on github or the next cool git/svn/hg hosting company too. Double win. [1]: http://www.marco.org/2011/07/11/own-your-identity http://www.marco.org/2011/07/11/own-your-identity
mechanical_fish 15y ago
I don't want to take the time to build it, so here's a silly programming project for an afternoon: Build a bot that can simulate an open source genius via a classic academic technique: Plagiarism. The algorithm: Use Github's API and/or Google to find some popular repos. Fork those repos into a new Github account named (e.g.) "Nicolai". For each repo, find some other forks of that repo. Grab some branch names and commits from those forks and commit them to Nicolai's fork, under Nicolai's name and with a few Nicolai-specific changes here and there, to commit messages and perhaps to code comments, to obscure the trail. Sprinkle in some choice text from, e.g., Zippy the Pinhead, the Tao te Ching, random comments from Stack Overflow or Lambda the Ultimate... whatever. Scoring: For every recruiter who emails Nicolai with an opportunity: one point. For every interview that Nicolai gets offered: ten points. For every job offer that Nicolai gets: one thousand points.
- cbo 15y ago
  Building this bot should get a job for the right person. It's not only a coding project in its own right, but it's also a very clever form of lateral thinking that shows a certain cheekiness and savvy that can be appreciated by plenty of businesses out there. The trick is that you have to make sure you're not hiring for any of their plagiarized projects. What if they plagiarized the bot itself?
- marakfires 15y ago
  I fail to see how that is any different from someone lying on their resume. If the hiring manager is too stupid to be able to detect the person is lying about their skill level after a 15 minute conversation, caveat emptor.
  - evilduck 15y ago
    Lying on your resume is an explicit attempt to deceive a prospective employer. Lying on Github (and then presumably not using it on an actual job application), you're only fooling those who are willing to be fooled. If someone is going to scrape data off the web about people and evaluate it for prospective candidates, the burden of separating the signal from the noise is on them, the internet is full of bullshit. You're obviously mucking with their process, but you didn't ask to be included in it either. No different than assuming all the content on blogs isn't plagiarized and then trying to use that to proposition people to be authors.
mtviewdave 15y ago
A big problem with github-as-resume for the experienced developer is that it destroys the idea of side-projects as play. I can no longer just fool around with something for the sake of fooling around with it. I now have to judge whether my “fool-around” project is good enough to go on github and be evaluated by potential hiring managers. And if not, I need to ask why I’m working on it, rather than working on something that I’d want a hiring manager to see. Moreover, everything I put out there now needs to be of professional quality, including comments, code organization, adherence to conventions, etc. And from the beginning, because hiring manager might look at logs and frown upon the fact that I inserted a bunch of comments, and cleaned up a much of memory leaks, two days before I applied for the job. For a side-project in a technology that I use at the office, this basically makes side projects the same as work. Which is going to lead to burnout really fast. For a side-project in a new technology, I’d be much less inclined to take my time to learn something new. My first few attempts at writing something in a programming language I’m learning are invariably something I don’t want anyone else to see. But again, why would I take time to work on something that I can’t put on github, if that’s how I’m being judged?
- orangecat 15y ago
  Excellent points. If github-as-resume becomes commonplace, we can expect to see lots of methods for gaming it, as Goodhart's law would predict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodharts_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodharts_law.
- dblock 15y ago
  Sounds reasonable, but this is how you feel. Personally I like to see the Ruby on Rails tutorial code in someone's GitHub.
salsakran 15y ago
If you're using this sort of approach, check out www.gitalytics.com, a site I made to automate this sort of search when I was doing it.
mtogo 15y ago
So do yourself a favor and move to Github! How, exactly, would i be doing myself a favor with this? I'm not such a big fan of git and i avoid github on moral grounds[1]. Other code hosting services work great for me and i see no reason to switch both my hosting and my VCS. I don't disagree with the argument that your code should act as your resume, but it could have been worded a lot better. [1] I can't in good conscience support the guy who posts things like this routinely: http://dev.pocoo.org/~blackbird/github-vs-bitbucket/bitbucket.html http://dev.pocoo.org/~blackbird/github-vs-bitbucket/bitbucke... and http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/
- eropple 15y ago
  Wooooow. I already wasn't a fan of Git or Github, but those links are vomitous. "Waah, they copied us!" Maybe. "PLAGIARISM!" Not so much.
pcote 15y ago
Not in my experience. Most job boards are dominated by technical recruiters so, to get in through them, you play by their rules. In their world, web presence of projects almost never counts. The rationale is that "anyone can point to my work and claim they did it." The preference for assessment is still resume keywords, good references, and multiple choice tests.
- dblock 15y ago
  There's a huge trend of engineering managers to take things in control to avoid this. Every time I had an HR person between me and a candidate they managed to screw something up. Here're some better job boards. http://wearenytech.com/jobs http://wearenytech.com/jobs (New York based) http://careers.stackoverflow.com http://careers.stackoverflow.com
  - pcote 15y ago
    I'm liking this trend you speak of but it hasn't reached everywhere yet. I live in the middle of Connecticut and there are 2 companies total that post anything on the Stack Overflow boards. So, the reality of the situation would seem to leave 3 options for people in my neighborhood. 1. Play by the rules of the local recruiters. 2. Telecommute. 3. Move.
theblueadept111 15y ago
"Your first job should be at an organization that embraces open-source and lets you contribute to existing projects. Other companies simply don’t deserve you." Oh, I had to laugh at that. Good luck explaining that one to the wife. I'm sorry honey, the pay way great, the benefits were good, there was an excellent health plan and even a stock buy-in option.... if ONLY they had agreed to embrace open source so I could work there.
- dblock 15y ago
  You're implying that a company that encourages open-source contributions sucks at pay, benefits, health plan and stock. You should know that generally startups, which by definition encourage more open-source contributions, have comparable pay, benefits, health plans and stock after their first round of financing. There's more risk in theory, but the numbers since the financial crisis are against this theory.
- mitcheme 15y ago
  If open source is so important to our hypothetical you that you'd turn down an otherwise-great job over it, why did you marry someone who is so unsupportive of it? Even if your SO is 'bad with computer', presumably they know how much you value "open-source" (whatever the heck that is). Sounds like hypothetical you made some poor life choices.
Aloisius 15y ago
On a related note, you can actually add your github repo details to your LinkedIn profile via their OpenSocial app. I have found it super useful when looking at people. http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=122233 http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_p...
jim_h 15y ago
I wonder if programmers are going to overwork themselves at some point. Judged by programming OUTSIDE of work time. Not having free time to do this is not an excuse. gf/bf/wife/husband/son/daughter/parents/dog/cat/friends/life will have to understand that you need time for your craft. I currently have time to do programming in my spare time, but I worry that in a few years my time won't be as free.
- walketim 15y ago
  What is wrong with only programming 10 hours a day?
  - shadowfox 15y ago
    Often enough the fear that others will "overtake" you, for some personal definition thereof
  - jim_h 15y ago
    I was actually being sarcastic, except the first and last sentence. I should have been more clear.
Okvivi 15y ago
Anything that can quickly prove you are awesome can be your resume. TopCoder, your LinkedIn profile, the list of hacks and demos that you've put together yourself, I think they all fit this category. Did you create some awesome project on GitHub (or on any other CVS for that matter)? Then you have something to show off. But none of them in themselves will help you get hired. They will maybe help you get to the interview.
wes-exp 15y ago
You're not your Github account. You're not your Facebook account. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f'ing open source project. I don't espouse the negativity in Fight Club, but the quote that I've adapted seems particularly relevant here. "Facebook users 'are insecure, narcissistic and have low self-esteem'" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310230/Facebook-users-narcissistic-insecure-low-self-esteem.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310230/Faceb... I consider Github sort of the developer equivalent of Facebook. Let me clarify that. If you're posting stuff on Github just to impress recruiters and fellow engineers, then it is. If you're using it in a constructive way, less so or maybe not at all. The point I'm trying to make is that there are parallels between the two. Look. It's good to provide recruiters (by recruiter I mean a real engineer here who is evaluating candidates) evidence that you're skilled. There are many ways to do that. One way would be to bring in code and discuss it. Another way would be to work through programming problems in the recruiter's presence. I'm not talking about "a-ha" brain teasers but real, actual programming. After all, that's what a programmer is (theoretically) being hired to do. But please do not encourage an arms race where programmers fall over each other trying to see how much code they can post publicly, and how much work they can give away. I'm highly skilled and my time is precious. I don't spend it looking in front of the (Github) mirror, and I actually charge money for it. Charity is a good thing, but you shouldn't do it to boost your ego and image. And further, if that's all you spend your time doing, I would wonder why you want to work in private industry where the purpose is to make money so we can be employed. You know, engineers at Apple might not have Github accounts, but they are employed and support their families. Apple's work also lifts tons of people out of poverty in China. How many people does your open source project feed? You guys need to step off the ego train and direct your energy into stuff that actually matters. And you will be happier for it.
- dblock 15y ago
  I actually agree with a lot of stuff here. One should contribute to things that are useful for your job or your future, not spend time polishing your github resume.
kgo 15y ago
I had this crazy idea that I'd buy a vanity domain with my name in it. Use it as my personal email, which is used an all kinds of technical newsgroups. Setup a web page where I described myself, linked to various projects, source code, etc. A site that has a better indication of my personality than github ever would, and has some projects that will never go in github for various reason. After seeing the last one of these articles, I actually put a note on my github site directing people to my primary site. Seems silly that I felt I had to do this, but oh well. It's also a shame that the last few patches I did, involving smartcard hardware for gnupg, doesn't get me any bonus points, since that project, like a majority of major projects, hosts its own version control. Not to mention, 9 times out of 10 when I open an issue on a github project, I hear nothing back, making me really unmotivated to fork the project and fix something.
- sc68cal 15y ago
  I did the reverse - had a vanity domain and all that stuff, then just tacked my Github account onto it. Also, why not find your patches from http://git.gnupg.org http://git.gnupg.org ?
walketim 15y ago
No it's not. Github it's a shared repository tool.
NathanKP 15y ago
I don't use a public Github because my interesting code often isn't something I want to share with the public, particularly if it happens to include AWS credentials, API keys to various services, etc. All my most interesting sites have been money making endeavors as well, so I don't see any reason to give away the source code, or share it with the public. I do share the URL of the finished product, though, and that has been enough to land me quite a number of job offers, including the one that led to the startup position I am filling right now. I've never made a traditional resume, and I've never made my code publicly accessible on Github but I've gotten along fine.
- dpritchett 15y ago
  I usually put my credentials in a separate include file and then filter it out with gitignore.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  You should really be factoring out sensitive information from your repos anyway.
qnm 15y ago
Github[0] gives Junior developers another way to get an interview. Those with minimal professional experience are able to show - to some degree - that they can code, use a VCS and have an understanding of the push/pull/fork contribution model. Bonus points for contributions, bug reports etc. I don't believe it replaces one, but for those without a well-seasoned resume, a Github profile works well as a conversation starter. [0] Or any public VCS, of course.
mattdeboard 15y ago
I put my stuff up on Github in part because I like being part of a community. It also has the nice side effect that it shows that I'm intellectually curious and like trying out new things. If someone is looking for a new hire with those qualities, it'll be a big benefit. If they're not I don't really want to work there to be honest.
Fixnum 15y ago
> College and Personal Projects At the risk of stating the obvious, I'd strongly recommend against putting school projects in a public repo. You might disagree with the ethics of it, but if someone submits your code to your own school, you could conceivably be held responsible for facilitating plagiarism.
- dblock 15y ago
  I am shocked. What kind of pojects are those? Does anyone believe that students were waiting for this "internet" thing to share source?
beaker 15y ago
I must be getting old, but this post strikes me as silly to the point of seeming like a troll. If any hiring managers are seriously discarding candidates that don't use github, well, I think the market will ultimately dictate the utility of this shortcut.

174 points by dblock 15y ago

this may be true in startup land, where hires are evaluated by the engineers/managers/founders but it's absolutely not the case in the world of BigCorps. many recruiters (including internal ones) are less technical than anyone would like and have to operate on looking at key words in a resume before deciding what to pass along to managers. a github account with a bunch of code in it would be so confusing they'd just move on. if you're looking for work, it's worth knowing how to put together a good resume just so it gets you by the HR department. i've also had experience where i was required to write (non trivial) sample code with my application, only to find out months after i started the job that nobody even looked at it. code samples and projects are great to have, and especially helpful if someone cares, but the resume isn't dead yet.

gaius 15y ago
Nah, not really, because "a github account with a bunch of code in it" is the signal. Of course, it can be gamed by someone who just forks a bunch of other people's repos, which a recruiter won't be able to spot but "github" is a keyword that can be searched for on a CV like any other.
icefox 15y ago
Not everyone reviewing resumes at BigCorps are bad. For what it is worth I work for 'BigCorp' and when looking for new guys on my team I do read any code I am given and go out looking for any code on GitHub and elsewhere. Internal transfers are easier as I don't have to do any hunting and just go looking through our internal repository at their commits.
galenward 15y ago
Maybe a better title would be "Github is Your new Resume... At Progressive Companies With Strong Engineering Organizations." I think Daniel nailed it.
- dblock 15y ago
  Thank you. I wasn't writing about dinosaurs :)
almightygod 15y ago
I agree, a recruiter is not going to know what to look for on github. But the engineering team should, if they are worth joining. I think sites like coderwall.com and vizualize.me are interesting in that they summarize your experience to get you past the initial quick screening.
kjksf 15y ago
I think you're mixing up BigCorps with IncompetentCorps. I've had plenty of BigCorps asking me to interview with them based solely on my open source work (they contacted me). Those were companies like Amazon, Google, Twitter etc. (companies I would consider working for). So I know that this advice works also in the context of BigCorps that are technical and competent. I haven't had similar offers from GM or WalMart or Shell (or name-your-own-bigcorp) even though I'm sure they also hire programmers. But given that I do have an option of working at a company like Google, I wouldn't even consider working for GM, which, and that's an educated guess, doesn't pamper their employees as much as Google, doesn't pay them as well and doesn't respect them as much. So add that as one more benefit of github-as-a-resume model: it attracts companies that treat programmers extraordinarily well so not only you get more work opportunities but those opportunities are of the highest quality.
- unshift 15y ago
  for what it's worth, my experience comes from getting hired at vmware and ITA software (now google). in my experience, the recruiters who source and filter resumes at those companies are rarely technical.

sjs 15y ago

I use zerply. The name is terrible but I like their service and don't see myself updating my "traditional" cv in the near future. That could change but I'll resist it. Might be a nice recruiter filter too. If you tell them you don't have a resume and point them at your github or whatever else and it's not good enough you probably dodged a bullet. If they are fine with it then perhaps you found the proverbial needle in the haystack and could give the recruiter a chance.

sc68cal 15y ago

I came to this conclusion a while ago and tossed Github Badge (http://drnic.github.com/github-badges/ http://drnic.github.com/github-badges/) on my personal site.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
almightygod 15y ago
cool, similar to coderwall
- sc68cal 15y ago
  Ah - I just gave coderwall a try this time. Github's authorization prompt is much clearer now as to what I'm allowing access to.

lucian1900 15y ago

GitHub in particular is problematic for those of us that don't particularly use Git, and use other hosts for their code. Something like ohloh is much better suited to being a CV.

jjm 15y ago
Ohloh has everything but the code. It reminds me of those "CSS galleries" but for open source projects. In the end, I'm where the code is, and that place is GitHub.
stevelosh 15y ago
If you're using Mercurial instead of Git you can create a mirror on GitHub with little effort (unless you're doing something pretty crazy with your DAG): http://hgtip.com/tips/advanced/2009-11-09-create-a-git-mirror/ http://hgtip.com/tips/advanced/2009-11-09-create-a-git-mirro... This also lets git users contribute to your project, so you get the benefit of GitHub's community without having to deal with git.
- eropple 15y ago
  Interesting, but this doesn't address the other problem--I fundamentally dislike Github! (I use Bitbucket because of consistently stellar support from Atlassian and an overall pleasant working experience.) And going outside my current, working ecosystem for benefits I consider dubious at best--the overwhelming majority of open-source projects get no outside commits, ever, and magic Github pixie dust doesn't really change that--isn't really a good use of time. For me, Git and Github are both problems with this "GitHub's your resume" thing, not one or the other.
  - bronson 15y ago
    So BitBucket is your resume. Where's the problem?
    - eropple 15y ago
      My resume is my resume. My personal code is closed-source, with the exception of a couple of bits for presentations and an archived project for which I am a maintainer. You could say that "well, that one archived project is your resume," but that would be foolish (not that you are saying that, but it does follow from all of this) because it has little to do with what I actually do. More than anything, though, I kind of find all this "anoint the buzzwordy startup as the new X" stuff silly. Maybe one company in ten would actually follow a link to Github or Bitbucket on my resume, regardless of the content. At least for now, the resume is the new resume.

courtewing 15y ago

Along these lines, David Coallier created a tool to generate your github "résumé" awhile back: http://resume.github.com/ http://resume.github.com/ As unshift mentioned, the entire development community is not quite at the point where a github account can be used as your go-to résumé, but it is certainly becoming more and more useful in the job market.

dblock 15y ago
cool, thanks for mentioning resume, I've never seen it!

arasraj 15y ago

I certainly believe this to be a trend. I have been interviewing with different startups and they all have seemed to respond more to my github page than my resume. They all want to hear about personal projects and your thought process through them. Maybe I'm biased towards startups though.

programminggeek 15y ago

I like the idea of GitHub as a resume, but most of the code I drop in GitHub is closed source and I don't spend a lot of free time hacking on other people's projects. So, while a GitHub resume is a great idea if you do a lot of open source hacking, it is not nearly as useful if you are working on private code.

dblock 15y ago
My day-to-day tasks are all around private repos too. But for some reason I keep having to patch, fix, edit, hack other people's open source projects. If you don't, maybe it's time to look for a piece inside a private repo that could be useful to others and spend the extra time extracting it into something open-source?
gaius 15y ago
Yeah. I mean, accountants and lawyers don't publish accounts and cases they've worked on pro-bono do they?
- almightygod 15y ago
  not yet but I think as far as making use of the web, devs are on the early start of a trend. Think about blogs, they were widely used in the tech community before mass adoption, now my mom even has one. I suspect you will find more and more industries figuring out ways to share their professional experience online

krobertson 15y ago

I recently started a new job and their recruiter found me through my Github profile. Aside from that, I put my Github link on my CV and have for a while. Additionally, when I am interviewing others, I always like to see a Github link or will Google them to find a Github account. Even though people may work a lot in closed source, it is interesting to see the activity history, to see which projects they've forked, patched, written, or contributed to. It sometimes varies based on the community you're in, but the Ruby community is very collaborative and sharing contributions. Even when I've worked in largely closed source codebases, I'll still encounter bugs in other libraries, fork them, fix it, and send a pull request. Those all show in my repo list and activity feed.

timruffles 15y ago

If that was to become true, it'd be great to be able to curate your profile. At the moment your repos appear in order of newness, and an unchanged fork of someone's repo could be the first thing potential employers see.

freedrull 15y ago

Its really only true for startups at this point. I've had plenty of interviews with the interviewer scratching their head when I mention github.

prodigal_erik 15y ago
I'd be fine working with devs who don't use github, but very alarmed at the prospect of working with anyone who never heard of it (or bitbucket or sourceforge). That betrays a striking ignorance of what's going on in the profession. Actually it might be a decent litmus test, if you have the luxury of avoiding navel-gazing employers.

tzs 15y ago

There are two issues with this. 1. It excludes developers who have managed to find jobs that are sufficiently challenging, difficult, and interesting that their jobs keep them fully occupied, and so they simply do not have the time or energy left over to contribute to a bunch of open stuff on Github. 2. What happens after you hire someone? Do you have any policy to ensure that the job won't take too much of their time, or won't be too challenging and interesting, so as to leave them the time and energy to continue working on various open stuff on Github?

lowglow 15y ago
I love Github, but I certainly must agree with point number 1. I work as a CTO at a start-up here in SF full-time (which means, 8am-2am). We have to a lot of developers and designers around the world which means when I'm not coding, chances are I'm managing. This leaves me very little time to contribute to my own personal projects, much less open source projects. I'd say that using Github as a resume is a great idea for Jr. Developers and students looking to get some "cred" in the real world. But that really just refers back to knowing your industry and being professional about your work.
- dblock 15y ago
  Everyone missed the part where I found myself contributing to several open-source projects, naturally. Here's an example: we use this gem called "analytical". Its configuration didn't support test vs. dev vs. production. I could have hacked on top of it - it would have added some gross code to my project. Instead I changed the original - turned out to be less code overall and didn't pollute anything in my work project. My pull request (https://github.com/jkrall/analytical/pull/17 https://github.com/jkrall/analytical/pull/17) still hasn't been accepted, but we use the fork. I just think that the reason you're not contributing to OS is not time, it's that you choose to design within the box.
  - rreeves 15y ago
    Interesting considering he works from 8am-2am. How on earth do you come to the conclusion he's not contributing to OS because he chooses to design within the box?

wladh 15y ago

While this works for freelancers/students/startupers, it doesn't work very well for people working in bigger companies. If your interests are related to your day job, I think it's quite risky to put your code on GitHub, even if the code is not "official". While I do have a GitHub account with some code in it, that code is not really representative. If having a relevant GitHub account becomes a pre-requisite, you may be overlooking some good people.

technomancy 15y ago
> you may be overlooking some good people. Every heuristic overlooks good people. This heuristic has the advantage of having next to no false positives, even though it allows for lots of false negatives. Given that false positives are absolutely disastrous while false negatives are merely unfortunate, it's a trade-off I'm happy to make.
- wladh 15y ago
  I guess the majority of repos are either bigger and useful open source projects or just small toys. If you're looking at somebody with repos from the first category, most likely his resume will mention "author/ contributor to project X". For the people in the second category, only thing you'd infer is that they can somewhat code. Which you could assume as well if they worked on any delivered project. There are obviously exceptions in both cases.
heresy 15y ago
Yep. Without thinking, I used code for an open source library I had written in my spare time in our proprietary software, and it came up during a due diligence check for acquisition. Wasn't a big deal in the end, I just made sure it was using a commercial friendly license, but you do have to take care. If it was a US employer they may have sued me if they didn't think that the OSS code came before the inclusion in the product (which it did).

shaggyfrog 15y ago

At first I thought "No, LinkedIn is my New Resume." But then I realized neither are. Because when a recruiter wants a resume, they want to see a concise document that details exactly how your experience matches their job requirements. Github can't be that because it would require that (probably non-technical) recruiter to slog through a lot of stuff to get to what they want to see. Which none of them will actually do.

cletus 15y ago

What about: - those that use different VCSs? - people who don't have the time (due to their job or other circumstances) to work on things they can open source? - people who work at companies that essentially own everything they might do so you can't work on open source? and - companies where hiring goes through HR who won't know what the hell Github is? Having work on Github is probably a good idea for college students and recent grads but once people are employed it's value drops off significantly (IMHO). From a hiring perspective, you're also greatly limited your field of candidates if you only look at Github profiles.

jjm 15y ago
While this post talks about GitHub, i think it very well applies to any distributed version control system. Having an open source project is another means of visibly showing your enthusiasm, and even skill set. Notice how I don't say actual 'skill'. That is always subject to the eye of the beholder. By your definition, someone better tell https://github.com/jeresig https://github.com/jeresig & https://github.com/zedshaw https://github.com/zedshaw they're JR developers and should go back to school.
- mishmash 15y ago
  Both of your examples are of people who are and were extremely well known both before and outside of GitHub.
  - jjm 15y ago
    Well, I've met some extremely talented people through GitHub who would otherwise be unknown. People who have built now popular libraries and frameworks.
kfalter 15y ago
Github is to coders what an online portfolio/web presence is for designers. Look at the design industry... corporate designers and grads and freelancers used to all have a hard copy, artfully crafted portfolio on sensual-to-touch paper stock. That's gone. And no one cared if the corporate designers didn't have time to create a website. Even if you still have an amazing portfolio (which is the resume for the designer), you better have something online (whether they are personal projects done outside of work, or glimpses of projects done at work). The paper resume is going away anyway. And then when HR finally gets up with the times, do you really think they are going to say, "Aww, it's ok, we understand you didn't get on Github because you were waiting for us..." No. HR people hiring designers using their online portfolio is a lagging indicator. And the same will go for HR people hiring developers based on Github.

pkrumins 15y ago

Exactly what I said over a year ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472985 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472985

dblock 15y ago
Ah, but you were waaay ahead of your time! Now someone else (me) stole your thunder ;)

econgeeker 15y ago

One of the key motivators that made me start my own company was this kind of nonsense. Poor managers, having made bad hiring decisions, are always looking for some way to short circuit the process. The entire recruiting agency industry exists for this very purpose (and look how little they know about engineering!) This does provide a very useful feature for confident, quality engineers: Whenever someone asks for your github ID as part of the hiring process, you can say "Next!" Seriously, you're an engineer. You can be choosy. And signs of pointy-haired boss syndrome are a good way to choose. This is one of them. The correct way to interview someone is to have a stakeholder in the business, who is a competent engineer, look thru the resumes, pick the ones they want to meet with, and bring them in. Talk to them, one on one, for about 30 minutes. (You should know after about 5 minutes, but you want to give them more time so they don't feel like they're being brushed off if you aren't willing to give them the job right then and there. Also, be ready to make an offer, or tell them you'll be making an offer, right then and there.) If your startup doesn't have a stakeholder in the business whose competent enough to do this, then you still need your technical cofounder. Your technical cofounder cannot be "too busy" to interview engineers.

llimllib 15y ago
Frankly, I think you're out of your mind. You should hire people based on absolutely as much useful information as you can ethically get your hands on. Why waste the information in a person's github profile? Resumes suck, and are damned near useless. Bringing people in based on resumes wastes your lead engineer's time because the % hit rate on them will be very low. You will, at the very least, need to phone screen somebody that you only know from a resume, a process which takes a surprising amount of time. Talking to people is totally useful, and necessary, but not sufficient. It's prone to passing bullshitters (esp since you have your best technical person interviewing) and useless smart people (who don't get shit done), and to failing good employees who don't speak well or are having a bad hair/brain day or are very nervous. When you go to hire, use all the information you can. Look at their github, interview, have the person write code, have lunch with them to see if they get along with the team. Don't fail them for missing any one part of the interview, but take it all into account. Especially in a small team, you're making an decision with an enormous impact on the future of your company which is difficult and painful to undo. Don't waste any information.

jashmenn 15y ago

I recently interviewed at a Fortune 100 company's new "Innovation" group. I pointed them to the various projects I have on Github as examples of my work. They reviewed it and liked what they saw. However, my interviewer told me "we've seen your code on Github. It's great, but just so you know, you won't be able to keep that up if you work here." I asked more about what he meant by this and he told me that the company is extremely secretive and would not allow me to post any code to Github. Some other developers had already been told to take down some (very general, non-proprietary) code they had posted to Github. What came out is that my public work on Github helped me get an offer but I wasn't going to be able to contribute any new code during my years at this company. I certainly don't want a three-year blank spot in my public code "resume", so I turned down the offer. This is a bit of the tangent from the OP's point, but I think its related: Companies need to realize that the benefit of allowing employees to contribute to open-source isn't merely getting the community to work or review your team's code, but rather, open-source is a marketing and recruiting tool. Say you let your employees create and maintain open-source software. Say it is successful and other people start using that software. If it used widely enough, your employees are asked to speak at meetups and conferences and say "Look at this great software I built while working at company X. Company X is so cool, come work here!" (and every contributor to the project becomes a potential employee who will already know a portion of your code.) tl;dr - Companies: allow your employees to freely work on open-source and it will improve your recruiting.

kenjackson 15y ago
Companies: allow your employees to freely work on open-source and it will improve your recruiting. Apple barely lets their employees blog even, and last I checked they're doing OK by all counts. Unfortunately, the intersection for people who are passionate about their 9to5 work and those that are passionate about their side-project seems to actually be fairly small.
- jashmenn 15y ago
  So I agree with you in the case of Apple. But let's dissect for a minute why this is the case. Apple can be incredibly secretive and still hire with no problems because 1) they are literally creating world-changing products and people want to be involved with that 2) they have a reputation for hiring extremely bright people. If you take a job at Apple you will interact with them (/ be one of them) But outside of the big technology names (msft, google, fb, etc.) there's a huge collection of companies where either a) the brand is known but the company isn't know for being an innovative place in the hacker community or b) the company isn't known and neither is the team. In both of type (a) and (b) companies you hear a lot of moaning from managers right now about how they can't find any good folks to hire. So I'll qualify my advice a little bit: If you find you're having a hard time finding "rockstar-ninja-l88t programmers" by posting to Monster.com, maybe consider that you're approaching hiring in the wrong way.

Loic 15y ago

No, github is not your new resume. Remember the post from Marco? You need to own your identity[1]. You do not own your github account. If you really want to show that you are a good coder, you need your own website as a central point with aggregation of your information from other sources. Github is really nice, but in 5 years, they may have sold themselves to BigCorp for BigMoney and the BigCorp could completely destroy github. Be it github or the next "cool company", do yourself a favour, build your own site at the centre. Of course, you can open source the code on github or the next cool git/svn/hg hosting company too. Double win. [1]: http://www.marco.org/2011/07/11/own-your-identity http://www.marco.org/2011/07/11/own-your-identity

mechanical_fish 15y ago

I don't want to take the time to build it, so here's a silly programming project for an afternoon: Build a bot that can simulate an open source genius via a classic academic technique: Plagiarism. The algorithm: Use Github's API and/or Google to find some popular repos. Fork those repos into a new Github account named (e.g.) "Nicolai". For each repo, find some other forks of that repo. Grab some branch names and commits from those forks and commit them to Nicolai's fork, under Nicolai's name and with a few Nicolai-specific changes here and there, to commit messages and perhaps to code comments, to obscure the trail. Sprinkle in some choice text from, e.g., Zippy the Pinhead, the Tao te Ching, random comments from Stack Overflow or Lambda the Ultimate... whatever. Scoring: For every recruiter who emails Nicolai with an opportunity: one point. For every interview that Nicolai gets offered: ten points. For every job offer that Nicolai gets: one thousand points.

cbo 15y ago
Building this bot should get a job for the right person. It's not only a coding project in its own right, but it's also a very clever form of lateral thinking that shows a certain cheekiness and savvy that can be appreciated by plenty of businesses out there. The trick is that you have to make sure you're not hiring for any of their plagiarized projects. What if they plagiarized the bot itself?
marakfires 15y ago
I fail to see how that is any different from someone lying on their resume. If the hiring manager is too stupid to be able to detect the person is lying about their skill level after a 15 minute conversation, caveat emptor.
- evilduck 15y ago
  Lying on your resume is an explicit attempt to deceive a prospective employer. Lying on Github (and then presumably not using it on an actual job application), you're only fooling those who are willing to be fooled. If someone is going to scrape data off the web about people and evaluate it for prospective candidates, the burden of separating the signal from the noise is on them, the internet is full of bullshit. You're obviously mucking with their process, but you didn't ask to be included in it either. No different than assuming all the content on blogs isn't plagiarized and then trying to use that to proposition people to be authors.

mtviewdave 15y ago

A big problem with github-as-resume for the experienced developer is that it destroys the idea of side-projects as play. I can no longer just fool around with something for the sake of fooling around with it. I now have to judge whether my “fool-around” project is good enough to go on github and be evaluated by potential hiring managers. And if not, I need to ask why I’m working on it, rather than working on something that I’d want a hiring manager to see. Moreover, everything I put out there now needs to be of professional quality, including comments, code organization, adherence to conventions, etc. And from the beginning, because hiring manager might look at logs and frown upon the fact that I inserted a bunch of comments, and cleaned up a much of memory leaks, two days before I applied for the job. For a side-project in a technology that I use at the office, this basically makes side projects the same as work. Which is going to lead to burnout really fast. For a side-project in a new technology, I’d be much less inclined to take my time to learn something new. My first few attempts at writing something in a programming language I’m learning are invariably something I don’t want anyone else to see. But again, why would I take time to work on something that I can’t put on github, if that’s how I’m being judged?

orangecat 15y ago
Excellent points. If github-as-resume becomes commonplace, we can expect to see lots of methods for gaming it, as Goodhart's law would predict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodharts_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodharts_law.
dblock 15y ago
Sounds reasonable, but this is how you feel. Personally I like to see the Ruby on Rails tutorial code in someone's GitHub.

salsakran 15y ago

If you're using this sort of approach, check out www.gitalytics.com, a site I made to automate this sort of search when I was doing it.

mtogo 15y ago

So do yourself a favor and move to Github! How, exactly, would i be doing myself a favor with this? I'm not such a big fan of git and i avoid github on moral grounds[1]. Other code hosting services work great for me and i see no reason to switch both my hosting and my VCS. I don't disagree with the argument that your code should act as your resume, but it could have been worded a lot better. [1] I can't in good conscience support the guy who posts things like this routinely: http://dev.pocoo.org/~blackbird/github-vs-bitbucket/bitbucket.html http://dev.pocoo.org/~blackbird/github-vs-bitbucket/bitbucke... and http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/

eropple 15y ago
Wooooow. I already wasn't a fan of Git or Github, but those links are vomitous. "Waah, they copied us!" Maybe. "PLAGIARISM!" Not so much.

pcote 15y ago

Not in my experience. Most job boards are dominated by technical recruiters so, to get in through them, you play by their rules. In their world, web presence of projects almost never counts. The rationale is that "anyone can point to my work and claim they did it." The preference for assessment is still resume keywords, good references, and multiple choice tests.

dblock 15y ago
There's a huge trend of engineering managers to take things in control to avoid this. Every time I had an HR person between me and a candidate they managed to screw something up. Here're some better job boards. http://wearenytech.com/jobs http://wearenytech.com/jobs (New York based) http://careers.stackoverflow.com http://careers.stackoverflow.com
- pcote 15y ago
  I'm liking this trend you speak of but it hasn't reached everywhere yet. I live in the middle of Connecticut and there are 2 companies total that post anything on the Stack Overflow boards. So, the reality of the situation would seem to leave 3 options for people in my neighborhood. 1. Play by the rules of the local recruiters. 2. Telecommute. 3. Move.

theblueadept111 15y ago

"Your first job should be at an organization that embraces open-source and lets you contribute to existing projects. Other companies simply don’t deserve you." Oh, I had to laugh at that. Good luck explaining that one to the wife. I'm sorry honey, the pay way great, the benefits were good, there was an excellent health plan and even a stock buy-in option.... if ONLY they had agreed to embrace open source so I could work there.

dblock 15y ago
You're implying that a company that encourages open-source contributions sucks at pay, benefits, health plan and stock. You should know that generally startups, which by definition encourage more open-source contributions, have comparable pay, benefits, health plans and stock after their first round of financing. There's more risk in theory, but the numbers since the financial crisis are against this theory.
mitcheme 15y ago
If open source is so important to our hypothetical you that you'd turn down an otherwise-great job over it, why did you marry someone who is so unsupportive of it? Even if your SO is 'bad with computer', presumably they know how much you value "open-source" (whatever the heck that is). Sounds like hypothetical you made some poor life choices.

Aloisius 15y ago

On a related note, you can actually add your github repo details to your LinkedIn profile via their OpenSocial app. I have found it super useful when looking at people. http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=122233 http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_p...

jim_h 15y ago

I wonder if programmers are going to overwork themselves at some point. Judged by programming OUTSIDE of work time. Not having free time to do this is not an excuse. gf/bf/wife/husband/son/daughter/parents/dog/cat/friends/life will have to understand that you need time for your craft. I currently have time to do programming in my spare time, but I worry that in a few years my time won't be as free.

walketim 15y ago
What is wrong with only programming 10 hours a day?
- shadowfox 15y ago
  Often enough the fear that others will "overtake" you, for some personal definition thereof
- jim_h 15y ago
  I was actually being sarcastic, except the first and last sentence. I should have been more clear.

Okvivi 15y ago

Anything that can quickly prove you are awesome can be your resume. TopCoder, your LinkedIn profile, the list of hacks and demos that you've put together yourself, I think they all fit this category. Did you create some awesome project on GitHub (or on any other CVS for that matter)? Then you have something to show off. But none of them in themselves will help you get hired. They will maybe help you get to the interview.

wes-exp 15y ago

You're not your Github account. You're not your Facebook account. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f'ing open source project. I don't espouse the negativity in Fight Club, but the quote that I've adapted seems particularly relevant here. "Facebook users 'are insecure, narcissistic and have low self-esteem'" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310230/Facebook-users-narcissistic-insecure-low-self-esteem.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310230/Faceb... I consider Github sort of the developer equivalent of Facebook. Let me clarify that. If you're posting stuff on Github just to impress recruiters and fellow engineers, then it is. If you're using it in a constructive way, less so or maybe not at all. The point I'm trying to make is that there are parallels between the two. Look. It's good to provide recruiters (by recruiter I mean a real engineer here who is evaluating candidates) evidence that you're skilled. There are many ways to do that. One way would be to bring in code and discuss it. Another way would be to work through programming problems in the recruiter's presence. I'm not talking about "a-ha" brain teasers but real, actual programming. After all, that's what a programmer is (theoretically) being hired to do. But please do not encourage an arms race where programmers fall over each other trying to see how much code they can post publicly, and how much work they can give away. I'm highly skilled and my time is precious. I don't spend it looking in front of the (Github) mirror, and I actually charge money for it. Charity is a good thing, but you shouldn't do it to boost your ego and image. And further, if that's all you spend your time doing, I would wonder why you want to work in private industry where the purpose is to make money so we can be employed. You know, engineers at Apple might not have Github accounts, but they are employed and support their families. Apple's work also lifts tons of people out of poverty in China. How many people does your open source project feed? You guys need to step off the ego train and direct your energy into stuff that actually matters. And you will be happier for it.

dblock 15y ago
I actually agree with a lot of stuff here. One should contribute to things that are useful for your job or your future, not spend time polishing your github resume.

kgo 15y ago

I had this crazy idea that I'd buy a vanity domain with my name in it. Use it as my personal email, which is used an all kinds of technical newsgroups. Setup a web page where I described myself, linked to various projects, source code, etc. A site that has a better indication of my personality than github ever would, and has some projects that will never go in github for various reason. After seeing the last one of these articles, I actually put a note on my github site directing people to my primary site. Seems silly that I felt I had to do this, but oh well. It's also a shame that the last few patches I did, involving smartcard hardware for gnupg, doesn't get me any bonus points, since that project, like a majority of major projects, hosts its own version control. Not to mention, 9 times out of 10 when I open an issue on a github project, I hear nothing back, making me really unmotivated to fork the project and fix something.

sc68cal 15y ago
I did the reverse - had a vanity domain and all that stuff, then just tacked my Github account onto it. Also, why not find your patches from http://git.gnupg.org http://git.gnupg.org ?

walketim 15y ago

No it's not. Github it's a shared repository tool.

NathanKP 15y ago

I don't use a public Github because my interesting code often isn't something I want to share with the public, particularly if it happens to include AWS credentials, API keys to various services, etc. All my most interesting sites have been money making endeavors as well, so I don't see any reason to give away the source code, or share it with the public. I do share the URL of the finished product, though, and that has been enough to land me quite a number of job offers, including the one that led to the startup position I am filling right now. I've never made a traditional resume, and I've never made my code publicly accessible on Github but I've gotten along fine.

dpritchett 15y ago
I usually put my credentials in a separate include file and then filter it out with gitignore.
mattdeboard 15y ago
You should really be factoring out sensitive information from your repos anyway.

qnm 15y ago

Github[0] gives Junior developers another way to get an interview. Those with minimal professional experience are able to show - to some degree - that they can code, use a VCS and have an understanding of the push/pull/fork contribution model. Bonus points for contributions, bug reports etc. I don't believe it replaces one, but for those without a well-seasoned resume, a Github profile works well as a conversation starter. [0] Or any public VCS, of course.

mattdeboard 15y ago

I put my stuff up on Github in part because I like being part of a community. It also has the nice side effect that it shows that I'm intellectually curious and like trying out new things. If someone is looking for a new hire with those qualities, it'll be a big benefit. If they're not I don't really want to work there to be honest.

Fixnum 15y ago

> College and Personal Projects At the risk of stating the obvious, I'd strongly recommend against putting school projects in a public repo. You might disagree with the ethics of it, but if someone submits your code to your own school, you could conceivably be held responsible for facilitating plagiarism.

dblock 15y ago
I am shocked. What kind of pojects are those? Does anyone believe that students were waiting for this "internet" thing to share source?

beaker 15y ago

I must be getting old, but this post strikes me as silly to the point of seeming like a troll. If any hiring managers are seriously discarding candidates that don't use github, well, I think the market will ultimately dictate the utility of this shortcut.