Usually companies try to evaluate a candidate independently; unless your side project is exactly what the company wants, I'd be surprised if your open source pr

Usually companies try to evaluate a candidate independently; unless your side project is exactly what the company wants, I'd be surprised if your open source projects are the deciding factor in your getting the job. But your o-s contribs can get you an _interview_ and indirectly help you in the interview. Hopefully all practice you've been getting through your side projects would have made you a better developer and that will be apparent in the interviews. From this point of view, I would say major work building one's own app makes one a better developer than minor work on a major project. Your skills development is what matters in the end, not the "name recognition" of having contributed to such-and-such project.