Re: On github as a social network

Original post by erock

After just going through the process of looking for a new job, having been a

software developer for 20 years, I always find the process both fun and

annoying. I've run international teams of developers in three countries. I've

done both software and hardware design and have production code in the wild is

at least a dozen languages. I've been an embedded developer writing operating

systems and application code, desktop and mobile tools in .Net, and been a full stack

developer on sites for some of the biggest brands in the world. I've been a

Sales Engineer, working directly with Marketing teams and customers to design

solutions for million dollar projects in the energy industry. I've given

trainings both domestically and abroad, done on-site support on top of a

mountain and in the desert. I hold a US patent and have started a business

doing technical writing and design for those with less technical expertise to

file their own. I've taught a class on Human Centered Design and revamped

software development processes to increase certification levels. I've been on

the editorial panel for a tech journal. And I've been the safety officer and

taught CPR and first responder classed for many years.

If you go to my Github page you'll find a cli todo.txt app written in

Haskell, a script for creating diceware passwords and my dotfiles. I don't work

in open source and with the crazy amount of hours I was working in my 20's and

30's I really didn't have time for side projects. But in the hundred

applications I sent out this year nearly all of them asked for my Github

handle. Some even asked for specific projects on Github that you want to

promote. It became a bit of a recurring speech explaining that most of the code

I have written is intellectual property of major corporations who had no real

interest in open sourcing any of it. The few times I have produced anything

that required publication per licensing has been superseded with later updates

or projects already in the works so besides my one personal app in Github, you

won't be finding anything I've written with a simple Google Search.

And yet I feel, and many countless recruiters have told me, that I have an

impressive background. I've worn so many hats and touch so many aspects of

development that I could fill just about any role. Sadly, I also had too many

hiring managers stop me early on saying they want to bring actual code to the

team to evaluate before moving forward and sadly I don't have it. I don't have

stars and follows on my Github page and they seem to think that is a red flag.

When they ask for my twitter (which I haven't used since basically when twitter

came out) or FB or any other social media and I say I don't really use any of

them, they just give me this strange look. So bizarre.

I just had to remind myself that this process is an exercise in the law of

large numbers. You send out tons of resumes, get a bunch of interviews, a ton

of rejections and a few offers you definitely don't want. Eventually you find a

good match.

$ published: 2022-10-03 21:20 $

$ tags: rant, programming $

-- CC-BY-4.0 jecxjo 2022-10-03

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