[Linux-aus] LA Certification

[Hugh Blemings]

Hi Russell, All,

An interesting idea and already some great replies from (at the time of 
writing) Kathy, Peter, David and Simon.

I'm breaking etiquette ever so slightly by replying to Russells' 
original post as I want to pick up on his final question which may take 
the discussion in a different tangent.

I'll also flag I'm speaking for myself only here, but am drawing on past 
and current work experience.

On 3/7/23 00:23, Russell Coker via linux-aus wrote:
> Would there be a benefit in having Linux Australia certification?
>
> Companies like Google give out certificates when people attend their training,
> would certificates of attendance be of any interest to people?
>
> What about certification of skilled contribution to FOSS projects?  We could
> have a system where members of the projects can endorse worthy contributors
> for a certification of their skills and work.  Would that help people get
> jobs?

I think this final question - "...would it help people get jobs?" bears 
careful thought...

Based on my experience, if the job in question is in the open source 
software development/systems design space, I'd say "No: certifications 
don't particularly help"  Whenever I've been involved in hiring people 
(all SW Development in some form), the employer du jour is looking for 
demonstrated skills and will seek to measure them directly."

In assessing whether to interview, recruiters (internal or external) are 
looking at the persons work history, have they a visible (Github etc) 
track record of credible open source contribution, that kind of thing. 
Once someone is in the interview process, most employers will set up 
several interviews, typically the first is to assess mutual cultural fit 
("do they like us, do we like them"), a second for a systems design 
exercise ("can they design the thing"), the third for coding skills 
("can they implement a subset of the thing").

Some companies are notorious for turning this process into a test of 
wills of sorts, almost seeking to trip the person up. Thankfully more 
and more companies (including where I am now) are taking the approach of 
setting these interviews up as an opportunity for the person to shine. 
Put them at ease, help them show their best, use your preferred 
programming language etc.

But I can honestly say when hiring into FOSS roles, I've never looked 
at/for a certification, or for that matter, given much thought to 
presence/absence of tertiary qualifications.

As it happens a colleague of mine recently put the view (paraphrased 
slightly) "If I see lots of certifications it's a bit of a warning flag 
- why not put that time into contributing to a FOSS project they care 
about?" a fair point I thought.

If on the other hand the role is (say) software development for 
aerospace, health/medical systems, system administration, network 
security that sort of thing, then I suspect the existing certifications 
serve that space well and are appropriately table stakes in hiring. But 
that's outside my area of direct/adjacent experience! :)

Hope that's a useful $0.20 worth.

Cheers,
Hugh

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