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Open Source Contributions Vs Competitive Programming? #79

Open Pothulapati opened 7 years ago

Pothulapati commented 7 years ago

I'm a sophomore here in India. I do C#.Net Programming.

I'm having a hard time to choose between Competetive Programming or Open Source Contributions so as to show my coding skills and get a job in some good company right after college.

I love contributing to open source projects (also taking part in .Net Hack Fest organized by Jon Galloway) and I'm a novice in competitive programming. I heard big companies like Microsoft will see your projects only if you clear the coding round? Is it so?

What are your suggestions for students like me to join the aspnet team at Microsoft (Love the work they are doing.)?

Thank You

ghuntley commented 7 years ago

Do open-source. Competitive programming has negative coloration with how effective or good someone is at developing software. There's so much more to being a software engineer than writing software. Open source will teach you communication, the importance of documentation, how to tactfully disagree with people, how to lead and mentor other people, etc. Open-source leaves a public trail that demonstrates your capability in these areas. Additionally when you leave a company, you get to keep your co-workers.

Suggestions? Watch this video by James Newton King of JSON.NET :)

031nna commented 7 years ago

I agree with @ghuntley .