Companies devote so much time, money, and energy to recruiting good engineers; but then dump them on projects which slowly suck their will to live. Ideally, a c

Companies devote so much time, money, and energy to recruiting good engineers; but then dump them on projects which slowly suck their will to live. Ideally, a company should have as a mantra, "We will not bore you." If you have a lot of excess energy and time, why not enter a competition? For example, OpenCV is sponsoring a contest to improve the library in one of ten or so major areas. If you succeed, you could win a little cash, plus gain some cred for finding a more interesting job.