But the statement is in response to "this is bad advice for brand new developers." If the advice is so specific you end up doxing the single person in the world who's ever done it, then it sounds like that's a perfectly fair criticism.

I think the point is more "this general strategy works for most people; but not everyone is going to get a $500k job from it".

It's a reliable strategy to get noticed and make a good impression. How much money you manage to make from that opportunity obviously depends on many more factors.

The problem is that people are conflating "one guy got lucky and got a $500k remote job" with "here is a repeatable process to generate a full-time income by working on open source on spec." Even getting a $50k remote job is not a guarantee, and telling people to work for free on open source is the Hacker News equivalent of telling a designer that you'll pay them if you like the logo they make you. Only this is much more insidious because you're telling them to work full-time, for free, for "3 or 4 months."

We complain about job interviews taking an entire day yet have no problem telling this person to dump 750 hours into something with the hope of "getting noticed."

People attend college and spend enormous money & time with no guarantees. The unpaid time spent is not throwaway.

If I was 19 today - and wanted to code for the most $$$ possible. I wouldn't be in college. I'd be building up skills + know people. Know people even tougher I'd argue for technical people who are often introverts.

And being a reliable open-source contributor on projects people use can open doors that college could never open. From personal experience Open Source is also a great way to get to know people, especially if the project has an active IRC or Slack.

I would love to contribute to open source but in 10+ years I've never found a project. Is there a good website that matches developers to projects?

What projects have you used over the last 10 years?

Probably a lot of utility ones but none that made me jump into the code

>People attend college and spend enormous money & time with no guarantees. The unpaid time spent is not throwaway.

It is throwaway for most people. 'Most' being >75%. Just my guesstimate.

Well there is another way to look at it if you wish, if you want to bolster your self-esteem and confidence by having a college/university degree, then do it. My observation is that most people who do not have a degree suffer a life long I-do-not-have-a-degree self esteem syndrome, despite being just as capable as everyone else.

> Only this is much more insidious because you're telling them to work full-time, for free, for "3 or 4 months."

Specifically, donating that time to a project which a company uses to make money.

Sounds you're like just walking around the point

> It's a reliable strategy to get noticed and make a good impression.

If its so reliable, there should be many repeated examples of it happening. So far, all we have is a single case.