In or organization, we’ll often sit down with programmers that have a sincere interest in technologies they don’t use in their day jobs. For example, say you work in a corporate, Microsoft stack environment but have always had an interest in open source startups. How could you land a job in an open source shop? It’s not as impossible as one would think. If you have a passion for a tech stack that’s not part of your day job and you and want to pursue those technologies professionally, then you have to get organized to prove your qualifications to potential employers.
First, put together a portfolio of anything you have built on your own. Think about the most complex personal/freelance projects or anything you did to help other companies or technologists. This will show a prospective employer you spend just as much time moonlighting as you do with your day job. Next, articulate how active you are within the professional community. What contributions have you made to those Meetup groups? If you have a profile on networking sites like Github & Stack Overflow, then how substantial are your repositories and what is the depth of your questions & answers?
The point here is you can break free of the conventional résumé bullet points and not be bound to a profession that lies within the tech stack of your job history. If you can demonstrate that you are just as skilled in your personal coding, then respectable hiring managers will acknowledge this.
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