[gamesbrainiac]

The simplest way is to put your contributions on your resume, and many (good) companies will actually ask you to explain what your contributions were. Many companies see active OS contributions to be a big plus.

So, you don't have actively leverage it, the companies that value your OS contributions will see it as a big plus point in your resume.

However, what you can do is leverage the power of the OS community to get jobs. This can be very useful when first starting out.

[WilandOr1903]

That makes sense. So far, most of the recent interviews I've had have asked me about my work experience, and none of my open-source work, even though that work is on my CV.

[throwaway049]

I did a brief screencast of something I'd built, and showed it on my tablet during an interview, which was well received although it was not a technical interview.

[gamesbrainiac]

Are your open source contributions small or are they large, like contributions to a well known database or a well known web framework?

[WilandOr1903]

They're for a (somewhat) niche iOS project, so not terribly well-known.

[gamesbrainiac]

Then therein lies the problem. If you want large returns, you need to make good contributions to large or well known projects.

Otherwise, your work really has no context in which it can be judged favorably.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

No, that is absolutely not a problem. If an interviewer is interested in your OSS contributions, hes's not going to be any less impressed because it's a project he's never heard of.

The simple fact that you have OSS on your resume makes you stand out. Period. I have seen exactly one resume with OSS on it in all the years I conducted interviews.

One.

[WilandOr1903]

That's actually quite encouraging, so thank you. I've been trying to find a balance between working on OSS contributions + getting better at "CS fundamentals" (I'm a self-taught programmer, so a bit lacking on the algs/data structures side of things). Which is definitely a disadvantage during an interview, and part of the reason I'm hoping to emphasize my OSS contributions more.