Careers in Open Source

With the deepening economic slowdown enterprises have started looking hard at

optimizing their IT budgets, in some cases even resorting to free and Open

Source solutions and softwares to address to their needs. The adoption of Open

Source in enterprises will automatically imply a need for employees having

familiarity with Open Source technologies. Here we look at what all

opportunities that you can look at to start a career in the Open Source domain

Today, many applications are being developed in the Open Source environment

and are gaining wider acceptance. Open Source is no longer synonymous to Linux

and Java, but has matured to several middle-ware, ERP, BI and other enterprise

applications. A recent survey by Gartner suggests an increasing role for Open

Source as part of business strategies in the coming years. Numerous developers

from around the world are contributing to Open Source software and the ratio of

contributing developers is witnessing a higher growth. Sun Microsystems, Google,

SourceForge, Apache and many other organizations have several Open Source

projects hosted and supported by them. It's not only the developer community

that has been actively collaborating to build Open Source solutions all the

while, but even enterprises are showing interest in the business viability of

Open Source solutions. Hearing all the buzz about the Open Source model and its

adoption by organizations, and looking at the number of organizations that are

initiating their own Open Source projects, one is tempted to wonder how to make

a career in this wide arena.

How to start a career in Open Source



Open Source is a wide domain and there isn't any fixed path that one can

tread to make a career. There are two ways in which one can kick-start a career

in Open Source technologies. The first will pay you while the second will cost

you. You can get trained in one of the Open Source technologies and subsequently

be hired by an enterprise where it is used. The other way encompasses the true

essence of the Open Source, of not just being a user but a contributor.

Contributing to Open Source doesn't pay you unless you are working for an

organization that distributes under the BSD license, like Red Hat or Sun.

Contributing to Open Source doesn't cost you a dime, but you need to devote time

and effort, and this pays you in form of recognition in the Open Source arena.

Not everyone is lucky enough to get hired by an IT enterprise where he or she

could get involved in a high-profile project of their interest that would also

help them in career growth. In fact, people with the necessary skills and

knowledge strive hard but are not able to get the work or project where their

interest lies. Open Source on the other hand, gives you that opportunity where

you can choose the project of your choice; the project that matches your skills

and also your area of interest. Open Source projects are typically created as

collaborative efforts where programmers improve upon the code and share the

changes within the community. The kind of contribution you make for an Open

Source project is visible and can land you job offers from enterprises that want

pros in that domain. Certifications do acknowledge your skills and are generally

accepted by the industry, but your work for an Open Source project is visible

and gives instant proof of your knowledge to a prospective employer.

Every component in our software product portfolio is based on, or stems from an Open Source heritage How has the Open Source domain evolved in recent times? What are the notable trends ? Santhosh d'Souza, CTO, Sun Microsystems Open Source technologies are finding increasing acceptance in the enterprise for a variety of reasons. Economic factors have always played a big role in the re-evaluation of IT infrastructure, resulting in strategies like cloud computing, virtualization and adoption of Open Source software in the enterprise. The maturity of several Open Source projects and enterprise class support options that are available now for Open Source applications also accelerates the adoption of such software. Sun Microsystems fosters and reflects these trends in our technology strategy and business models. The recognition by enterprises that a slew of Open Source technologies are well supported by vendors like Sun Microsystems has resulted in those technologies being deployed and used in mission critical environments. How can a developer benefit from contributing to an Open Source project? Do enterprises recognize such contributions while recruiting? Participating and contributing to an Open Source project provides several benefits to a developer: such a project allows a developer the chance to work on a product through it's life cycle. There are no constraints on the amount of time and the scope of the contribution thus enabling the developer to devote as much time as is available to him, and so also to develop brand new code, optimize existing code and/or fix problems reported by users of the code.Participating in Open Source projects also enables a developer to work on cutting edge technologies and frameworks. Most of the best known developers across the world are active in one or more Open Source projects. Enterprises are increasingly evaluating Open Source expertise and such experience is now sought after in prospective IT employees.

Open Source as the first step



As the source code of Open Source is available, it gives you the opportunity

to fix possible bugs, which is not possible with proprietary closed source

products. For instance, if you want to learn how a web server establishes

HTTP1.1 request, you need to put sniffer tools to a web server like IIS. But

with Apache web server, which is Open Source, you can directly peek in the code

of the server and know how the request handling works. It's not necessary that

you have to change or modify the source code to become a contributor. You can

join projects at sites like SourceForge, Codeplex, Google Code or even start

your own project. Alternatively, you can join commercial Open Source projects

where the chances of being paid for the contributions are also high. Fedora,

Mozilla, Apache, Alfresco, Pentaho, etc are some of the commercial Open Source

projects that require specific skills. Once you join a project of your choice,

you can start things off by being a tester of the project while gaining more

understanding of the technology behind it. And then you can start filing

bug-reports and provide their solutions. You can also contribute towards the

project by doing its documentation.

Shankar Iyer, Director — Learning Services, Red Hat As Open Source technologies are gaining maturity there is a paradigm shift from it being just a technology fad to today being a mainstream business reality. With Open Source technologies having clearly proven themselves all these years in assuring performance, security and scalable solutions while lowering TCO, there is substantial momentum towards deploying Linux and other Open Source technologies within enterprises. Security is another area which is robustly addressed by Linux. The technical workforce for Linux has increased manifold in the last few years, which is just the tip of the iceberg. As the trained technical workforce meets only 1/3rd of the Linux jobs at present, the future is bright for Open Source enthusiasts.

As a developer you can learn various coding methodologies being adopted,

which you could have otherwise learned at later stage of career in an

enterprise. Your contribution enhances your resume and presents your credentials

to the prospective employer. So engaging in Open Source projects in college and

during free time benefits you in knowledge enhancement as well as adds

credentials to your resume. If you had been involved with commercial Open Source

projects like Jboss, Alfresco, PostgreSQL, etc. there are chances that your

contribution could land you a job from parent companies. Also companies that

provide support and services for that technology can offer a position matching

your contribution.

Young engineers who consider Open Source as a career option can begin their career without any fear irrespective of cost-cutting or economic slowdown, for Open Source is a great alternative which suddenly has gained huge popularity Naresh Shah, Managing Director, IDC & Vice President, Global Engineering Strategy, Novell India How do you see Open Source as a career option for beginners in the current economic slowdown? Well, if I talk of today's scenario, one should probably be more interested in the Open Source software rather than any other industry. There are two aspects in this field: wider group of developers who are being involved in communities, others are involved in a proprietary software in companies, which tends to be cheaper. In general, if companies are looking for rationalizing the cost structure the Open Source is much viable. In how many ways can a professional contribute to Open Source? In Open Source community there are many freelancers, who are contributing to several Open Source projects. There are professionals also in the company where they work, and then in free time, according to their interests, contribute to their Open Source project. So generally there are lot of freelancers who are participating in Open Source area. Definitely, companies do look for hiring people either in India or abroad who are better known and have made significant contributions in Open Source environment.

Opportunities in Open Source



As enterprises adopt more and more Open Source solutions, they seek

employees with familiarity and competence in Open Source technologies. There are

various ways in which a professional can progress in this domain. He can be a

consultant to an organization which is implementing an Open Source solution like

a mail server or security solution. On the other hand, there are organizations

which are providing support and services for Open Source solutions and are also

engaged in the development of such solutions. You can join organizations such as

Red Hat or Sun Microsystems and work for the development as well as support for

the product.

Chandika Mendis, Director and Head of Global Technology Office, Virtusa There will be continuing demand for Open Source savvy engineers to support, enhance and maintain Open Source based systems and solutions. Involvement in Open Source brings a lot of visibility to talented individuals who would otherwise not have an opportunity to showcase their creativity. Open Source also touches many aspects of the software development profession. Publicly recognized work and code is always a good thing to have, especially when joining software engineering organizations such as Virtusa. In an interview you will not only be able to showcase your past experience, but how well your code or tool has been peer reviewed and accepted by a larger global community.

To start off, you'll have to develop skills over a product and then target

the company which is into support and services for that product. Else, if you

aim to be a consultant, you would have to start building your portfolio. You can

help an organization to setup the Open Source product and implement it and then

offer your expertise over that product for support and services. For example, if

an organization needs to implement an ERP package, it can either opt for tried

and tested proprietary software from SAP or Oracle that would cost them a

fortune or they can look at Open Source ERP packages like OpenBravo and

implement them, for which they will just have to just pay for support and

customization. But for implementing such packages and integrating them with

other services within the organization, they need professionals who have

expertise over that product.

The Open Source domain is not restricted to developers alone. Technical

writers, legal advisors, etc are also required by Open Source projects. A

technical writer shall do documentation for a project and that will help him in

getting his work and knowledge acknowledged during recruitment.

Career Path



The career path for a professional will typically start from a programmer or

developer, and then with experience, such a professional will be handling

responsibilities like implementing, deploying and architecting the strategies

around open source product deployment for an organization. With experience under

his belt, the professional can then venture into the consultancy arena, or can

move up his career to be a strategy officer for the organization who will be

directing the complete open source adoption or initiative within the enterprise

by evaluating products which will be the best fit solution for the organization.

The career in open source domain can be rewarding, but the major hitch will be

how you set off your career in this domain. One cannot just make a career as

being a contributor towards a project, unless you are being paid for the

contribution.

You reap the fruits of devoting time to open source projects by the

contributions you make to open source. Enterprises are recognizing such

contributions and that helps in being recruited by organizations for the open

source technologies. The table below suggests some of the open source projects

and some commercial open source products which you can join and gain expertise

on to have a career as open source specialist in that field.