Over 10 Ways to Find Paying Work in the Open Source Arena
by Sam Dean - Jun. 12, 2009Comments (1)- Related Blog Posts
- Laid Off? Top Ways to Find Opportunities in Open Source
Despite some encouraging upticks, the economy is still suffering, and many people are out of work. This is also the time of year when new graduates from college get set to find jobs, many of them looking for tech opportunities. The good news is that there are jobs available all over the open source community, and open source skills can be very valuable in a career.
As many researchers and writers have been reporting lately, the typical skills that college graduates in computer science have are so common now that differentiation makes a lot of sense. "Their skills are so easily outsourced that they’re heading for near-term obsolescence," writes James Maguire. Graduates may be very well served by pursuing jobs directly inside the open source community. So how can graduates and others go about finding jobs in open source? Here is an updated set of over 10 ways we've collected.
Showcase your skills and get hired on Elance. Elance is one of the most popular ways to get remote work, including many jobs in open source software development, project management for open source projects, and more.Â
Put a request for a bid up for your open source skills on RentACoder.
Look for openings at Findatechjob.com (there are many open source opportunities). Look down the left rail for specific jobs emphasizing PHP, Unix and more.
Connect your programming skills up with businesses at ScriptLance. The site currently has bids up for people with MySQL skills, PHP skills, and more.
TwitterJobSearch has emerged as a great way to find all kinds of jobs, including jobs in open source. Â For example, type in "PHP San Francisco," and look how many jobs come back, from full-time positions to work-at-home part-time opportunities. This site has really grown with the popularity of Twitter.
For web projects, put in bids showing off your skills out at Webmaster Projects.
Are you familiar with oDesk? OStatic has worked in partnership with oDesk before. It's a global staffing marketplace and management platform that hooks application developers and remote workers up with job providers, as we discussed here. Our sister blog WebWorkerDaily also has a good discussion. This is a great way to get your open source skills showcased, and hook up with employers.
Several of the prominent open source software foundations can also help open sourcers find work. You might start by looking into the Apache Software Foundation and the Drupal Foundation's list of available jobs.
Don't forget about the ongoing jobs available at prominent open source companies, as well as companies that make extensive use of open source. Red Hat always has many jobs available, but you can even find many open source-focused positions at big Internet companies such as Yahoo. Yahoo makes extensive use of open source technologies such as Hadoop (which underlies its search technology), and usually has positions available for serving these efforts.
Finally, consider showcasing your skills here at OStatic. You can do this by creating a profile on the site, describing your skills, and interacting with others on the site. You can also click the I Use This button on our project pages to let others know what you're experienced with. You can see this in action on the Drupal page here.
Open source is very much a growth technology category. Whether you're just starting out in a tech career, or you've been around, it makes sense to explore your opportunities in this arena.
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