[wilsonnnnnn]

Yup! Thanks a lot for this. My primary reason to OSS contribute is to be able to hone my skill and fix/implement things that could help others who use this. But you're abs spot-on on not going with the premise of expecting a job offer letter in return for writing code.

[mindcrime]

Cool. I will add this: I don't work for a FAANG, but I do work for a "Fortune 50" sized mega-corp, and I've been doing this stuff well more than 20 years now. And based on my experience, I would say that there certainly are some companies where OSS contributions would be weighted pretty strongly in terms of making you a more desirable candidate (depending on the project, the scope of your contributions, etc). But OTOH, OSS is probably not a panacea, unless you're looking to join a company whose main product itself is OSS (eg, Red Hat, Alfresco, Mongo, etc). To me, that's one more argument for "Do OSS, but only if you see doing so as its own reward." It might help you get a job, but there's no guarantee.