Why Open-Source To Get A Better Developer Job Is Nonsense*(And What You Should Do Instead)

Dragos Nedelcu

3 min readJun 1, 2021

Have you heard it before?

To get a great job as a developer, you should contribute to open-source projects.

I say it is a bunch of nonsense.

Think about it.

If you have a full-time job, you just won’t have the time to do it.

Even if you could, where would you get the time from? If you are already employed where can you take the time from and do it? You would have two jobs now, one of them unpaid. You will feel exhausted and burn out. And for what? An entry in your CV?

Doing open-source while having a job puts you at risk of burnout.

I love contributing and giving back to the community, yes. But for the right reasons and in a sustainable way.

If you don’t have a job, your time is better invested elsewhere.

Now, if you don’t have a job, you are better off putting all your time and energy into looking for one instead of forking random projects. You need to pay those bills my friend and unless you are in a special position* the bits and bytes in that boilerplate won’t do it for you. There are easier ways to put a roof under your head and provide for your loved ones.

If you have to pay the bills, you need to code for $$$.

Yet, let’s for a moment imagine you have the time and energy. Let’s imagine you could actually do it.

It might be too far away from your current skills

Let’s say you find a project where you can contribute. And you spend a few hours, onboard yourself and even help out and update some documentation. Yes, you made some progress, but that progress might be too far away from your current skills and from the skills employers demand.

The knowledge you get is probably out of context.

The hard truth is, contributing is just hard. It is something that you can afford once you get that high-paying job at a top tech company. Probably because the company will give you the space to do that in working hours and you will work with like-minded developers that also do it.

And though contributing to open-source can be extremely rewarding for certain developers in certain positions. For the average software developer, it is just incredibly hard.

If you’d like me to coach you to help you go from coder to engineer with a step-by-step action-wise plan, get on a 45 minutes call and let’s chat.

The good news?

There are easier ways to get better at software development. In fact, at CodeWithDragos we have developed and battle-tested a system whose objective is just that. Turning you into a software rockstar, so you can get that high-paying job you deserve as a developer.

If you truly want a high-paying job as a developer and you are curious about how you could actually get it, just drop me a line or book a FREE consultation call below.

Together we will analyze your situation and build a step-by-step plan to help you get that developer job you dream of.

Click here to apply now!

I look forward to consulting you personally soon!