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

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

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.

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.

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.

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