> your second job is working on OSS on github to make yourself look good

Sounds good on paper. In practice, what people do on Github is worthless.

I've only one company ever actually looked at what I made on GitHub. Otherwise, they'll never check out what I've done even if a project is listed on a resume. Nobody has the time or amount of shits to give to actually review your own code. Very few people I know who are working as software engineers even have any serious projects or contributions on GitHub.

As much as I love doing side projects, the idea that companies care what I do on GitHub is some of the worst advice I've encountered. Now my profile is full of trash I've forked along the way and it hasn't made a lick of difference as to how many interviews I've gotten.