As a developer, your Github profile is quickly becoming your new resume. Hiring companies look at your Github activity as a measure of your skill and experience.
How did I become a contributor to the Ember.js website even though I’ve never used the framework, and without writing a line of code? Here are the 3 easy steps you can follow to become an open source superstar.
- Find a prominent open source library. Or, just pay attention the next time you’re following one of those “How to install this” README.md guides.
- Read the readme and look for typos, spelling errors, or confusing grammar. Or, follow the instructions for installing something. Find confusing parts of the documentation where you can add more detail.
- Submit a pull request! Github makes this extremely easy for text files (like README.MD). Just click “edit” and Github will fork the repo and guide you through creating a pull request. Fix up the documentation, commit it, and submit your pull request. Here’s one I did to make the Ember.js documentation more clear.
Bonus
The steps above are good for open source in general, and also make you look good. If you want to make yourself look good in a more superficial way, how about keeping a public repo and contributing something daily. Or, write a robot to do it!
I think hiring companies could look at your pull requests, and it won’t be a big plus for resume writing README files