Ask HN: How important is a public GitHub repo for job applications in 2024?

18 points by J253 2 years ago | 30 comments

I’m a US-based senior software engineer with almost 15 years of experience. Graduated from a top 50 uni in the states. I have worked mostly for smaller companies because I prefer the autonomy and outsized impact you can have—so no FAANG-like companies on the resume but I have cofounded a startup and had a successful exit. I’m not a job hopper by any means—spent over a decade with one company. However, by choice I have zero online presence. No LinkedIn, no Facebook, no X, not even a public GitHub repo. I have plenty of stuff in a private repo that mostly contains foundations for a handful of other half-baked startup ideas. Nothing I’d be willing to share for job search purposes because it’s just brain dump-type code and some POC stuff.

I’m not necessarily job searching, but I’m casually looking and have applied for a half dozen or so specific positions that I’m really interested in and based on the job description, would be a great fit for. I tailor my resume to each position and write a well thought out cover letter for each one. On paper, everything looks like a great match and at the very least I’d expect a first-call screening from each one. However, I’ve received only generic “thanks for applying” rejection letters without even a first call. I haven’t applied for jobs in quite a long time so I’m wondering if my lack of online presence (especially my inability to supply public code examples as part of the application) is sending my resume straight to the bin.

My question is: how important is that kind of stuff these days? Is an application without a bunch of links to example code dead on arrival in 2024? Or does the issue more likely exist in my resume and cover letter? Speaking of, do people actually do cover letters anymore? They seem “optional” on most applications.

romanhn 2 years ago |

First off, this is a rough time to be applying for jobs - recruiters and hiring managers are inundated with applications. It's a game of numbers these days, so half a dozen applications is just not a meaningful amount when every posting gets tons of well-qualified (and overqualified) candidates.

Second, I suspect the lack of a LinkedIn profile is much more likely to impact your chances compared to a GitHub profile. The latter has never been a particularly strong signal for hiring managers for reasons described elsewhere in comments here. Missing a LinkedIn page makes you stand out - and not in a positive way. Between the "overemployed" crowd and AI-generated profiles, there's something to be said for having some kind of social proof that you are who you say you are. Whether that's right or wrong is beside the point, just part of modern reality.

That said, your best bet is to just apply more. Looking for a job can be a truly full-time job in itself these days.

jdale27 2 years ago |

I've spent a lot of time screening resumes for software engineering positions.

Having a public GitHub profile is not a requirement, and most GitHub profiles I see are worthless. They're either large open source repos where the candidate contributed a few trivial changes among thousands; or personal repos that are just them working through some cookie-cutter online tutorial. The most useful repos from a screening perspective are where you created a non-trivial project from scratch. It doesn't have to be anything ground-breaking or truly novel. It just has to show evidence that you identified a problem worth solving, and spent some meaningful amount of time solving it, so that the code you wrote is a faithful representation of your ability to build and evolve a software system over time.

A lot of people just post "student code", which is badly organized, badly formatted, sparsely commented, and untested. This gives me no positive signal. Putting in the time to apply professional software engineering standards, even to a personal project, is much more likely to give me a positive impression of your capabilities.

Aside from the repo question: this just seems to be a difficult time for job-seekers. Lots of companies are doing layoffs and slowing hiring, is my perspective on the situation.

Other resume signals:

* A degree from a top 10 or top 20 university may help you stand out; top 50 is nothing special (but not a negative either).

* Sad as it is to say, if you've been hired at a well-known tech company with fairly high standards, that does provide a positive signal. If the only companies you've worked at are small startups I've never heard of, it's a bit harder for me to justify spending 30-45 minutes on a phone screen.

That said, the #1 thing I look for is whether you've done the previously done the kind of work I need to have done, and done it successfully (e.g., you stayed a while at the same company and the company didn't fail). (Obviously I can't attribute that to you individually, but I might at least give you a chance to demonstrate your depth of knowledge and ability in a phone screen.)

TillE 2 years ago | |

> you created a non-trivial project from scratch

I think a lot of people overestimate the amount of effort it takes to create a moderately successful, useful project. Like, make a plugin for something. Demonstrate that you can solve a real problem competently.

If you have any kind of outside interests, you probably have an itch that can be scratched this way.

pavel_lishin 2 years ago | | |

I think you might be over-estimating the ability of many software engineers to write a whole project - any whole project - from scratch.

I mean, you're not wrong - it's not that hard - but it's also amazing how many people in our profession aren't particularly good at doing more than make small modifications in some giant monorepo at work.

And like, if you don't have the drive or desire to outside of work, that's fine! Maybe you've got other hobbies, or a family, or as much interest in practicing your work at home as an average dentist. So the lack of a Github repo full of fun side projects shouldn't be a negative signal. But I also know that I've worked with people in the past that I don't think actually could make A Thing from scratch without someone holding their hands the whole time.

frompdx 2 years ago |

If you aren't getting to the first call there is something up with your resume. Are you applying directly or working with a recruiter? Applying directly is a roll of the dice in my experience. I have gotten just one job in tech by applying directly of the many I have had and it was a total surprise. For all others I have worked with a recruiter.

From a hiring manager perspective, I'm more interested in experience, level of ownership in past work, and good performance on technical screening questions. I rarely look at GitHub profiles and candidates rarely list them.

From my personal experience, what you have publicly available in your GitHub can only hurt you unless you are the owner of a successful open source project. As you said, you have a lot of half-baked stuff. It's probably not worth making public.

Will the lack of online presence be an issue? Maybe or maybe not. Some people seem to care a lot about whether or not someone has a LinkedIn and whether or not they keep their job history up to date. I do not personally care, but I will say LinkedIn is a low effort investment of your time. As much as I don't care for it, I have landed multiple jobs thanks to having a reasonably up to date profile that recruiters look for.

interbased 2 years ago |

My GitHub profile wasn’t very polished when I was applying for jobs. It was mostly just descriptions of the projects on my resume, and discussing them during the interview. Reaching out to recruiters at the company after applying, or (even better) connections that work there (even if you haven’t spoken in a while) will also boost your chances of getting an interview.

datadrivenangel 2 years ago | |

Reaching out to recruiters or people you've worked with in the past is a much higher yield job searching activity than cold applications.

jononor 2 years ago |

Most people do not have any such thing, and still get hired(). Ask someone to have a look at your resume and help polish it up.

Or at least did. Hiring is low right low, number of applicants quite high.

photon_lines 2 years ago |

Having a portfolio definitely does help and I can attest that it doesn't take all that long to build a solid one. I spent a few weekends on most of my Github projects, albeit I did clean them up and some of them luckily took off on Hacker news propelling them to the front page. The open repositories did lead to some interesting interview conversations and people do pay attention to them -- actually, prior to being offered my current job the interviewees commented on some of the content I open sourced. Most people should spend some time and do their best to 'hack' something over a weekend or two -- don't simply post garbage though - do something interesting and spend some time cleaning up what you post (and pay attention to the little details when it comes to code quality). Doing this will definitely boost your chances in landing a job. (Edit - my repository in case anyone is interested: https://github.com/photonlines)

J253 2 years ago |

Thanks for all the comments so far everyone! I’m quickly getting the impression that I need to work on my resume. Also, I have never used a recruiter. I apply directly to the jobs through their website. Perhaps I need to rethink this approach as well. Again, thanks for the responses! Also I might have to bite the bullet and create a LinkedIn.

datadrivenangel 2 years ago | |

Creating a linkedIn account is also a great opportunity to reach out to previous colleagues and acquaintances, which allows you to ask if they know anyone who would be in the market for your skills.

"Hi <X>, I enjoyed working with you at <Y>, and am finally getting on linkedin, so let's connect."

And then if they actually respond to the message, tell them that you're looking for opportunities building XYZ or in a role doing ABC. It sounds like you've had a good career so far, and you probably have dozens or hundreds of people you've worked with over the years who may know somebody who would love to employ you.

xp84 2 years ago |

Hiring manager perspective: I've looked at maybe two of them at some point in the process. Mostly it was just academic stuff. I noticed no correlation with quality of the developer's skills.

Also, my company is primarily hiring technical staff from Latin America, and it's been wildly successful. In this small, non-representative sample, those developers definitely all rank in the top 20% of our technical staff in terms of commitment, ownership, and efficiency, so this experiment seems to be paying off rather than proving a mistake.

I say the above not to denigrate anyone or to discourage you, but just to point out that there are probably a number of startups like mine which are sitting on the sidelines of the US tech job market, which is definitely going to decrease number of interviews and offers you're getting.

vunderba 2 years ago |

I would only post a public GitHub if you have projects that are notable or different in someway. If it's just a bunch of forked repos or tutorial related projects, there really isn't any point to attaching it to one's résumé.

VirusNewbie 2 years ago |

"Having a github" is worthless, or close to it. Having notable Open Source contributions can be a cheat code to getting interviews, but it's a long process.

decafninja 2 years ago |

I would say it’s not important unless you’ve been working on something groundbreaking or very famous.

Otherwise it might just give you a slight edge over another “all else being equal” candidate.

jpeggtulsa 2 years ago |

I recently changed jobs, I also had a co-worker with similar length of experience start looking for a job before I did. He said he has put in over 200 resumes, and has only gotten a couple of callbacks, and no interviews. I asked to look at his resume, and even though I knew what his skill set was, you couldn't tell from the resume. It had a lot of experience, but in unassociated things. It had some UI/UX experience, some moderate programming experience, and some digital photography experience. I asked him what he was applying for, and he said "I don't know, anything to pay the bills".

On the other hand, I'm strictly a programmer. I wouldn't say I'm an expert at any one thing, but I have enough experience over the years to be able to pick something up and contribute in a short amount of time. Embedded systems, desktop, backend, front end and everything in between. I made it clear that I was a "Full stack software developer with 25+ years of experience in multiple programming environments." I enabled the "Looking for Work" option on LinkedIn. I had around 10 recruiters call or message me on there, and within 2 weeks I had 3 interviews. I went to 2 interviews, the second place offered me a position, and I took it, and had to call the 3rd one back and cancel. It's not a FAANG company (which frankly I'm sick and tired of hearing about on here and Reddit), but it's a big public company with 7 offices and over 600 employees. I got a 25% raise, better benefits, and better flexibility so I have more time to do the things outside of work that I want to do.

And no, I don't have a public GitHub repo.

paulddraper 2 years ago |

I'm sure it helps for some % of jobs.

But as an employer I never look at it. Not nearly reliable enough.

leet_thow 2 years ago |

It's not your lack of public presence, it's the state of the labor market.

alephnerd 2 years ago |

GitHub is irrelevant.

> spent over a decade with one company. However, by choice I have zero online presence. No LinkedIn

On the other hand, a good LinkedIn and resume is absolutely necessary.

With a polished LinkedIn and your YoE you would be getting pinged by recruiters constantly.

While most opportunities will suck, some good ones will come your way too.

brudgers 2 years ago |

The more senior the position, the more important who you know is. Statistically speaking. Because in the age of the internet, finding plausible reason to reject approximately every applicant is most of the hiring pipeline ingest process.

Doubly so in your case because the absence of an online presence means nobody can “get to know you” through ordinary doxing. There’s no way to find out more to determine if it’s worth making a phone call. That makes passing you into the next stage of the pipeline a risk. Everyone wants to keep their health insurance.

Having an online presence has consequences. Not having one does too. TANSTAAFL. Sure you could create one and try to pass. You won't. Everyone has spidey sense for fake profiles. For people trying too hard to fit in.

So talk to people you know. People who worked under over and beside you. This is the same advice as if you had an online presence. TANSTAAFL.

Good luck.

xp84 2 years ago |

Re: Cover Letters: I would definitely read one and consider it a plus, especially if it successfully convinced me you actually want to work here specifically.

6510 2 years ago |

Write a tool that is useful for HR

justinlloyd 2 years ago |

"Having a github is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Having a personal blog is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Having a LinkedIn profile is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Having a portfolio website is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Having a degree from anything but a top 10 university is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Posting on <social media> is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Going to network meetups is worthless!" For some, not for me.

"Posting on HackerNews who wants to be hired is worthless!" For some, not for me.

Because the world is made up of many voices, you will hear many opinions of what is useless, and what you should do. Much like the apocryphal wife and husband and their mule.

When I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and indie game developers about their idea, frequently I hear that advertising or marketing is worthless, they built-it, made a singular post to their 12 followers on Twitter/Instragram/whatever, and nobody came, and then they whined about the lack of response on whatever sub-reddit they think is appropriate.

If you throw a small stone in to a large pond, the ripples it produces will hardly reach the shore, if at all.

If you have a big budget, or a sure-fire viral idea, you can go big all at once. Splash! And the ripples will most certainly reach the shore, and people will, for a time, watch them come in, until the ripples stop, and the people go find something else to watch.

But if you take a dump truck, and poor lots and lots of little stones in, continuously, at different spots in the pond, all those ripples will make interference patterns, and some of the those ripples will reach the near shore, where this crowd of people are standing, and some of the ripples will reach a different shore, where a different crowd of people are standing.

I build interesting and fun side projects. Lots of little pebbles. I put them on my github, I take photos, and write up notes, and talk about them at meetups and conferences when I run into people, and I post about my projects on a big pond called LinkedIn, and a few other smaller ponds, ponds where the people who make hiring decisions are standing on different shores.

And then, every once in a while, without even trying, someone reaches out and says "would you like to come and work with us on this interesting thing we're building?" and a few casual chats for an hour or two that don't involve any leetcoding or livecoding or whiteboardcoding, and if we get a good sense of each other, we might both say "yes." Why, they might even ask for a resume or a C.V. to keep HR happy, long after the decision to hire me has taken place.

So are all of those things that we could do to get hired worthless? Yes. And do they help in getting hired? Also, yes.

You know what I personally do find worthless? Applying for jobs through the normal channels with the rest of the madding crowd that all so desperately want to stand out with their cover letter and their resume and their leetcode studying.

I'm not saying my way works for everyone or anyone. It works for me. Some will loudly proclaim it's worthless. Others will complain that it sounds like a lot of work.

Well, you can apply to 300 jobs, and get 300 rejections, and then sweat bullets when interview time comes about whether your DS&A leetcode skills are up to par. Or you can have someone reach out to you for a chat, a coffee in a lobby, and an hour later you're shaking hands on a good offer.

There will be people in the comments who will say "Well I don't hire that way." And others will say "I would never hire without testing your DS&A!" And others will say "I never looked at your github/linkedin/whatever. There's no time! It's worthless!"

And to them I respond "That's okay, because I'd never work for you. These guys over here are happy to have me. Have interesting problems you see. And are paying more than you are willing too."