GSoC 2012

[Chase Douglas]

On 02/08/2012 05:52 AM, Matt Dew wrote:
> On 02/07/2012 12:22 PM, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
>> On 02/ 7/12 11:07 AM, Stéphane Marchesin wrote:
>>> That sounds like a great idea. Over the last couple years, we've had
>>> an increasing number of students who were more interested in money
>>> than in the actual technical challenge and the open source aspect.
>>> Such students will require lots of mentoring, do a sloppy job, and
>>> then disappear after the summer. For us (X.Org) it's a net loss
>>> because we invest mentoring time. Recruiting passionate students in
>>> the universities would help us avoid this problem.
> 
> My efforts this year are definitely on getting the good students from 
> the unis. Unfortunately there are LOTS of internships in this area so 
> there is a lot of competition for the good ones.   Any employers reading 
> this who want me to mention they specifically look for things like GSoC 
> when hiring?   (Chase this comes from talking with you.)

I'm not exactly sure where the reference is from, but I'll bite :). At
Canonical we don't tend to hire interns or developers straight out of
university. In fact, having a degree at all isn't really a requirement.
What we care about is a track record of getting things done, preferably
in the area one is hired to work in. That means if we have a job opening
for a gtk developer, then people who have the most experience working on
upstream gtk are going to have a big advantage, probably above every
other technical merit including certifications or degrees.

Having a *successful* GSOC project and continuing the relationship with
the sponsoring organization would be an excellent way to show you have
expertise in the area. Note that success here isn't really defined by
accomplishing specific tasks. Failure to complete a task may be because
the problem is much bigger than people thought. It is just as good to
show how one meaningfully contributed to a difficult goal set before
them as it is to actually accomplish an easier goal.

To summarize, I belive GSOC is an excellent opportunity for students to
build experience and expertise in an open source world. However, it is
also equally important to succeed as a GSOC participant and continue a
relationship with the sponsoring organization. If you accomplish both,
you should have a good shot landing many open source jobs on the market
that pertain to your experiences.

-- Chase