[gant]

I feel like being active on GitHub definitely helped me getting my current job.

Regarding "wrongthink", it's generally a good idea to keep politics out of your professional GitHub account if you want to work at a place that may not align with your opinions. Or your opinions are spicy in general.

The sort of people that post on HN can usually pick their jobs, which is why I'm surprised someone here would want a job where they have to self-censor constantly. If that caveat applies to the vast majority of jobs for you maybe you should reevaluate your opinions?

[giancarlostoro]

Honestly if a job wont hire me for what I do or say in my free time (as long as it's perfectly legal / not too crazy in the moral scope of things) then good riddance. If they wont hire me cause "I wont devote enough time to them" (translation might be, your hard work is intimidating to everyone working here so let's make up BS to not hire you) then good riddance. The interview process is a two way street, not a one way road. You want a job yes, but not one that is not going to be fitting to you.

Another factor to consider during interviews is some companies will say things to try and trip you up. They want to know what kind of person you are. Soft skills are always superior for coding skills. If you cannot communicate without having a childish rage fit you should not be a part of a team, you're useless to a team.

[grawprog]

> If you cannot communicate without having a childish rage fit you should not be a part of a team, you're useless to a team.

This is very true. We had to let someone go recently because of this. He'd been there about 5 months. He was getting pretty good at the job, but every time he'd make a mistake he'd go into a rage. Or he'd just show up in the morning in a bad mood and be pissy with everyone all day. On the last week he was there he flipped out on a delivery driver, twice, freaked out at my coworker and got into a big argument with him when he asked him if he could work a Saturday to help with some maintenance that needed to be done, flipped out in the middle of operating a machine after he made a mistake, walked away in the middle of it, started smashing a bunch of things and just freaking out at himself. That was when he was let go, the owner came close to calling the cops on him.

It was too bad everybody tried talking to him for months to try and get him to relax. On good days, he'd helpful, eager to learn, did well and generally seemed like a fairly decent person. But on bad days...you never knew what was going to set him off and it just got to be too much for everyone to handle.

[toast0]

> I'm surprised someone here would want a job where they have to self-censor constantly

I would rather work a job where I'm self-censoring toward 'professionalism' if the rest of my team is too, than a job where everyone is their 'authentic self' with their real world politics on display, even if the majority agree with my real world politics.

[baud147258]

In my current team, most people are self-censoring toward 'professionalism', we're very rarely talking about politics and even more rarely about one's opionions. So far it has worked well enough.

Still we're not censoring the puns, to the despair of one of the team members.

[milpool]

You can keep politics out of your own github account. But maybe people who will bring their politics to you, regardless. Maybe you didn't even realize that you did something "wrong". Maybe you said something that wasn't "wrong" at that point, but a few years later, it is.

> Or your opinions are spicy in general.

So if not anybody likes your opinion, it's your fault for having the wrong opinions...?

[themoat]

I'm hedging as much as I can here. That is certainly not the case, but I would consider that question right there to be critical to good introspection and growth as a person.

"If everyone hates my opinion, is that the wrong opinion to hold so dearly?"

It's certainly worth honestly considering if most people think your opinion is terrible.

[seneca]

Yes, I'm sure folks hiding jews in their attic in Nazi Germany would have been better off had they just decided to go with the flow.

It is worth being introspective, but you should keep in mind the fact that an opinion being popular has very little to do with whether it's right.

Reality is also that the vast majority of people don't care about the politics that get people ousted from OSS projects. It's more along the lines of "if a very loud minority thinks your opinion is terrible".

[gant]

Maybe your opinion is actually terrible, have you considered that? Not everything is a vocal minority, especially not if your scope is "all of OSS"

[golergka]

> generally a good idea to keep politics out of your professional GitHub account

People have been banned from Github projects for stuff that they said on Twitter that had nothing to do with their activity in open source, because it "made other contributors feel unwelcome". If the thought police will want to dig up dirt on you, they will gladly turn to any other social media available.

[ahje]

This. There have been historical cases where off-project controversies have gotten people banned and with the recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, I do believe we'll see more of them in the future.

[forgottenpass]

> If that caveat applies to the vast majority of jobs for you maybe you should reevaluate your opinions?

That caveat doesn't apply to me now, but I'm one family emergency away from moving to a region where that caveat will apply to me. My opinions are not "spicy" they're just... ya know... opinions. Not milquetoast platitudes that shift to please the people I'm talking to.