Hey all,
In looking for some side work, to partner up, or a new job, everyone asks to see a GitHub profile. I have a quite a few private repos that I’ve used for my day job, and a couple open source things I’ve cloned when learning them (like frameworks). But, I have never had any chance to contribute to anything. Yeah, there were some times I found a bug or something that could use fixing, but usually someone else found it first and is just waiting for their pull request to be accepted.
I’ve watched YouTube videos showing basically how to game the system by fixing trivial things just to get some PRs going. Others say you should make some contrived applications. All this to get some green squares?
The most talented developers I know rarely even use GitHub, let alone have daily commits to open source.
What am I missing?
Consider doing a small documentation project such as a list of the best tutorials of a framework or tool you know well, a cheat sheet, examples of common idioms, sample programs, code snippets, and so on.
I'm maintaining on GitHub a list of free Python books I have been putting together since I started learning the language.
That's a great idea!
Thanks Alex.
Yeah, that is a great idea! So, is it just to have a presence on GitHub? My understanding was that people wanted to see the amazing code you can write, or that you have projects that others want to use.. or if you have a ton of PRs, that means you write good code and can collaborate. Is it just good enough to have something? Am I thinking too much into it? 🤔
It depends on what you want.
If you need a well stuffed GitHub profile to demonstrate your development experience and skills, then there's unfortunately no substitute for hard work and a lot of time.
If, however, all you need is to show you have basic proficiency with GitHub and development, a small documentation project may be enough.
I contribute to open source time to time and have a maintained GitHub profile. It's true that most of people who are good don't contribute to open source. In my opinion, they have crossed the time in their careers when they have to show their coding skills by public projects.
Recruiters ask for these things when they are looking for junior positions because for them there will be no prior experience. For experienced developer more things matter than just technical skills like management, soft skills etc.
First of all, I don't believe in any "talent", for me it all depends on just how much time they spend on to learning and coding.
Secondly, I know a lot of developers that use Github and don't see anything wrong here.
Third, the fastest and coolest way to create a great Github profile is to create something on your own and then post to HN. If your project is accepted well you will have a lot of stars.
I never do this, but if I wanted to see what someone code style is (use comments? how variables are named, how the source code is organized etc) It would be useful to have something to look at.
So, I guess if you make a small application, next time someone ask you you can say:
"Yes you can take a look at this to-do list I wrote in React" (for example)
But I totally agree with you, I'm not sure the number but my intuition says the majority of developers don't have much in GH
Like everything about your public image, a portfolio is "a thing a prospective employer might look at." Some managers start looking there and want to see how you work. Some couldn't care less about it. Most will probably look if they're on the fence between you and another candidate.
I wouldn't trust anybody trying to game the system, since the facade shatters as soon as someone clicks through anywhere. Heck, there are even scripts you can run against a repository to use your green field of commits as a low-resolution image! Plus, different employers are looking for different things, like how you work with other people or literally just what your code looks like and what languages you work in.
At the end of the day, you have to be yourself and live with the fact that some employers are looking for something else, just like some managers will ignore any application or pitch where the person comes from a school they think of as bad. Especially if you're starting out or re-gearing, you should probably have a portfolio site somewhere public (GitHub being the current standard) as a place for people to find you, and build up some kind of track record to show people who want to look at it, but there's no single metric to judge them.
My own account is packed with the arbitrary projects I work on in my spare time. I do generally hold some commits in reserve, so that I make sure I'm doing something every day (even if the actual work was earlier), but that aspect is for me, not anybody who happens to be looking. I might start digging into other projects, at some point, but I have to many ideas I want to work on, before I need to work on somebody else's idea...unless their idea happens to be in my way. I also keep my blog posts on there and a script now also auto-updates the profile README, so it looks like more activity than there really is, getting back to the point about gaming the system only making you look silly.
Uclusion had better experiences with references than GitHub code when evaluating contractors. Maybe there is someone you worked with previously that you can leverage? On the other hand I think the contribute to open source approach became popular in part because people didn't like the reference system.
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I meant of developers I’ve known personally. There are some who have written systems that have been in production for 20+ years. People who did things way ahead of their time. What I’m trying to figure out is why they might get looked over for a job because they don’t have a GitHub profile. Or why someone who made a repo of a todo app they did in college may look more attractive. I didn’t mean that people in open source suck. Wtf?
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.