I never contributed to Open Source...
I haven’t contributed to open source once so far. I have 5 yrs of work experience in ML engineering. I have this FOMO for not contributing 1) Will this affect my future career prospects? 2) In order to join product companies (both FAANG & Startups) do I have to have open source contributions? 3) If I were to contribute how should I tell recruiters about it (should I mention it in my resume and how should I mention it) Please share your thoughts
Karilyn Lee
Stealth
6 months ago
7 years of experience here.
Don’t think about it. OS is not for everybody.
That being said do keep looking to solve problems you might face on a day to day basis with code. That could be tooling, maintaining a deprecated library that your work requires, etc.
Might become the next best thing 🤷🏻♂️
1. No, open source increases chances but no if you don't do it doesn't affect much as most people don't do it
2. Startups - no issues at all, faang - os might only help in resume shortlist
3. If you have done decent contributions like 10ish PRs then definitely do mention.
If you don't feel like it, don't force yourself to, you'll look like a tryhard and everyone can whiff what you are actually up to.
FOSS is not for everyone. It definitely helps. But not the tech bros who commoditize it. It's a small village mostly out there with people interacting with each other some way or the other, so no point in fake acting since it will be immediately caught.
Jordon Lee
Stealth
6 months ago
Its better not to contribute rather than changing the readme file in Github.
