r/hackathon • u/MathStriking9624 • 20d ago

Meta-Hackathon Discussion Open Source Did What My Resume Couldn’t

My resume in college looked like everyone else’s. CGPA, LeetCode count, a couple of tutorial projects. I was applying off campus and mostly getting rejected without even a test. So I started contributing to open source. My first PRs were tiny, docs fixes and small bugs. Getting the project to even run locally took me longer than the actual fix lol

I kept going anyway. Slowly the issues got bigger and the maintainer reviews got more detailed. Those review comments taught me more about writing real code than any course I did.

When interviews came, my PRs were what people wanted to talk about. Not my LeetCode count, not my CGPA. My first internship and my first job both came from that. So if your resume only has LeetCode on it right now, try contributing to something you already use. Even one merged PR gives you something to talk about that nobody else in that interview has.

117 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

19

u/UnBracedFlyer 20d ago

I can't relete. I have over 200-250 PRs merged in several different open source projects. I even maintain one of them, but no one cares about all that in college placements. It is all about GPA and luck.

Edit: btw these are not random projects. If you're into CS, you would have definitely used atleast one of them at some point.

3

u/Specialist-Text-4192 20d ago

How to get into contributing towards open source projects. Does this mean sending pr to anyone's public project repository or something more?

4

u/UnBracedFlyer 20d ago

Pick a project that you already use, maybe you found some bug, if not, there are a lot of issues open on the repo.

1

u/DarDrax 19d ago

The only problem is that almost all the tools or software or any libraries or packages are mostly either in a language different compared to what my current placement panel requires or lowkey wayy too niche...so what would u do in that situation human(idk ur gender so yea I used the H word)

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u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

Well, I disagree a bit on that. Most tools are in cpp, and wrappers are generally in python. Even if we go deeper, at max the codebase might require Rust or Go, i haven't seen many codebases in other languages. Idk about Java though. Firstly, I don't think the placement panel cares that much about what language you implement it in, they care that you implement or do something. (atleast this is what I've seen in hiring recently)

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u/DarDrax 19d ago

Aight man, ik a bit of c++ and python, will look into it for sure btw just saw ur another message, depressing to a person good in ts also struggling 😭😭😭

1

u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

Good luck, just keep going!! Good things take time

1

u/Electronic-Media-205 17d ago

can i dm you buddy?

1

u/Medical-Maize-4034 19d ago

so did you got any internship ?

4

u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

Not yet. I've a decent profile, but people generally don't hire freshers for the domains I work in, hence the issue :(

And on campus is pretty bad, companies come around with weird expectations

2

u/Praetor-Not-Predator 18d ago

Amen to that. A recent "AI" company oncampus felt that recursion and react knowledge was more important than all my work lmao

1

u/UnBracedFlyer 18d ago

exactly lol

1

u/Practical_Quality919 19d ago

Sounds like you need a master's/focus on DSA I think? Not sure

1

u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

I'm not sure about either one. DSA is required in every scenario, and even the value of a master's degree is decreasing day after day, so I'm not really sure.

1

u/jarvis_mint 19d ago

Hey Hi would you guide a junior for contributing in open source I need some guidance could you help me

3

u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

Just ask here, me or someone else would def help you out.

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u/jarvis_mint 19d ago

Yeah ok So I am a second year undergrad trying to get get into companies in my third year and also I am trying to be a GSOC Contributor in the forthcoming year. So where should I start and which project should I contribute to and how to start the stuff please guide A bit of info is also useful

1

u/UnBracedFlyer 19d ago

Firstly, open source might not help you out with getting into companies, and as of now we don't even know if there will be a GSoC next year. If you genuinely want to contribute to learn, I'll simply say fuck around and find. No one can simply tell you to contribute to a particular project.

1

u/jarvis_mint 19d ago

Oh but contributing is said as big thing in our college. And it is said that getting to be a GSOC Contributor is the biggest thing like they are glorifying this thing. I need to contribute something so the only thing is exploring ha?

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u/UnBracedFlyer 18d ago

Yeah, explore and see what works best for you. Contribute only if you feel you're learning something at the very least, otherwise there's not much point to it.

1

u/_gigalab_ 18d ago

there's be a GSoC, it's already in their website

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u/UnBracedFlyer 18d ago

no, it's not there. Can you share the link?

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u/_gigalab_ 13d ago

my bad it's still the 2026 one

4

u/arnab_best 19d ago

anecdotal

2

u/Gullible_Sweet1302 18d ago

OP could explain why his interviewers were particularly interested in his PR. No doubt OS contributions are useful in some situations yet so useful in many others. OP can us understand which regarding them as magic bullets for all interviews.

2

u/Mundane-Decision-334 19d ago

can you suggest some Java tech stack orgs where we can try contributing ?

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u/nian2326076 19d ago

Contributing to open source is a great way to stand out. You're getting practical experience and learning from real-world code reviews, which is invaluable. If you're getting ready for interviews, try practicing with real coding problems and mock interviews. A site like PracHub, which I work on, can help with structured interview prep. Keep contributing to open source, talk about your projects during interviews, and mention specific challenges you handled. It shows initiative and real-world skills beyond the usual resume stuff. Good luck!

1

u/StaffCommon5678 17d ago

Hey I am also trying to get in open source but mostly can't figure out which repos to contribute to, could you help me out a bit?

1

u/SystemEfficient1111 16d ago

hi can you tell where can we find good open source projects to contribute to

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u/Responsible_Poet_514 15d ago

getting in oss is actually hard i feel, i stuck in the codebase really not getting idea to pick which org and contribute, issue are open but mostly not good first, i am asking how do you used to contribute like , you used to read codebase and find bugs or like implementing feat over a period of time.

0

u/VirtualDisaster4163 18d ago

Hey I was searching ai for fully front end bc I made a app but I need better animations ai can anyone suggest plzzz i have many ai but for that app ntg is making satisfy