Building your open resume

Description

With the ability to expose so many work samples to potential employers, developers will benefit from spending time to improve the quality of what they are sharing. The following strategies will help add some polish to your open resume.

Convince your boss:

Most developers spend the majority of their time writing code in their workplace. All the code created at work can become open source code if you can convince your organization to make it available. I will examine how to spur the internal change that will allow you to release more of your work to the public.

Design for sharing:

Begin to think about how your software can be built in a more shareable way. This will increase the number of individual projects you can make available to the public.

Code isn’t everything:

Any larger project will have an issue tracker or mailing list, a shared public record of how you interact with others. The way you discuss your own work and the work of others will be seen by prospective employers. I will examine strategies to make these interactions more constructive, positive, and productive.

Self promotion:

Developers should not fall into the trap of letting their work speak only for itself. Hundreds of useful tools, projects, and pull requests have languished, never receiving the attention they deserve. Using events, social media, and other tools, you can highlight your most important contributions.

By implementing these strategies you can turn the time you spend contributing to open source into a more rewarding career.