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My public repos on GitHub are not a good way to judge me as a candidate. Not even close. Frankly, I don't have much time to contribute to open source these day

My public repos on GitHub are not a good way to judge me as a candidate. Not even close. Frankly, I don't have much time to contribute to open source these days. I send a PR maybe once a year. Almost everything on my profile is from my university days, and none of it is related to my career specialty (ML SRE). And my employer asks me to fill out a form before I publish personal projects, so that they can be sure it is unrelated to my job (and thus that they do not have a patent or copyright claim over the code). This means most of my weekend projects simply aren't public, because I can't be bothered to do the paperwork. LinkedIn, on the other hand, clearly shows where I've worked and what I've worked on. It's a much more accurate resume for me that GitHub.

NabilChiheb 2y ago
I completely understand your situation. GitHub isn't the perfect fit for everyone, especially for those in specialized roles like ML SRE GitMatcher is primarily aimed at the sourcing stage, where recruiters can find devs based on their actual code contributions. But I agree, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution — it's not meant to replace LinkedIn or fully capture your career.
- ska 2y ago
  I think the problem runs deeper than that. What you’ve done is an interesting tool for finding out more about a relatively small slice of developers.
austin-cheney 2y ago
Then clearly you would be ranked very low by something like this. I think that is the whole point of this: tell the people who have solid commit history from those who don't.
- bpshaver 2y ago
  But the ranking is not reflective of actual skills. That's the critique. Aside from very frequent open source contributors (and I think these people are the minority of devs), devs will tend to be "profiled" by this tool according to the dot scripts, university projects, Advent of Code, or other half-hearted projects they happen to have put on their Github. (Maybe I'm just projecting...) The issue isn't that not everyone has a Github presence, the issue is that for most people their Github presence is somewhat unrepresentative of their actual job skills.
  - austin-cheney 2y ago
    It is one dimension of many showing amounts of practice. I understand why that makes people sad, but that sadness just feels narcissistic.
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  I might be interested on people who can help me solve my particular problem. Those people might not be the same who have lots of commits on Github.
  - austin-cheney 2y ago
    Then, logically, you would not hire them solely based on this one tool.
DeathArrow 2y ago
Same here. I don't care to publish my personal projects on Github and my work projects aren't there for obvious reasons.
grayhatter 2y ago
I think a tool like this would be targeted more towards eliminating false positives, rather than eliminating false negatives. I think this tool as a whole is probably an awful way to judge a candidate. But that's not really the point. The point is to find additional candidates with a low false negative rate. E.g. over the past year I've written tens of thousands of lines of zig code. But that's not on my resume nor my LinkedIn. this would allow someone to include me. Is the code good, or am I a good candidate? Impossible to tell... Ah, but now you have heard of me! :D There's more fluff on the page, but it's just fluff, and safe to ignore. > And my employer asks me to fill out a form before I publish personal projects, so that they can be sure it is unrelated to my job (and thus that they do not have a patent or copyright claim over the code). This means most of my weekend projects simply aren't public, because I can't be bothered to do the paperwork. Your employer is bad and they should feel bad! If you have the option you should consider changing to an employer less willing to make the world worse... or maybe a jurisdiction where that toxicity is unenforceable.
- em-bee 2y ago
  over the past year I've written tens of thousands of lines of zig code. But that's not on my resume why not? i have included every significant contribution to any project, whether it is paid or not on my CV. why would i leave that out? it's experience. only code that i write for my own use and don't publish may not be worth to be listed
  - grayhatter 1y ago
    Because it's across a few projects and none of them are popular enough to be worth listing.
- cbarrick 1y ago
  > Your employer is bad and they should feel bad! For the record, my employer is Google. They call this process the Invention Assignment Review Committee or IARC. From what I understand, the process is not actually enforceable anyway. Code I write related to my job is owned by them; other code I write is owned by me. I don't necessarily have to go through their process for this to be true. And their lawyers certainly know this. I've done it once, and the process is lightweight. And I probably could ignore it in practice with no one actually caring. But the fact that the process even exists is enough of a blocker that I don't readily publish my hobby projects anymore, and that's kinda shitty.
slumbering 2y ago
Yes, I'm in the same situation. The majority of my work is on private repositories, even though I've contributed to public repositories for many years. This tool wouldn't accurately reflect my current skills.

NabilChiheb 2y ago

I completely understand your situation. GitHub isn't the perfect fit for everyone, especially for those in specialized roles like ML SRE GitMatcher is primarily aimed at the sourcing stage, where recruiters can find devs based on their actual code contributions. But I agree, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution — it's not meant to replace LinkedIn or fully capture your career.

ska 2y ago
I think the problem runs deeper than that. What you’ve done is an interesting tool for finding out more about a relatively small slice of developers.

austin-cheney 2y ago

Then clearly you would be ranked very low by something like this. I think that is the whole point of this: tell the people who have solid commit history from those who don't.

bpshaver 2y ago
But the ranking is not reflective of actual skills. That's the critique. Aside from very frequent open source contributors (and I think these people are the minority of devs), devs will tend to be "profiled" by this tool according to the dot scripts, university projects, Advent of Code, or other half-hearted projects they happen to have put on their Github. (Maybe I'm just projecting...) The issue isn't that not everyone has a Github presence, the issue is that for most people their Github presence is somewhat unrepresentative of their actual job skills.
- austin-cheney 2y ago
  It is one dimension of many showing amounts of practice. I understand why that makes people sad, but that sadness just feels narcissistic.
DeathArrow 2y ago
I might be interested on people who can help me solve my particular problem. Those people might not be the same who have lots of commits on Github.
- austin-cheney 2y ago
  Then, logically, you would not hire them solely based on this one tool.

DeathArrow 2y ago

Same here. I don't care to publish my personal projects on Github and my work projects aren't there for obvious reasons.

grayhatter 2y ago

I think a tool like this would be targeted more towards eliminating false positives, rather than eliminating false negatives. I think this tool as a whole is probably an awful way to judge a candidate. But that's not really the point. The point is to find additional candidates with a low false negative rate. E.g. over the past year I've written tens of thousands of lines of zig code. But that's not on my resume nor my LinkedIn. this would allow someone to include me. Is the code good, or am I a good candidate? Impossible to tell... Ah, but now you have heard of me! :D There's more fluff on the page, but it's just fluff, and safe to ignore. > And my employer asks me to fill out a form before I publish personal projects, so that they can be sure it is unrelated to my job (and thus that they do not have a patent or copyright claim over the code). This means most of my weekend projects simply aren't public, because I can't be bothered to do the paperwork. Your employer is bad and they should feel bad! If you have the option you should consider changing to an employer less willing to make the world worse... or maybe a jurisdiction where that toxicity is unenforceable.

em-bee 2y ago
over the past year I've written tens of thousands of lines of zig code. But that's not on my resume why not? i have included every significant contribution to any project, whether it is paid or not on my CV. why would i leave that out? it's experience. only code that i write for my own use and don't publish may not be worth to be listed
- grayhatter 1y ago
  Because it's across a few projects and none of them are popular enough to be worth listing.
cbarrick 1y ago
> Your employer is bad and they should feel bad! For the record, my employer is Google. They call this process the Invention Assignment Review Committee or IARC. From what I understand, the process is not actually enforceable anyway. Code I write related to my job is owned by them; other code I write is owned by me. I don't necessarily have to go through their process for this to be true. And their lawyers certainly know this. I've done it once, and the process is lightweight. And I probably could ignore it in practice with no one actually caring. But the fact that the process even exists is enough of a blocker that I don't readily publish my hobby projects anymore, and that's kinda shitty.

slumbering 2y ago

Yes, I'm in the same situation. The majority of my work is on private repositories, even though I've contributed to public repositories for many years. This tool wouldn't accurately reflect my current skills.