DevConf.US 2021

Have you always wondered why entry-level software jobs required 1-3 years of experience? What if you couldn't secure an internship? Open source projects are great places to contribute and gain valuable experiences without an actual employment experience. The intended audience for this talk is anyone who is about to start their career in the software industry but dread the "mandatory required # of years of experience". We'll start with the idea and core principles of open source projects/community. Then we'll discuss a simple three-step plan to make your first open source contribution. We'll also discuss, in detail, how contribution is not necessarily code contribution only. You'll learn about project management, user experience, docs writing, testing and various other ways to become an open source contributor. The three key takeaways from this talk: understanding open source projects, motivation to contribute and related resources to get you started. We hope that, with these three key takeaways, you will challenge yourself to open your first PR against an open source project of your choice.