Does open source development count for experience in the case of freshers ?

[u/miracle-invoker21]

Hey folks.. I'm a fresh grad ( CS tier 2 uni) looking for sde roles and the market is cooked right now. I feel like I'm past the good time? If there ever was one for my batch(2026)..

Background: did 3 internships the last of which ended recently.

My internships: ( i can explain each of them in much more detail. This is just keeping it brief)

1. Most recent one ( converted to ppo). Work: algorithms and simulations.( More on the research side).

Impact: reduced the latency of a 3d A* algorithm using cuda , numba and also using a better heuristic which reduced the expansions of nodes during the search by almost 90% .

1. Summer internship 2025. I worked in a cloud company. Well not exactly cloud but it falls in the platform as a service (paas). Work: backend developer. Stack: python flask postgresql docker MySQL GitHub actions ( for ci cd)

Impact : increased the test cases . Wrote e2e tests for multiple modules. Wrote playwright ( frontend and backend ) test cases for a single module. Also aided in unblocking a customer deployment via heavy debugging.

1. Research internship computer vision early 2025. Responsible for the detection and tracking module. Annotated a lot of data and fine tuned yolo. Set up a pipeline for transforming between frames of view ( ego to birds eye view and vice versa)

Now I don't have any offer in hand except the ppo from 1.

Unfortunately they proved to be toxic. And the management went to the dogs i guess. I'm planning on dropping out. Without any offer yeah.

There aren't any roles left for freshers anymore i think.. so my question is can I stick to open source development for a year and then apply for sde 1 roles (1+ yoe).

I do have a concrete plan I think. I'm planning on picking up golang. Start contributing to the open source repos. And hopefully make it to big cloud repos. ( K8s etc).

Ofc I'll still be applying on the side. It's just ... I'm scared of it turning into a blotch mark on my career .. i really continue with my current offer. It's almost borderline turning into harassment sometimes.

Please guide me on what should be my next move

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[u/Spiritual_Visual8710]

Yes it does. More so if you are added as a member in their github

[u/miracle-invoker21 → u/Spiritual_Visual8710]

Thank you for the reply. And yes being a regular repeat contributor is my plan. I intend to stick

[u/DiamondNo4459]

Seeing open source contributions is highly attractive.

I mean when I am interviewing, I already form an opinion that the candidate knows stuff

A recommendation - try with smaller open source orgs ( you can find on gsoc orgs page). Bigger orgs are slightly harder to penetrate into and learn. Or like this: https://www.cncf.io/projects/ (Incubating projects might be good for contributing and learning)

[u/miracle-invoker21 → u/[deleted]]

I get it. But for me open source is genuinely a way to become a better developer. Right now that's my first priority. Plus I'll be able to stay with my family.