5 years ago when I graduated University, I had a whole host of open source
projects under my belt. I put my heart and soul into them - for thousands of
hours. And users loved them. I still remember some of the faceless users whose
messages gave me a smile.
[https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/518a9cb2-59d2-4412-a846-567377b8fd9e.png] When I
went into the job market - which was much better back then - I had some
incorrect assumption that recruiters would care about this work. Or at least
technically inclined companies. Or at the very least, companies I would want to
work for would care about this. But that never happened. My Indeed profile shows
I applied to over 600 jobs back then. With 3 offers, I accepted the only one
that didn’t treat me like a baby, and had a great time working for that company.
During the day, I worked 8-9 hours for this startup, and until late at night I
continued my open source contributions. Surely, they would take me somewhere.
[https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F6vUNA8Y.png]
I hopped to another startup and oversaw major projects - for pitiful pay - but
enjoyed it. My skillset had never been so strong, and my impact was measurably
through the roof. Surely if I kept this up, I would land a high paying gig
anytime soon. But of course, that didn’t happen. Waking up at 6am to make some
commits, reading documentation on the subway, and coding to dubstep at night
wasn’t getting me anywhere. But I was happy. Eventually I came to face the music
- Nobody gives a crap about real projects. The people who knew my value weren’t
the people who could pay me. I peeled back, and started grinding Leetcode
instead.
[https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FcXM1lJd.png]
My projects slowed to a crawl. The communities slowly got demotivated. It was
sad to turn my back to, but it got me a 5x salary bump. When I joined, I was
treated like a baby for having “4 years of industry experience”. Whatever. I did
work here and there, and apparently my impact exceeded expectations. But what
about my skillset? Despite significantly regressing, now my email is filled with
recruiters begging me to come to be “Amazon SDE II”, “Tech lead at YC startup
X”, “Part time job paying 150-290$/hr”. Pathetic. I was so much better (and
happier) before, yet I’m only seen when I do the fake crap like update my
LinkedIn to celebrate 1 year at $FAANG. I’ll collect some money and retire in a
couple years. Hopefully the open source world stays the same until then.

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The author shares their journey of investing significant time in open source projects post-university, only to find job recruiters did not value it. Despite a strong skill set, they struggled to secure lucrative roles, and eventually shifted focus to Leetcode, which resulted in a significant salary increase but caused a regression in their technical skills. Now, they receive high-paying job offers without the same fulfillment they had from their open source work.

My Engineering Craft Regressed

It’s sad to see that doing a bunch of quizzes is more valued than actually having solid experience.

Thank you for sharing this. The struggle is deeply relatable, it really does feel like there’s a disconnect between doing meaningful technical work and being recognized in a job market that often rewards theater over substance. So many people go unnoticed simply because their value isn’t packaged in the way recruiters (or AI) are trained to look for. I truly hope you find peace, fulfillment, and maybe even a renewed love for open source when that retirement day comes.

I feel the same tbh: the experience gained in free time does not count at all…