March 6, 2017 at 13:00The impact that github has on your career
- Transfer
Over the next 12-24 months - in other words, between 2018 and 2019 - the method of hiring software developers will change dramatically.
From 2004 to 2014, I worked at Red Hat, the world's largest open source software company. On the very first day, in July 2004, my boss Marty Messer told me: “All the work you will do here will be open, in full view. In the future, you won’t need a resume - people will simply receive information about you on Google. ”
This was one of the unique features of working at Red Hat at the time. We had the opportunity to create our own brand and reputation. Communication with other software developers was carried out using the mailing list and bug trackers, and the source code was administered through Mercurial, Subversion, and all cvs repositories were open and indexed on Google.
Back in 2017: we now live in a world that is embracing open source software.
There are two factors that will give you a real idea of today:
Software developers, especially those who work on products with closed source code, do not quite understand what is happening. For them, open source is equivalent to "free work in their free time."
For those of us who have spent the past decade setting up a billion-dollar open-source software company, there is nothing wrong with working openly. The benefits and significance of such work are obvious: your reputation is already known to other companies. GitHub is a social network where your social capital created through your commits and contribution to global communication in any area of IT in which you work belongs only to you - it is not tied to the company in which you happen to work for a while.
Smart people will be able to take advantage of this: they will post patches, send questions and leave comments to the creators of the languages and frameworks that they use every day in their work - TypeScript, .NET, Redux.
They will also strongly support the idea and creatively organize the predominant part of their work precisely in the field of open development, even if this is only a contribution to the development of private repositories.
GitHub can be called a great equalizer. You may not be able to get a job in Australia from India, but nothing prevents you from working with Australians from India using GitHub.
The way to get a job in the same Red Hat over the past decade is obvious. You start working with Red Hat developers about the task that they are currently working on, and then when it becomes clear that you have made a significant contribution and have been able to show your best in the process, you get a chance to talk about the possibility of further employment. Well, or they will contact you.
Now the same path is open to all, in almost any direction. As open source code takes over the world, this trend is spreading everywhere.
In a recent interview with Linus Torvalds (49 thousand subscribers, 0 subscriptions on GitHub), the creator of Linux and Git, spoke about it this way:
Your reputation is your place in the circle of trust. The more often you change companies, the more weak, and sometimes even lost, your reputation. It’s like if you live in a small town for quite some time, all the inhabitants of this city know you. And if you move from country to country, you will end up somewhere where no one knows you - and, even worse, where no one knows anyone who knows you.
You have lost your primary and secondary, and possibly even third-rate, connections. Until you create a brand, speaking at conferences or doing other significant things, the trust that you built by working with others and putting the code in a corporate internal repository will not appear.
However, if this work was done on GitHub, then it will not disappear. She is visible. This is the path to entering the circle of trust that is visible to everyone.
One of the first things that will happen is that those who were previously deprived of opportunities will start to benefit from it. Students, college graduates, immigrants. They will use this to move to Australia.
And that will change the whole picture. Once privileged developers will find that their circle of trust is lost. One of the principles of open source is meritocracy - the best idea, the best commit, the best testing, the best implementation, etc. wins.
Of course, such a method of assessment is also imperfect (and indeed there is nothing perfect). And he does not relieve you of the responsibility to be a good person with whom you can work. We fired several star developers from Red Hat who didn’t get along with other employees - and after that we saw these guys collaborating with other members on GitHub.
GitHub is not just a repository of code and a list of raw commits, as some people stereotypically imagine. This is a social network. I would formulate it as follows:
This is a bit of a portable reputation. And over the next 12-24 months, while some developers will work on it, while others will not, this factor will become crucial. Let's draw an analogy. For example, before there were dilemmas: to have an e-mail or not (now everyone has it), to buy a mobile phone or not (now everyone has a mobile phone). In the end, the vast majority will work with open source, and this will become a similar situation in which everyone will have an equal chance of success.
But now, the career opportunity of a developer will increasingly depend on GitHub.
From 2004 to 2014, I worked at Red Hat, the world's largest open source software company. On the very first day, in July 2004, my boss Marty Messer told me: “All the work you will do here will be open, in full view. In the future, you won’t need a resume - people will simply receive information about you on Google. ”
This was one of the unique features of working at Red Hat at the time. We had the opportunity to create our own brand and reputation. Communication with other software developers was carried out using the mailing list and bug trackers, and the source code was administered through Mercurial, Subversion, and all cvs repositories were open and indexed on Google.
Back in 2017: we now live in a world that is embracing open source software.
There are two factors that will give you a real idea of today:
- Microsoft - a long time-old example of proprietary software with closed source and an active fighter with open source - finally quite sincerely accepted open-source software, creating the .NET Foundation (of which Red Hat is a member, of course) and joined the Linux Foundation. .NET is being developed as an open source project.
- GitHub has become a special social network that links bug tracking and version control.
Software developers, especially those who work on products with closed source code, do not quite understand what is happening. For them, open source is equivalent to "free work in their free time."
For those of us who have spent the past decade setting up a billion-dollar open-source software company, there is nothing wrong with working openly. The benefits and significance of such work are obvious: your reputation is already known to other companies. GitHub is a social network where your social capital created through your commits and contribution to global communication in any area of IT in which you work belongs only to you - it is not tied to the company in which you happen to work for a while.
Smart people will be able to take advantage of this: they will post patches, send questions and leave comments to the creators of the languages and frameworks that they use every day in their work - TypeScript, .NET, Redux.
They will also strongly support the idea and creatively organize the predominant part of their work precisely in the field of open development, even if this is only a contribution to the development of private repositories.
GitHub can be called a great equalizer. You may not be able to get a job in Australia from India, but nothing prevents you from working with Australians from India using GitHub.
The way to get a job in the same Red Hat over the past decade is obvious. You start working with Red Hat developers about the task that they are currently working on, and then when it becomes clear that you have made a significant contribution and have been able to show your best in the process, you get a chance to talk about the possibility of further employment. Well, or they will contact you.
Now the same path is open to all, in almost any direction. As open source code takes over the world, this trend is spreading everywhere.
In a recent interview with Linus Torvalds (49 thousand subscribers, 0 subscriptions on GitHub), the creator of Linux and Git, spoke about it this way:
“You release a decent amount of small patches until the miners begin to trust you, after which you become more than just the guy who sends the patches, you enter the circle of trust.”
Your reputation is your place in the circle of trust. The more often you change companies, the more weak, and sometimes even lost, your reputation. It’s like if you live in a small town for quite some time, all the inhabitants of this city know you. And if you move from country to country, you will end up somewhere where no one knows you - and, even worse, where no one knows anyone who knows you.
You have lost your primary and secondary, and possibly even third-rate, connections. Until you create a brand, speaking at conferences or doing other significant things, the trust that you built by working with others and putting the code in a corporate internal repository will not appear.
However, if this work was done on GitHub, then it will not disappear. She is visible. This is the path to entering the circle of trust that is visible to everyone.
One of the first things that will happen is that those who were previously deprived of opportunities will start to benefit from it. Students, college graduates, immigrants. They will use this to move to Australia.
And that will change the whole picture. Once privileged developers will find that their circle of trust is lost. One of the principles of open source is meritocracy - the best idea, the best commit, the best testing, the best implementation, etc. wins.
Of course, such a method of assessment is also imperfect (and indeed there is nothing perfect). And he does not relieve you of the responsibility to be a good person with whom you can work. We fired several star developers from Red Hat who didn’t get along with other employees - and after that we saw these guys collaborating with other members on GitHub.
GitHub is not just a repository of code and a list of raw commits, as some people stereotypically imagine. This is a social network. I would formulate it as follows:
“What matters is not the presence of your code on GitHub, but what other people on GitHub say about your code, that’s what matters.”
This is a bit of a portable reputation. And over the next 12-24 months, while some developers will work on it, while others will not, this factor will become crucial. Let's draw an analogy. For example, before there were dilemmas: to have an e-mail or not (now everyone has it), to buy a mobile phone or not (now everyone has a mobile phone). In the end, the vast majority will work with open source, and this will become a similar situation in which everyone will have an equal chance of success.
But now, the career opportunity of a developer will increasingly depend on GitHub.