What I've seen that has worked in the past is this:
Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs.
Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach out for introductions to people hiring for remote jobs that you just wouldn't have had access to before.
I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. Just make sure that you choose wisely on the language and project. If you want to do frontend then it's probably going to be a project in TypeScript or JavaScript, but if you want to do backend then there are a lot of projects in tougher languages like Rust. Python isn't a bad choice either, even though it is easy to learn. Google has a Python style guide that is pretty good so look it up.
If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank. Set your aim hirer than what you need to survive.
This is bad advice for someone who has only been coding for 3 years (according to OP).
People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to open source projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly.
It is way more common to see brilliant developers make $0 from open source projects.
> People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to opensource projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly
This vastly overestimates the efficiency of FAANG hiring channels.
The tweet from Brian Acton[0] that someone replied with is truly legendary. I want to frame that and put it in the lobby if I ever found a successful business.
Because he develops a tool that other google developers use daily. If hiring him and directing his efforts leads to even a 0.1% productivity improvement in those developers, it would be Worth it.
Incorrect. I know several people working on Google projects as temps (with Google-provided laptops and @google.com domains) and with the code and technologies they're working with there is no way they can work without Homebrew. Maybe it's different for full-time employees but I doubt it.
Not OP, but Googler here. We use an internal Linux distro for all our development. It's very similar to Ubuntu (so the default package manager is apt). People who have a Macbook use it as a thin client to ssh into their Linux desktops. So OS X package manager isn't really needed or used.
3pt14159 isn't saying that noddly should try and make money doing open source.
Noddly should gain the respect of an open source maintainer. These maintainers receive lots of requests for job openings and contract positions. Most of it is just recruiter spam, but some of it is real and the maintainer would be happy to forward them on to someone they respect, along with a recommendation.
It's that recommendation that's worth its weight in gold.
I had very few job offers originate from FOSS (maybe 2 in 4 years?). I suspect there's a narrow field where people recruit using FOSS/GitHub and I'm not involved in it. JavaScript based projects seem to be doing much better from an outsider perspective.
I got more out of having a decent looking LinkedIn account.
In my opinion... LinkedIn gets you in the door, your Github profile can get you hired. I'm not sure how many job intros happen via Github to be honest... just from my own experience, I get a ton of calls from LinkedIn... and on the interview side, some higher profile contributions to open-source can help a lot.
For where I work now, our code challenge includes putting the solution on github/gitlab mostly to ensure they at least know git, but as a secondary to their gh profile, which leads to their dev and contributions.
It's not a hard requirement to me. I've known a lot of people in banking and secdef development that cannot participate in open-source, so there are definitely all types.
I read it more like "get involved in FOSS projects to gain experience and trust, and base your CV (+ references) on that when applying for the jobs you want".
I've had quite a few job offers from my weblog over the years, most of them actually pretty decent from HN readers and such (rather different from LinkedIn and recruiter spam). Never from open source thus far.
What kind of open source projects are useful to go for? This seems like by far the best way to spend a few months. I know Python best but I don't mind learning a new language.
Not true. One of the people I'm referring to was under 25 when he landed a $500k USD remote job at a FAANG company. I'd share more, but too many people would figure out who it is. He didn't get that offer by applying directly.
The point is not that OP is going to make $500k a year. The point is to be smart about the language and project that you pick and to be reliable, professional, and open to learning quickly and delivering. He's asking for such a paltry amount that even if he only gets an $80k offer it's still leagues better than what he's asking for.
Or he could grind it out on Upwork and land a $30k offer after finally hitting a client that likes him and has long term work.
I know many people that did this. Not all of them are making $500k a year, but here is some more examples:
- Multiple Rails contributors, one that turned core. Those folks are making well north of $200k a year.
- Ember contributors or contributors to projects around ember-data or similar. Multiple people making north of $200k a year.
- A guy that dove into contributing to Postgres. He wouldn't even share how much his offer was because it was so insane.
The point is that if you actually put in the work to projects and you network and learn from seasoned developers it's going to be far, far better for your career than grinding out little Fiver or Upwork contracts.
Put another way: Your pay is related to your skills, your professionalism, and your network. Working on the right OS project exposes you to people that are really good at software. Sure you can do the same working for money at the right company, but this guy isn't in that position. So, in my opinion, his best bet is to skill up and network and contribute. Even if he's applying to remote work positions absent a network, a string of commits to Numpy or Rust is going to look a hell of a lot better than "freelancer that did rinky dink work for marketing guys" or "I built a todo list app to show off my skills" and I don't really see why this is so controversial. I'd like to see a counterpoint, honestly. Someone here that worked on a real OS project for a prolonged period of time that has trouble finding work at a reasonable salary.
This frustrates me a bit, personally. I've been a professional developer (as in getting paid to do it) for 15 years, full time. I know a lot of tech terms are overused and misused, but I consider myself full stack. Frontend, Backend, Database, some devops. I've worked, in depth, with MSSQL, .NET, C#, Apache, Nginx, MySQL, PHP, Python (Django/DRF), JS, NodeJS, React, Flash/Flex. I've dabbled in Java, Clojure, ClojureScript, Objective-C and probably some others I'm forgetting.
I'm in the low, low $100k range. Maybe it's because I'm introverted and don't really network? Maybe it's location: Ohio, now Orlando? Maybe I just don't push myself - imposter syndrome is very real. Maybe I just like the job security and steady paycheck over really reaching for the stars?
I know money isn't everything, I'd love to contribute and be known in the community, but not sure I have the chops.
I'd consider myself in the same boat. Also been a professional developer for 20 years. Wouldn't say I'm full stack anymore as I'm a little out of the loop with all of the changes with front-end development in recent years, but trying to improve in that area and become a better, more-rounded developer.
Also in Florida and in the low $100k range. Always a bit surprised to hear these stories on HN and elsewhere of developers making $150-200k+ salaries, and wonder how I can get to that level.
Imposter syndrome is very real for me too, especially in my current role where my coworkers all seem much smarter and more technological-savvy than me.
Would also like to contribute to open source projects, but not really sure where I'd start and whether I am good enough.
fastest way to big bucks is to create an auction market (have multiple simultaneous offers) at companies with revenues growing fast enough that they don’t care
Sounds like you're my technical doppelganger. Hopefully some of the comments on my post are helpful to you as well. I can't change location right now, so I think I'm going to work on the imposter/confidence aspect and try to find some projects to contribute to.
Location is a factor but also tech salaries have seen tremendous continued growth over the last 20 years.
new grads are getting jobs at FAANGs out of college starting at 150-200k+ tc these days.
granted these are mostly in higher col areas - sf, seattle, nyc.
you just need to get a new job if you want to make more money, it's that simple.
in 2015 i had my first job as a junior engineer at a startup at 60k. over 3 years i worked my way up to a tech lead and 100k. not bad but i could've made more faster had i just switched companies sooner.
i finally started interviewing and got up to a 150k offer at another startup of the same size, same area - my current company valued me at 100k and this new company 150k.
a year later this startup was acquired and i negotiated my way into a 200k+ offer at the acquiring company - mostly because the bigger company was bigger and just paid more in general than my small startup company.
making more money isn't that closely tied to your job skills actually. it's tied to your interviewing skills and desire to get a job at a FAANG or similarly large tech company that pays high comps.
i'm not saying it's the easiest thing - the FAANG interviews are fairly hard and require quite a bit of prep. But if you really want it I'm sure you could do it - it's more about dedication, preparation and time than anything else.
A lot of it is probably location, and also comparing yourself to anecdata.
But some percentage of it needs to be standing out. There are a lot of developers in cube farms working with stacks that look exactly like your resume. The javascript stuff is very quickly becoming devalued as boot camps crank out front end devs by the hundred.
Maybe becoming (or just advertising yourself) as a leading specialist in one or two of those technologies, or becoming an expert in an emerging technology would do it.
I've been in a rather similar boat. I spent a few years in "the show", but am back down in the real world now. Not sure I regret getting it out of my system, but it did harm my life.
Am also an introvert, and it does reduce the possibilities, in my opinion. Still struggling with that. But trying to meet technical people who can hire or refer you is pretty useful (and try to maintain relationships like that when you leave a job).
Location is a problem. If you move to a place like BA or NY, you can probably double your salary right off, even if your skill level is rather low. This is very hard, though, if you have a family or your local social connections are important.
I doubt you're an imposter. Most of the people I met at my high-paying jobs were no more skilled than those I meet in the hinterlands. (And the brilliant ones are often insufferable.)
Rich companies are rich, so they can pay more. That's about it. There's a lot more competition for high-paying spots, but generally the people hiring are doing it pretty randomly. Having a resume that looks good and being able to talk a good game are more important than actual skill.
Appreciate the insight. Definitely seems location is a big factor, but I'm not incentivized to change that right now - so I'll need to look at this from different angles. Networking seems to be key.
Sure thing. Either way, don't torture yourself about it. Probably getting a dog or learning to ride a motorcycle would give you more enjoyment than working at a big-bucks tech job.
Location is definitely a factor. The only way I've heard people making make Bay Area money in places like Ohio is to land a remote gig with a Bay Area company, which isn't easy.
You probably have better quality of life in Ohio with your salary than many much higher paid people in the Bay Area. A starter home near Google costs around 2 million.
Amass wealth in your twenties sounds so ridiculous to me. My bank balance for most of my 20’s was barely positive. Now that I’m mid thirties my salary is finally high enough that the savings have started to increase, but it’s still far from anything resembling ‘wealth’.
That’s a shame. I’m sorry if you didn’t have the opportunity to do so. It’s very possible and practical to build wealth in your 20s and many people move to high COL places to do so when they don’t have the burden of kids or strong ties. Even small wealth in your 20s will balloon into big wealth 20-30-40 years later that you simply won’t be able to catch up to saving in your 40s and later. You’re investing in your future by delaying settling down, buying a house, and having kids in your 20s. Whether that’s worth it is up to you and your life goals.
Fellow Orlandonian here, the salaries are not great. I haven't seen the ODevs salary survey from 2019, but if you look at 2018 you're good for the area: https://orlandodevs.com/blog/salary-survey/
Yeah, that’s all on you. I don’t know if confidence training is a thing, but you could hit a huge ROI if you level up your extroversion/confidence game.
The first leap is the hardest. Once you've got your foot in the door of somewhere "prestigious" that you can list on your resume, a lot of doors open.
One of the easier ways to make that first leap is to attach your name to something marketable. I did a few contributor articles for PacketPushers back when they first opened up to letting pretty much anyone write articles. Then I added something like "Contributor at PacketPushers" to my LinkedIn and published a few of the articles on my LinkedIn feed. I ended up getting hired by LinkedIn as an SRE out of it.
I also think you have to find a way to differentiate yourself by having some kind of a personal style or mantra. You aren't just out there to prove you're good enough for a job, you're out there to prove that you're a better candidate than the other people they might hire.
For me, on the SRE side, I lean heavily on the people side of things (which I find is often neglected). Which is not to say that I ignore the tech side, I can hold my own against other senior SREs. But I use that focus on people to try to edge myself out against the other candidates who are equally technically skilled. SRE doesn't do anything a developer couldn't do given sufficient time and motivation. Why don't developers do it themselves? Because it's hard (read: out of their SME), and because it takes time. That's a UX problem to me, so I frame that as something I would fix by making it quick and easy for my developers. A system that increases your availability to 99% that is quick and easy to set up is almost always more valuable than a system that increases it to 99.9% or 99.99% but takes 6 meetings and a book to use effectively.
So find your style or flair. I don't know what that would be for developers, I've never done a pure developer job. If I were going to pick something off the top of my head, I would pick abstractions. Everybody does abstractions, but if you can be the person that can frame a hard problem in a simple abstraction, that's a ton of bonus points. I would talk about the time I can save other people by building a simple abstraction that can be reused over and over again.
Or you could go people oriented like I did. Maybe you can frame yourself as the person that's really good at getting key stakeholders and your PM in a room and translating what the stakeholders want done into actionable work units for your PM. Sure, it's often a thing managers do, but managers love people who can free up some of their schedule.
I've been interviewing people for jobs that pay in the 200k+ range for about 6 years. You have to have something that sets you apart. I've interviewed a lot of people that basically said "Yep, I can solve that problem". Cool, you get to go in the queue with the 7 other people that could solve that problem, and we'll probably decide who wins later on based on who we think we would like most as a person on our team (i.e who's not going to be a wet blanket at lunch). On the other hand, some people stand out. I interviewed a guy who was really particular about writing unit tests and documentation, and really enjoyed doing that stuff. That guy went to the front of the line, because those are two things most people are bad at. I would've given him a really good rating even if he was technically less able than other people.
Once you find your flair, market yourself. Tailor your LinkedIn to your flair. Publish some dumb fluff pieces on LinkedIn about why your specific flair is important to a company. It's not really to inform other people, those fluff pieces exist to cement your position as "that guy/gal".
If I were going to make a wild guess, I think you can do it. I've worked with plenty of people that were making 200-400k that didn't write their own RDBMS at 13. They were just normal go to school, get a job, then get an offer from FAANG kind of people. I've even worked with a couple people in that range that I think we could have replaced with an intern without problems.
I don't think I've done anything spectacular tech-wise, mostly CRUD apps, fairly run of the mill architecture and CLIs designed to make things easier or faster for devs. My LinkedIn and email still rings off the hook just from marketing myself as something more unique than another SRE that does SRE things.
Your story is carefully tuned for "No True Scotsman" in advance. What are you going to say when OP spends 3+ months of their limited runway and ends up in the same place? "I said a real project, you didn't contribute to a real project" or "I said be smart with your choices, you must not have been smart", or "I said be professional, you must have been rude" or "I said network with experienced people, you must not have done enough networking"? "Worksforme"?
> I don't really see why this is so controversial.
This is you strawmanning. "Commits to Numpy or Rust are going to look better than a todo list" never was the controversial part, that is not controversial. "Be world class and people will want to hire you" isn't controversial, even.
The controversial part is "win the lottery - anyone can do it if they just try". Picking an appropriate project is a gamble. Becoming friendly with the core developers is a gamble. Picking the right issues to work on that people might notice you is a gamble. Being good enough that they actually do, is a gamble. That it translates into a job offer, is a gamble. That some people can do it isn't surprising, that everyone can and should prioritise that, is controversial.
That you should give away months of full-time equivalent work to profit-making companies, in the hope that it results in a job paying high above national average household income in first world countries, instead of spending that time elsewhere, is a huge gamble.
I hypothesize that the people who get paid are the people who actually set out with the goal of getting paid.
I really doubt there are many long-time FOSS contributors who want (as their top-level goal) to be paid to do FOSS, but still haven’t managed it after months/years of trying.
Most people who do FOSS don’t do it with the goal of being paid for it. Just like most people who play a sport don’t do it with the goal of being paid for it. For most people, it’s either a hobby, or a byproduct of the efforts they go to in their day job (i.e. fixes to their company’s private fork of a FOSS project, that can then sometimes be upstreamed.)
>Most people who do FOSS don’t do it with the goal of being paid for it.
It depends how you define "doing" FOSS. Yes, certainly there are many people who casually fool around with FOSS with no expectation of payment. And even a fair number of people who have some sort of spare time FOSS hobby.
But most of the big FOSS projects (especially server infrastructure/platforms) depend heavily on developers and others getting paid to work on them full-time.
Most of the big FOSS projects depend on their core contributors being paid to work on them. Most sports teams pay highly too. It doesn't mean that most people playing sports are playing on a professional team. It also doesn't mean the professional teams pay their fans anything—despite said fans doing, in aggregate, as much (in PR et al) to earn the team their high pay scales, as the team itself does. Both big FOSS projects, and professional sports teams, are long-tail efforts, with a hard line between the core contributors (paid) and everybody else who helps (unpaid.)
Also keep in mind that many critical FOSS projects aren't big. Many are one-man shows. HN has a habit of frequently "finding out for the first time"—to much amazement and distress each time—that some project everybody's using is just kept alive by one person in their spare time.
>Also keep in mind that many critical FOSS projects aren't big. Many are one-man shows.
Absolutely. That's why the Core Infrastructure Initiative was created a few years ago for example. While I haven't made an exhaustive study, my sense is that the situation is at least better today than it was a few years ago, especially with respect to security issues. Though always more work to do to support developers working on critical infrastructure of course.
Yes, there is a long tail on projects like the Linux kernel. But a lot of that long tail doesn't individually do a lot of work. And, according to the seemingly latest Kernel development report that I have: "Well over 85 percent of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work."
I'd love to be paid again for contributing to an FOSS project. There's something liberating about writing software that you own and get to decide how things are designed. A lot of devs don't enjoy that kind of flexibility if they work on projects used by more than a handful of people.
But yeah, it's hard to get paid. I was lucky enough to have a company pay me to contribute to an OSS project, but they didn't hire me for that purpose, I had to hustle for it and was blessed with a great manager who supported the idea.
> ike most people who play a sport don’t do it with the goal of being paid for it. For most people, it’s either a hobby, or a byproduct of the efforts they go to in their day job (i.e. fixes to their company’s private fork of a FOSS project, that can then sometimes be upstreamed.)
What would be good OS projects related to C++/Python that can generate the figures you're mentioning? Asking for myself here.
I would put it this way: for a person in his situation, skills and professionalism are table stakes (others in more privileged position can get away with less of those). Pay is relative to networking ability.
But the statement is in response to "this is bad advice for brand new developers." If the advice is so specific you end up doxing the single person in the world who's ever done it, then it sounds like that's a perfectly fair criticism.
I think the point is more "this general strategy works for most people; but not everyone is going to get a $500k job from it".
It's a reliable strategy to get noticed and make a good impression. How much money you manage to make from that opportunity obviously depends on many more factors.
The problem is that people are conflating "one guy got lucky and got a $500k remote job" with "here is a repeatable process to generate a full-time income by working on open source on spec." Even getting a $50k remote job is not a guarantee, and telling people to work for free on open source is the Hacker News equivalent of telling a designer that you'll pay them if you like the logo they make you. Only this is much more insidious because you're telling them to work full-time, for free, for "3 or 4 months."
We complain about job interviews taking an entire day yet have no problem telling this person to dump 750 hours into something with the hope of "getting noticed."
People attend college and spend enormous money & time with no guarantees. The unpaid time spent is not throwaway.
If I was 19 today - and wanted to code for the most $$$ possible. I wouldn't be in college. I'd be building up skills + know people. Know people even tougher I'd argue for technical people who are often introverts.
And being a reliable open-source contributor on projects people use can open doors that college could never open. From personal experience Open Source is also a great way to get to know people, especially if the project has an active IRC or Slack.
>People attend college and spend enormous money & time with no guarantees. The unpaid time spent is not throwaway.
It is throwaway for most people. 'Most' being >75%. Just my guesstimate.
Well there is another way to look at it if you wish, if you want to bolster your self-esteem and confidence by having a college/university degree, then do it. My observation is that most people who do not have a degree suffer a life long I-do-not-have-a-degree self esteem syndrome, despite being just as capable as everyone else.
As a 26-year old at Google, this example sounds surprising to me. I'd rule out Amazon, Apple and Netflix, and you'd have to be ~L6 to get $500K at Facebook or Google, which I don't see any of them hiring fresh grads at no matter how good/famous they are, and definitely not remotely.
The inference I made from that statement is that if OP demonstrated skill and professionalism on an open source project, they might be able to ask the other maintainers for a job introduction. This is perfectly reasonable advice: earning people's respect is a great way to network, and networking is a great way to get job recommendations.
I don't think they were saying that most people who contribute to open source projects make half a million dollars a year as a direct result.
> could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly
Honestly most of those companies don't look at their resumes. Back when I was in college I submitted my resume to one of those companies no less than about 10 times.
And then suddenly out of the blue some PM at that company reached out to me saying they came across my website and saw a couple cool projects and asked if I would be interested in sending them a resume. (Yes, I did, and I got the offer, but ended up later declining it since I wanted to do a PhD.)
But that shows that clearly the previous 10 times my resume went nowhere.
In most tech companies any employee reasonably high up on the ladder can more or less whisk you into the interview process if they know you or your work and it's strong. Whether or not you get the job depends on the interview, but you'll at least almost surely get the interview. Multiple merged PRs on an open source project by that company is a near 100% ticket to the interview. Don't underestimate the power of knowing people, even if you are an amazing coder.
Context: 10 year developer in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Mostly Ruby on Rails (6 years), now Python (1 year).
I've dedicated my entire career for the companies and projects I worked for.
So I didn't built a profile, or strong connections.
The only thing right I got is financial reserves. So I quit from a interim CTO position (previous I was a Tech Leader), with 18 people below me, due to BURNOUT.
The only thing I got dedicating full time to one basket at time is:
1. financial reserves, that here in my country is enough for some months of food and shelter, but is less than that value you said in US Dollars.
2. Extreme BURNOUT. I'm 80% recovered after two months.
Right now I'm doing some online courses in DataCamp and Real Python. It's easy to stay focused.
Tried to start working contributing on FOSS and Tech Blogs, building some reputation, but I got worse some weeks ago, got back to these algorithmic online courses.
$ 1.5k / month for me is food and shelter right now.
Companies here demanding Spark certifications are offering this for late full and initial senior positions (I'm trying to go to Data Engineering field, because I love data).
Even big companies here are more picky than this, by not returning calls, emails, etc. 3 people from a big co. here called me, having multiple positions open right now, but no response (remember I have no perceivable reputation or connections, except a CompSci degree in a reputable Uni here).
So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now.
Big COs. in developing countries are picky anyways. You'll need to spend a lot of energy to receive US$ 3k/month tops (it's the 80th percentile).
Try different. 10 years later you'll be much better than me.
I did an MSDA, and I wanted to let you know that you're cutting off the majority of your opportunities for Data roles if you aren't specializing in a business component as well. For me, it was Sales. Started out as a Jr. Analyst and within a year owned all Sales Ops and Sales Enablement. Was a small 60-person, $23MM training company, but my skill with data paired with projects like forecasting models, process optimization, etc. made me a critical asset during a re-org. I'd say about 80% of my daily work was on data projects. The other 20 was in the sales channel itself. Kept things exciting. I worked 14-16 hour days. Never got tired of the grind.
So, consider pairing your data expertise with a business function. Really, anything from Marketing to Finance will open you up to a swarm of opportunities.
Thanks for your considerations. I have a soft spot for financial and educational things. More the second than in first.
For the first one is imperative (If I want a career in a company) that I move to Sao Paulo, and I have no desire to do that. Rio is already full of mega city problems, but I manage to have some good life here.
In Sao Paulo you need to make more concessions in quality of life to land on the nicest jobs.
Remote working is something that I really desire, because I like nature, doing crafts with wood, you know, some place to get energies back. But I have a intense fear for risking my family safety by doing that.
For the second one the payment is really low. ed techs here pay 30% less and have hard time to get some traction.
I'm trying to make some demos for both industries right now, that I hope will spark some more confidence inside me.
> Remote working is something that I really desire, because I like nature, doing crafts with wood, you know, some place to get energies back. But I have a intense fear for risking my family safety by doing that.
Do you mean financial safety or personal safety?
I live in Argentina working remotely for over 10 years now. I moved from a medium city (1.5 M people) to nowhere in the mountains, and can't be happier. Right now kids are playing on the street, I'm working outdoors... will never go back to a city.
I heard that Rio/SP aren't that safe.
BTW, I'm also learning Python for Data. Finished the Data Analyst w/ Python on DataCamp.
Personal safety is debatable. The city is dangerous, so as any other big city here (>1.5M). I grew up on a very poor neighborhood in south brazil, half way to BA :D, you learn how to manage "dangerous" people and places to avoid.
It's a short term loss if you got robbed or something. I've been there multiple times (ironically not in Rio), I carry a cheap mobile phone and money for transportation only.
The long term loss is not having a chance to make a decent emergency fund, a retirement fund, or a somewhat successful business.
People working for companies here and doing that three things I said are living with their relatives to make it cheap.
Including in Rio where workers for Big COs are living with 2 to 4 unrelated people near Barra da Tijuca or far away (2hrs) with their relatives.
But hey! They have snacks and videogames on their offices, forgetting about everything else on the long term.
> So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now.
I am from India and this is how I started my career about 14 years back. I used to contribute bits and pieces to Drupal and other open source projects. Drupal was really new in India but also like globally.
I got my biggest clients (all over the world) from there, then got into Google SoC, contributed to Drupal Google GData plugin. Made lots of money (through consulting)*, lost all in bootstrapping, rest is history.
I actually think this is excellent advice right now. I would add the caveat that I would target contributing to OS software that is maintained by a large company, not an individual. There are lots of them floating around.
This is by far the best way to get recognized at those companies that are hiring. I will admit it's a long sell, but it has fairly predictable results if you're steady with your contributions.
As a former college drop-out that made it into the industry this is the route I would have taken were I joining the workforce today when I was younger. Great way to learn on something real and get your foot in the door.
Note too this is possible for designers as well. There are lots of design libs floating around and contributions to those repos is so rare it's very easy to get stand out.
I heard from my friends that because of pandemic, Gitlab is focusing on outbound recruiting. So I don't know whether the way still works or not in Gitlab.
But I concur that contributing to opensource is one of the best way to get a high-paying job.
I recommend these opensource projects: React, Vue, Angular, Typescript (because everyone is crazy about JS). If you don't fancy JS, pick Rust, Go, Deno (Deno is written in Rust), Python, Kubernetes, Flutter.
This is how I think of it. The cliche is “software is eating the world” and it’s true - most companies hiring engineers are doing so because their bottom line is doing well thanks to specifically how scalable software is and how many real world problems it can help with.
So companies should be willing to pay a fair wage to good developers. I say should - obviously this is capitalism and if they can get it done for a penny then why not - but if developers refuse a bad deal it will create pressure for them to do so.
If I’m selling enterprise software in New York and someone from New York who happens to be residing in Mexico at the moment is working for me, I’m selling $10k/y licenses and paying him 20k/y something seems off.
OTOH if he moves to San Fransisco, Kensington in London, Monaco or Hong Kong I say ah ok here’s $200k. He’s doing the same stuff!
Doesn’t make sense to me. Instead say well he is worth $100k to us, he then chooses to live wherever in the world makes sense and is affordable.
I too think things get weird, when a low living costs country person moves to a high cost place (or the other way around) and that now s/he makes more money (or less), although the same work.
> if developers refuse a bad deal it will ...
The thing is, I think, that it's a good deal to them
(Otherwise the company just raises the salary until it is)
To me, this is both confusing and makes sense at the same time depending on from which "angle" I start thinking
+1. I found my most recent hire at Microsoft this way. She was the top performer on my team and continues to do excellent work at the company. Also it’s important to choose your project wisely as well. I wasn’t looking to hire anyone in particular. The recommendation came out of a casual conversation with the creator of the open source project.
I also would assume and sincerely hope the stupid tests around "can this person write software?" are eliminated when you have people on the team _using_ software the candidate wrote.
This just seems impossible. Any nontrivial open source project with a decent amount of stars (i.e. something that will give OP visibility) is impenetrable for a noob. I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev. It will take a couple months just to setup a testing environment AND get familiarity with the codebase where you can actually start modifying it. Then you need to identify an issue and hope it'll pass muster with the maintainers who have a bazillion years of experience.
Can you name a single example project on Github where you think a Python programmer with 2-3 years experience could contribute?
>> I don't know why people keep recommending this as a way to break into software dev
2 reasons IMHO:
1. It is a powerful albeit mostly imaginary image/story. A sort of American dream incarnated in SW. Everything is out there, open and within reach so anyone can do it and make it big.
2. A lot of the HN crowd are actually committers to high profile projects (this is the most popular hacker community after all) so they tend to judge by their own story or stories from their circle. I suspect though that the average dev is quite away from this paradigm.
Having tried a few times to just build kubernetes (by now I honestly believe that you need a server farm to do just that) I have to agree with the point you're making. The sheer magnitude and the speed that this behemoth is growing just makes me loose any incentive after a while. Not to mention that you have to actually antagonize with a lot of other noobs to get to these "good-first-issue" PR first. (Diclosure: I'm quite familiar with kube and an experienced dev).
And then there is the other thing. I'm afraid somewhere along the way we missed the point. OS is (was) about doing what you want with no strings attached. Something inside me is twitching in the thought that it has become a (difficult) way to get a nice job and that it is mostly controlled by big Co (which you are effectively begging to throw its eyes over you and your contributions). Dunno if I want to be part in this grind. I prefer doing my own stuff (and GPL them like the good old days).
It's not just that they're impenetrable from a technical stand point. It can also be rather difficult to identify contributions that are useful and will get past the core gatekeepers.
Probably the best bet there is to target several projects, and then move towards the ones that seem to appreciate your work.
It’s textbook survivor bias. Who is going the reveal their anecdote? The person who knows someone with a story. And 500k is a hell of a story. My bet is spending 3 months doing free OSS work on average has a lower EV than applying to a shitload of jobs, levelling up on interview challenges and technique et cetera.
How likely is it that one will get a job at the end of this? "Three or four months. Full time." is a hell of a commitment for a, what sounds like, 'maybe someone will notice you, and maybe they're hiring'.
> If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank.
One way to avoid exploitation like this is to try to develop a number of offers simultaneously. Go in with the plan of getting a couple of offers early, and then let them twist in the wind while you develop better ones. Having an offer is good leverage for getting a better offer from another place without seeming "greedy". (Be courteous and humble, of course, or at least fake it.)
Also, the FAANGs seem to recruit endlessly, even when they're not really hiring. Good place for practice interviews, even if you don't care to work there. My offer from one got me a lot more money elsewhere.
If his goal is to guarantee a reasonable (actually very low) developer salary this feels like bad advice. There is no guarantee he will get hired, no backup plan if the project does not hire him, and he could very well walk away with nothing.
If your goal is to get a job just look at trends in job boards (probably very skewed towards web/mobile/data science), figure out which area you like/excel in and hone in on that. Keep iterating on your resume, upping your skill set, and learning from interview failures. Remember: selling yourself and your skill set is more important than actual ability. That is something you can really only hone with practice and repeated interviews.
Many companies will not hire outside of certain countries i.e. US, UK....you may need to setup a corporate entity i.e. a Delaware LLC and work through a contract.
> what type of developers are pulling that kind of income?
So, the subset of developers who make this much money basically amounts to "The senior engineers, at top tech companies, such as google/FB/ect"
Which.... is less unlikely than you'd think, if you are talking about the democraphic of users who read hacker news.
500k is still definitely up there, but making even something like 250k, at any of these top tech companies, as a mid level engineer, is completely standard. I'd expect anyone who has 5 years of experience, at these types of companies to be making at least this amount.
So, within that context, the people who are making twice that, would be maybe the team leads, or possible even a bit higher ranking than that.
Also, it's a very risky path to take. If you made an error in your assumptions about your open source investment, tech stack choice, etc, then you won't see any good return, but you burned through your savings.
Contribute to something that has gotten big, quickly.
I chose Rails 14 years ago and have been riding that train ever since.
If I were choosing a new space and starting out, I’d contribute to Kubernetes. Lots of need in that space and I’m sure you could demand top dollar once you have a few merged PRs under your belt.
Agree, but OTOH, this advice is pretty well disseminated at this point.
It can be hard to find an opening to contribute in a decent OSS project that one can keep up with, especially as a beginner, with many others clamoring to do the same.
I think an alternative would be to create and finish a simple open source project yourself, for the purpose of showing off. Scratch an itch. But keep it finishable. It's not about being perfect, it's about showing you can solve many problems.
I think you missed the main point. The most important part of root comment’s advice is networking —- to meet and work with other devs. If you start your own open source project there’s not guarantee people will work on it with you.
As a beginner myself I wouldn’t even know where to begin to contribute to something like Kubernetes and agree with your point. Those projects have a lot of eyes on them and the talent to follow, what value could I add as a beginner that someone with experience couldn’t do in a heartbeat(or hasn’t already).
People with more experience have all their time taken up by big features and refactorings. In a big project, there are always small things to fix or improve. It's not like they run out, because those big changes create more small things to fix all the time. Linux is 30 years old, and it still accepts patches from beginners regularly.
I don't know about Kubernetes, but lots of large and well-managed projects have issues labelled as "good first issue" to help you know where to start.
Agreed. There are certainly challenges to working on big, high-visibility projects as a beginner. But, if it's primarily part of a strategy to get a well-paying job, it makes a lot of sense to work on something that has people from the companies that are hiring developers at decent salaries working on it.
Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs.
Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach out for introductions to people hiring for remote jobs that you just wouldn't have had access to before.
I've seen people make $500k a year doing this. Just make sure that you choose wisely on the language and project. If you want to do frontend then it's probably going to be a project in TypeScript or JavaScript, but if you want to do backend then there are a lot of projects in tougher languages like Rust. Python isn't a bad choice either, even though it is easy to learn. Google has a Python style guide that is pretty good so look it up.
If I knew you were good at Python and you were asking for $1.5k a month I would hire you and laugh all the way to the bank. Set your aim hirer than what you need to survive.