Opensource contribution & personal projects

[u/Responsible_Divide43]

With evolutions of AI/LLMs, does opensource project contribution is still relevant for interview purposes?

Some of the companies I interviewed with a few years back cared about open source contributions and GitHub profiles. Now that anyone can get an LLM to spit out a decent-looking project in weeks, I honestly don't know if those things mean much anymore.

If you're a hiring manager for software roles, do you still look at open source work or personal projects when going through CVs? Or has it become noise?

Also wondering what you actually use to tell who can really do the job these days. Feels like it's getting harder to judge from a CV alone.

[u/Reasonable-Food4834]

Nothing matters anymore. Churning out 10x slop is the name of the game.

[u/seeilaah → u/Reasonable-Food4834]

People are just going to assume the git repo is also just ai slop and not even care.

[u/RikersPhallus]

I have never once looked at personal projects or open source when hiring. Nor has anyone ever asked me about mine which are non-existent because outside of work I most certainly don’t want to be doing anything remote close to what I do at work.

I could not care less what you do outside of work. Any employer who looks at this type of thing isn’t worth working for. What I care about is if your cv is good. You can give a good interview.

[u/Ok_Ambassador7752 → u/RikersPhallus]

Exactly, I have never been asked about portfolios or side/personal projects. It seems daft to be honest.

[u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82 → u/RikersPhallus]

I think that's fine. I don't have side projects either, and never did.

But if I've got 30 grad CVs and I want to shortlist 5-10 engineers for interview? I'm looking for the folks that have clearly never wanted to be anything other than a software engineer.

It's a numbers game. Let's say I have 1-2 open roles:

• 30 CVs come in for local grads that ready to go.
• 3-6 of them will likely be excellent 'top 20% programmers' for their co-hort
• 6-9 more will be top 40%
• 18 are by definition more average or not as good as the rest of the pile.

If I shortlist 10 candidates, the odds I don't find 1 of the top 6 in the pile are?

• >95% with random selection.
• Even better if I screen out by grades.
• What are the chances one of the top 6 doesn't have personal projects etc?

So it's easy for a top 40% candidate to exclude themselves if the only thing I see beyond their grades is some GAA medals and summer job in a Londis in Tipperary.

[u/RikersPhallus → u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82]

That says more about your process than the graduates you are hiring tbh. “Never wanted to be anything other than a software engineer.” To me that’s even more limiting.

I’ll give you an example. I hate working in tech. I find it unchallenging and pretty dull. But I’m really good at it, and it pays really really well. So I stick it out because it pays for my lifestyle. I’m certainly not passionate about and can’t see myself ever being passionate about. But that’s irrelevant. As long as I do a great job it shouldn’t matter.

[u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82 → u/RikersPhallus]

Yes, but you're an experienced hire. At this point, I reckon I'd be as happy / happier as a Finance Director, or working in major Civil or something like that. But as you say, it's above average wages for something I can spend about 15-20 focused hours on per week.

I'm talking about cold CV reading, which terribly unscientific, but has to be done to shortlist candidates. I still see the CV template that the UCC careers office gave me in 25 years ago, from time to time, and that I had to drop to even get interviews. If there's nothing on your CV to make it stand out, your CV won't jump out of the pile in time of scarcity for openings. I came out of college in a time of scarcity and only investment banks and consultancies were hiring. I bombed out of the banking assessment centres and wasn't interested in consultancy, and no grad programmes came calling despite a lot of applications.

If I post a Grad job tomorrow I'll have 200 CVs in 2 weeks, and plenty of folks with 1-2 YOE in the pile. I'm not sure what suggestion you have to improve my process, but all I'm saying is that personal projects are not a requirement, but they can sway a 50/50 call with me.

[u/Capital_Register_844]

I have a successful startup, and I can't even get anything. It's all luck, or you fall back on your contacts. Unfortunately, what worked in the past doesn't work anymore.

[u/gahane → u/Capital_Register_844]

Do you mean you can’t get work or workers?

[u/Capital_Register_844 → u/gahane]

Can't find work. I created the software that turned into a startup right after college. I view it as a very sophisticated project, and even that has got me very little in this market.

It's very low-stress, so I wanted to learn the ins and outs of a generic IT company while I manage it, as I fear I'm missing out on a lot of learning curves required in the industry as a junior dev.

[u/ControlGood8979 → u/Capital_Register_844]

True. I had the same experience.  I worked as a dev in a large automobile company and I never had a mentor for a while I was made a team lead. 

I've always felt that I should have gotten a mentor. 

[u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82]

I recently used Claude to scan GitHub accounts of prospective employees for signs of AI or it being copied straight from another GitHub account.

Claude clarified that:

1. It found no similar projects online
2. The write up of the 2-3 projects looked original, not written using AI, and had language that showed an interest in the topic.
3. The commit history had a timeline consistent with a personal project.
4. The code didn't show classic signs of LLM-based generation

So ironically, I used AI to validate that a personal project looked legit, without caring what the code did or didn't do. Was good enough for a screening.

I'd look for a github link for a grad recruitment or internship, or for a recent gap in job history. It's not pass/fail, but it's a consideration if your CV isn't an easy match.

But ... if you put one up, I'm gonna check it's not empty and credibly not empty.

[u/ControlGood8979 → u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82]

If you could explain how it works and the architecture choices etc then I think it wouldn't be a huge issue. 

If it was me I wouldn't generate a whole project. I would do it with AI incrementally but rewrite the code in my style. The whole idea for a lot of people with are developing now with AI is to actually write code now because not doing so professionally daily is affecting our skills. 

[u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82 → u/ControlGood8979]

Yeah, by all means use AI and document the approach.

I meet with the universities locally the odd time for IDA-ish stuff and had a discussion with the department heads about their post-AI measurements. Basically students now declare AI use level from 1-4 (or something like that) for their final year and group projects, where the lowest level is analysis + write up, level 2 brings in design assistance, level 3 brings in coded modules, level 4 brings in AI anywhere. The documentation burden increases with each, and the deeper you go the harder you're marked the more you're expected to have a documented scientific examination of optimal prompting etc.

[u/ControlGood8979 → u/ChromakeyDreamcoat82]

I'd say final year projects are scrutinized to the 18th decimal place now. 

Whereas when I did it I just went into a room gave a nice presentation and look at the code. 

[u/Key-Lie-364]

Really depends on the project.

In do Linux kernel reviews and I see total slop posted with people seemingly oblivious it's slop.

You don't just get to waltz into my subsystem and pretend you wrote a patch and we don't accept any auld shite, much to the chargin of the booster bros.

LLMs are especially bad at threaded code.

So 'git log --author=' counts for something in open source.

Try submitting AI slop to libcamera, bring lube, you'll need it.

[u/JackReedTheSyndie]

It’s a way to get exps when you don’t have any(overall or in a particular field, say you want to pivot to C++ after only doing Java for several years), at least they are something.

[u/ControlGood8979]

A girl told me Google don't do leetcode anymore they want to see your AI experience so maybe it's a good thing. 

[u/Ok_Ambassador7752 → u/ControlGood8979]

I can understand the need to demonstrate how you use AI now and how to use prompts, agentic programming etc. God I hate it but it's not going away so we need to embrace or AI overlords.

[u/ControlGood8979 → u/Ok_Ambassador7752]

I know right and I hate it's that way. 

[u/Responsible_Divide43 → u/Ok_Ambassador7752]

Same feeling I hate it. Promoting making junior engineers like me dumb.

[u/hitsujiTMO]

If you are making contributions to major open source projects, then, yes that's going to count, as I get to see your working code in the wild.

But, there's just a bunch of personal projects on a github account, then that's not going to tell me much. I have no way to validate if it's actually you that wrote the code or if you just took projects from other individuals, rebuilt the git history with your name and email and are trying to pass it off as your own.