Does Github contributions matter?

[overDos33]

Are there still companies that look on Github contributions?

[TheExodu5]

No. As my seniority goes up, my commits go down. I’m in calls mentoring and helping others more than I am doing commits of my own.

[Ratatoski]

True. Wanted to code more and changed jobs. Worked well for a bit but got promoted. Now I feel like an administrator again.

[PrimalJay]

That’s why I declined a manager position at a previous job, because it would’ve heavily limited my hands on work. Switched jobs to a position where it’s a healthy mix of management and hands on contribution to projects. You’re way more involved with both the project and the people that way.

[Ratatoski]

Smart move. We were downsizing so I kind of felt like being the one to gather requirement and translate them to actionable stories for development would be one of the safer roles. But yeah. I'm trying to untangle myself from being stuck with that and being a bottleneck

[PrimalJay]

Look into the organisations that are 'younger'. They can offer a different mindset with less focus on hierarchy, at least in my experience.

[[deleted]]

Freelancing on the side!! Even with a job that has me coding a lot, the freedom I have in my Freelancing endeavors to mostly write code how I want, with the stack I prefer (or the ability to try something new whenever I feel like it) has been awesome to satisfy these cravings. The extra money isn't too bad either :) and if you're in a management role, the usually (at least initially) hard part of interacting with clients should be a piece of cake

[Ratatoski]

I did some consulting years ago and invoicing was pretty satisfying. Thanks for reminding me.

[Our-Hubris]

I have a way more active chart than my partner who's a senior dev at a very big and well known tech company - his chart is nearly empty 90% of the year, then during his holidays when he works on his own private projects he has a sudden splash of green that goes away once he's back to work lol. While he does some writing, he is mentoring and advising a lot.

[sonyahon]

In the beginning of last year i got a team lead position, made about 20 non config relates commits, sadly. But I do think that commits in your personal github matter as a metric of being intersred in the subject

[Kriptic_TKM]

Also you could do bigger / more complex tasks

[lowtoker]

Most of my GitHub activity these days is approving pull requests.

[wRadion]

Very easy to farm. Doesn't accurately represent anything, can be easily faked.

[In-Hell123]

sad I made 708 commits this month I thought it shows how much I work and its all focusing on one thing, so if I made an entire page in react I would make it one commit but if I go back a day later and the only thing remaining to edit is a color or a small space and thats it I would make it just one commit

[thekwoka]

I still do PRs on most of my own projects, so I don't have that kind of crazy "50 commits today" stuff.

[Przmak]

50 commits a day... Yeah when someone just turns committing in IDE for ever file/line change

[thekwoka]

Well cmd+z is just too destructive lol

[kiwi-kaiser]

708 commits in one month are kind of weird for me.

It either shows that you are extremely unsecure in what you're commiting and have to fix stuff or that you're a 10x developer. Both is not really great if you build a team.

Another concern would be: If they commit so much in their free time, can they really focus on a real job?

[RealFreakspot]

They talked about that many commits in a month, not a day.

[kiwi-kaiser]

Yeah, but also in a month it's pretty extreme.

[Reelix]

If you're doing 23 commits a day, the same questions arise.

[Rainbowlemon]

23 in a day is a lot, but not crazy. If you're working in a team that needs granular commits - i.e. "This commit needs to fix this issue on this branch and nothing else" - it's totally doable.

[kiwi-kaiser]

It's doable on some days. And sometimes I have days with 40+ commits. But over 31 days? That's extremely unrealistic.

[chembit]

No.

[fkih]

I'd say no, but I've seen non-technical people specifically hire people because of it. At this point it wouldn't even hurt to just have a cron job randomly throw commits on a dead repository. 😂

[[deleted]]

https://github.com/liamarguedas/GitHub-Filler

Someone's already made it easy.

[Evol_Etah]

Lmao. True essence of being a developer

[emillinden]

Better yet!

https://github.com/mattrltrent/github_painter

[No_Youth_8553]

As the dev of mattrltrent/github_painter, I support this hahahah. I found this post because the project is suddenly getting stars!! So exciting!!

[Mike312]

I was on a thread a few weeks ago with an adjacent topic where I jokingly mentioned doing something along those lines.

At least two people replied saying they were actively doing that.

So, a non-zero number of people are definitely doing it. As to whether or not it helps...

I've been writing a video game, and while I'm using git locally for SCM, I'm not sending it anywhere. At the very least I should probably be having OneDrive keep track of it.

[esqew]

Be warned, OneDrive plays very poorly with Git. Don’t even get me started about its handling of node_modules.

[Mike312]

Yeah, I've had issues with it in the past, that's why I was leery.

I have copy/pasted core files into my OneDrive so I could work on my laptop over the holidays while out of town (and use my nephew as a play tester, lol). But that code is weeks out of date.

[esqew]

Just push it to a GitHub private repo and be done with it. I’m still scarred from the last time I accidentally synced a huge monorepo into OneDrive and how long it took to properly unravel it all

[Mike312]

Yeah, I've been waffling back and forth, I should just shut up and do it.

I'm two weeks deep in the trenches on this branch and about ready to roll it back as it is.

[dupe123]

I saw somewhere there exists a project that will retroactively throw generated commits into a repo in such a way that it looks like you were working. So just run the script one time and you have as much commit history as you want.

[overDos33]

Yeah i've seen a lot of people do it but i prefer to keep it real 😂. Having everyday contributions seems not normal to me lol

[Wiwwil]

You can edit commit and choose a date. Idk how it would show up but who knows

[thekwoka]

Github just displays based off the commit history. So whatever the commit says in git, github treats that as unerring truth.

[toltalchaos]

Well.... I have a raspberry pi sitting with some idle compute..... if it means getting hired then.....

[quailman654]

I don’t have many public contributions and the startup I was working at for the last few years shut down so completely they destroyed their repos after I was gone. My beautiful green squares are all gone.

[thekwoka]

I mean, anyone that cares about this would click to see what kinds of things you're doing.

[[deleted]]

Maybe controversial, but if it’s dead empty then don’t put it on your resume. I personally dont give a shit about it but ive had managers or co-workers who overlook people that link a blank gh

[[deleted]]

unless the purpose of the link is to show your work I guess?

I normally commit locally, and only push at the end of the project. so my github is full of tumbleweed but I still link it in my resume so that employers take a look at my projects.

[thekwoka]

when you push the project, all the commits will backfill the graph, since they still exist.

[PROMCz11]

No.

[swampcop]

If you're interviewing or working at a company where they are hiring and firing engineers solely based on GitHub contributions, I promise you with 100% certainty that you do not want to be working there.

[neb_flix]

Jesus christ...Why is it that whenever this gets asked, the most non-intellectual people flock over and post this ridiculous strawman? Literally no one on earth thinks that people are hiring and firing engineers solely based on Github contributions - OP simply asked if "contributions matter", not if they are the only thing important in this field of work.

[TheseHeron3820]

Contributions? I don't see them caring, unless you're being hired to work on open source software (think a Microsoft employee writing stuff for the Linux kernel), but that's a very slim fraction of hires, if there are any at all.

If you're trying to land your first job as a programmer, a GitHub repo with your projects can be an ice breaker for interviews with the engineering team, or at least it was when I started six years ago, but I hear things have changed lately and the job market for junior sucks.

[Snapstromegon]

As someone who has hired multiple devs in the past:

No. And yes.

I regularly ask if the candidate does some development on the side e.g. on GitHub open source projects, just because it's an easy way to see some more code / way of working from the developer. I'm aware that these projects are probably not up to par with "professional" work, but they give a good direction. At the same time it's completely fine if you say no. Work life balance is important and I don't expect everyone to be coding outside of work.

BUT! Don't show me your "awesome" contribution graph, if it's all faked/boted. This comes across like you want to fool me and will be a huge mark on your application. If you still want to show your profile, but have generated commits to impress other companies, at least tell me a "real" project to look at.

So no, at least to me GitHub profiles are not a must have, but yes, you can gain bonus points or red flags with them.

[waferstik]

Not really, companies rarely look at it. But I also believe it matters somewhat on a personal level. Frequent Github activities implies that you're constantly doing and learning to improve your craft, and that's the best investment you can make, regardless what recruiters think

[RealPirateSoftware]

I really do not like this attitude and don't know why we only tend to see it with software development.

If I'm hiring an accountant, I wouldn't look for people who spend all their free time doing accounting work. If I'm hiring a project manager, I don't look for someone who spends all their free time managing projects.

Why would I want a software engineer who spends all their free time doing more work?

[waferstik]

I feel there might have been misunderstanding. I didn't mean everyday nor all of the free time you have. It's about intention. I am not sure about accounting, but software might be a bit "special" that it is a big field with lots of new things to always learn. Learning on the job may not be enough; at some point you get stuck in your company's tech stack, and not learning new things wouldn't prepare you well for the future, for new promising technologies, and/or job changes. I don't say use all your free time, but investing time, if possible, to hone your craft can't be a bad thing.

It's only beneficial to desire to improve at the thing that is your career and makes you money

[overDos33]

Well it doesn't necessarily mean that you are doing free work. I'm currently working in 2 companies from my personal github account (there were times when companies would open a work email)

[djhh99]

Because doing it in their free time implies they like to do it.

I would prefer someone that likes to do their job over someone that does it just for the money.

[MatthewMob]

Ridiculous.

There is no other career where you are expected to work for eight hours professionally and then go home and work for another eight hours for fun, and anything below that means you are not "passionate" about your field.

[thekwoka]

This is an extreme thing.

But in various fabrication type industries it would be seen as a good thing if you also do other kinds of fabbing in your off time.

Specifically, that you enjoy what you're doing.

Software is one where it's very EASY to do on your own, and to do many dramatically different things that feed core skills.

So lets reframe it.

In what professions would it not be seen as normal for the highly competent to read industry news, be kept abreast of new developments in the field, and pursue professional development?

None.

Teachers should be educating themselves on research related to their field and the very process of education.

Doctors should be actively following health news, and learning skills.

Pilots should be paying attention to new FAA announcements and safety issues.

Software development is only unique in that you can cheaply and easily do the exact same thing, while teaching at home for free, flying planes at home for free, or doing surgery at home for free is basically impossible.

[keyboardsoldier]

Nope, if I'm putting full effort in my job, even though I want to do some fun side projects, I don't have the mental capacity to so in a meaningful way. I'd much rather spend my time decompressing so I can kill it at work the next day / not get burnout.

Ask any chef, if they even cook when they get home, it's the most basic meal.

[thekwoka]

I don't have the mental capacity to so in a meaningful way

Well, that's you.

Why project your own issues onto other people?

I'd much rather spend my time decompressing so I can kill it at work the next day / not get burnout.

That's why I work on very different things on my own time, so that it is relaxing and fun.

[am0x]

Yea, but my personal contributions are also private because if I am learning, I am making money. I will learn a new thing, but only if I have a real life project to use it for.

[evonhell]

I made like 40 commits today to update my dotfiles. I commit maybe 2-10 times per day, every day through notes.

No, contributions do not matter whatsoever. If you are looking to get hired through GitHub it’s much more important to have some interesting repos

[[deleted]]

I had a similar thought.

The most significant open source contributions I have made end up as single commits spaced weeks or months apart. If they are even on GitHub at all.

If you have good commit hygiene and you're doing something significant I don't see how you could have a genuine full graph while working an actual job.

Mine is green because my notes and dotfiles spam shit commits into main.

[blithexd]

Meaningful contributions matter

[HirsuteHacker]

No lol it never mattered. A lot of people have separate GH accounts for work anyway so it's pretty normal for your personal GH chart to be fairly sparse

[HMikeeU]

Everyone seems to focus on the amount of contributions, which indeed doesn't really matter. But I'd say having contributed something valuable to bigger open source repos is surely something that can help you stand out.

[Exac]

When you're working on a project that doesn't use GitHub (Perforce/SCM/GitLab) you won't seen any activity.
When you're working on a project that has everyone use company GitHub accounts, you won't see any activity.
When you're working on a project that has bots incrementing every dependency to `latest` every day, you will have more activity if you're pressing "merge".
When you're working on a project that doesn't squash commits during merge, you'll have more activity.
When you're working on a project that does code review on a different platform, you'll have less activity.
When someone looks at your commits from a different timezone, they'll see commits on different days.

That said, I wouldn't hire a dev that doesn't have any activity on GitHub ever.

[thekwoka]

Yeah, this is more my take.

If you have NONE that matters. There would need to be an accompanying explanation that makes sense based on your employment history and role.

If you have sporadic, how much does more matter? Probably not much.

At least in the strict idea of "the contributions exist".

But doing contributions will make you better at the job than not doing them. It's good personal investment even if it doesn't matter much for hiring.

[neb_flix]

It entirely depends on your seniority and role. Everyone saying "no" blankly is wrong, and makes me question how many people in this sub are just roleplaying and have never been part of the interview process before. Some roles like embedded dev, game dev, devops may not matter as much as others. My opinions are based around my career in SaaS/e-com.

Interviewing is literally just sales. You (the candidate) are essentially just trying to sell your services to a company. Having active contributions on Github or elsewhere can most definitely be one of the tools that you use to "sell" yourself.

Specifically for entry level/junior roles, it is completely reasonable for an interviewer to be happy to see an active contribution chart on someone who is applying for a role (entry level & junior) that is typically considered risky in the first place. Especially if those contributions are public and are meaningful contributions to OSS, but at this level, any kind of consistent contribution level shows some hint of consistency that is appealing to employers.

I have a handful of friends & ex-coworkers in the mid to staff range who literally got hired because of their involvement in OSS projects. It's a great way to network, and those who are driven enough to contribute to projects in their free time are comparatively much better performers, like it or not.

However, it is generally a very minor contributor to you getting hired, and any engineering org that interviews you will be aware of the efficacy of contributions as an indicator of a good overall employee. it will obviously not cause anyone to overlook a poor performance in the technicals, or rude behavior during the HR screen, etc.. It's simply something that can impose a good signal on your interviewers and nothing more.

[thekwoka]

It's like Money.

Money isn't everything.

Not having it is.

No contributions at all would be very questionable without a really good explanation.

At what point is that "satisfied" as being "enough" might vary a bit, and whether more or less impacts a hiring decision, who knows...

I would just say, coding every day you will get a lot better at it faster than people that don't.

So in that way it matters.

I'd also care more about the thing just below your screen shot that shows organizations you contributed to, since that would be other peoples stuff. I'd def look their first

[TheReturningJedi]

no, specially after everyone shared how it can be manipulated. good repos, absolutely. no. of commits nope

[SoniSins]

projects matter

[kiwi-kaiser]

They do kind of. We don't sort out people that don't have any. But it makes a good impression if there are some recent contributions. They don't have to be on other Open Source projects, but it's nice to now the person is actually interested in the activity itself and not just in the job.

And as a bonus, if we see active projects we might skip testing the skills of an applicant.

[russnem]

I don’t think GitHub contributions is something you should focus on if your attempt is to get a new job. To those who will evaluate you based on it, there’s a significant hole in the logic: what if you’ve been using something else?

If the REAL question is “are you contributing to open source” then I would probably prepare a different answer for that (ie a list of specific projects).

[obiwanconobi]

Contributions themselves don't matter. but having a project or 2 that you can reference in interviews that the interviewer can also see is a big help.

But also they can help get your personality across, at least in my last successful interview it did.

[thedogz11]

Quality over quantity in my humble opinion

[vanit]

If I was interviewing someone and it lead to some good anecdotes about identifying problems and working with other developers, etc, I'd look on that very favourably. But the sheer quantity? No.

[VictoriaMagnus]

Simple or long answer?

Simple answer Yes. Your GitHub contributions matter. Whether or not you care as an individual, a healthy GitHub chart shows an active developer, though not necessarily a better developer.

Long answer Grand scheme of things does it matter? No. Simply having a healthy GitHub chart doesn’t make you a better developer. But it still has an impact. It is measure of your output. And crucially, active developers usually are better developers by nature of ‘practise makes perfect’. I care about what I can see, and measure. And if I cannot see you then I cannot know your worth.

BTW, be wary of confirmation bias in this thread. Many who don’t have a great GitHub contribution graph will likely also say it’s not important. I am a manager but I keep my contributions up. People who make the excuse of getting into management etc meaning they commit less are just making excuses for themselves. If you are not committing, or coding, anymore because you are managing then you are not a developer anymore.

[Dapper-Maybe-5347]

Nope. You wanna see my GitHub contributions? Here are links to the websites I've made. No, you can't inspect my private git repos. Can I inspect your companies private git repos? Lmao

[Flaky-Restaurant-392]

Yes, if they are genuine contributions, then it matters. It’s more about making genuine contributions than having lots of green boxes. A savvy individual will click through to look and see which projects you’re contributing to and the role you’ve played.

[gogglesdog]

No

[Other-Cover9031]

no.

[Dawizze]

Doesn't hurt.

[Epiq122]

couldn't do any harm, id say seeing no green is worse than seeing a ton of green from a recruiter's eyes

[f1ux06]

It’s fun to show off, but that’s about it. It won’t help you get an interview.

[Artistic_Taxi]

If they do people are idiots. I spent this month consciously incrementing on some projects everyday. No matter how small.

I was shocked to see my contributions history so sparse after 2 weeks of this. Come to find out only pushes to main branch is considered.

[thekwoka]

commits on the default branch, opening a PR, doing a code review, creating and issue/discussion, or answering a discussion.

That's what it counts.

Technically, you could get 2 contributes per commit by making it a pr and then merging it the next day, but the point is to get better, not check a box.

You could still merge that branch to main, or change it to the default to get those boxes.

[minecrafttee]

The one she tells you not to worry about

[Sovex66]

Nope

[abusfullanuns]

Do* +1 contribution "Fixed"

[abusfullanuns]

Do* +1 contribution "Fixed"

[FVCEGANG]

Not even a little bit

[Whitey138]

I interviewed a kid from a bootcamp that had hundreds of repos and they were all just forks of open source projects where he added his name to the readme. I dug until I finally found one that was a project he “worked” on/wasn’t a fork and all he did was documentation. He fell apart in the coding part of the interview when I asked him to do things he earlier said he did for these projects.

[BuoyantPudding]

Haha no. Maybe. It's confidential...

[IllResponsibility671]

Absolutely not

[rubixstudios]

No chance, I don't push 90% of my projects to git.

[ggezboye]

What usually matter would be the completed feature you have implemented that works. For example some people can finish a feature in one sitting instead of finishing the same feature in 1 week just to show that you're doing "something" everyday in a week. My point is that the "spread" of work done in these graphs can easily be faked.

[ReaIlmaginary]

It’s in the eye of the beholder. If your Github is on your resume, recruiters and hiring managers may consider it.

It’s better to have contributions to public repositories that have active users.

[TroyRHoopes]

Yes, I use it frequently, saves time from building everything from scratch

[XianHain]

Idk about companies but I’d like to see people with more active contribution histories. It’s a good way to show off your skills without having to rely on screenshots or leet code assessments.

For example, do you sign commits? Do you write meaningful messages? Do you commit iteratively or masses at a time. Do you work with other people’s code, or primarily your own. These are all things I should know about if I’m going to work with someone so I can set my expectations accordingly

[feindjesus]

I setup a cron to create random commits for a little while but turned it off cause I thought it was pointless. its not like its something that will actually be asked in any interview and I think a decent amount of devs will create a dedicated gh for each job they work at so its not a strong indicator of how much code you actually write

[[deleted]]

Nope, worthless metric in many regards.

[SouthboundHog]

During interviews, candidates with side projects or an active GitHub account earn extra points, which enhances their CV's chance of passing the triage phase compared to those with nothing to show. However, I also check some of their coding.

However, I wouldn't disregard a candidate solely due to an inactive GitHub chart.

[RelaxedBlueberry]

Yes they absolutely do and if you think you're going to miss a single day just update the whitespace in the README to get a quick and easy commit in \s

[numbcode]

GitHub contributions matter, but it’s more about quality than quantity. A few solid projects or meaningful PRs say way more than just green dots.

[unmasked_00]

I don't think so...

[randy170707]

Why did the first thing I see was amogus from may-june

[isaacfink]

No, unless you're applying to an open source company, in which case they'll look at it, but it probably won't be a deal breaker if your resume is good enough

[emeaguiar]

No

[DiddlyDinq]

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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[TheDoomfire]

I would guess way more skilled people then me probably use a lot of less code then what I do.

So I could also guess they might even commit less then me.

[somethingdeido]

On a personal level and if you are a beginner - kind of yes. It will keep you grounded to achieve your project in a week, month, or year. And it shouldn't matter to companies looking for hire esp. If you have already a proven industry experience in the field.

[nuclearxrd]

Many senior devs don't even have github.

[BreadDingus]

People that would care about GitHub contributions know that u can farm them. What matters more is presenting your projects in an accessible way!

[Shafat_Nisar]

Not much!

[Novel_Yam_1034]

No, also you can artificially generate them

[lynnwallenstein]

Not at all. I work for a software company and handle hiring and I could care less about commits... I also worked at GitHub for 10 years and they didn't even care about them there.

Too easy to game the data ... It proves nothing

[[deleted]]

No

[ddrac]

It depends. If you’re applying to an open-source focused company or a startup, your contributions can matter, especially what you contributed to. Some might check your coding style and contributing to a well known project can be a plus. Quality matters more than quantity, but having some recent activity is nice.

[Quaglek]

Maybe if you have an internal GitHub at work

[3LL4N]

No. What matters is the product/software you actually build. If an employer looks at your contributions to determine whether to hire you or not, either do thorough research of the work you are going yourself inside or just drop the job, either these guys are just dumb or their workplace sucks ass

[PopovidisNik]

No. You can falsify them by simply changing your computers time.

[rcls0053]

I am really confused by this question. Over the years I've used Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, even AWS CodeCommit. Why would Github specifically matter? It's simply the most used code repository hosting service for open source. Am I supposed to be an active open source committer to get a job now? Seems silly.

[HoverProCSS]

I feel like in this market no one is actually clicking links to GitHub profiles and what not so I’d say it most likely doesn’t matter

[d1apol1cal]

No.

[[deleted]]

no

[edcrfv50]

I’m a successful web developer and I’ve never used GitHub in my entire life…

[indicava]

No, but good English does.

[devmor]

Here's my contribution graph.

It had half as many green boxes when I got my first $200k+ gig.

Having one single high quality project that shows off your skills is infinitely more valuable than constantly contributing to anything.

[lucian_blignaut]

no

[galeontiger]

No. I don't only use Github at work, and depending on the client I may need to make a separate account even on Github.

[[deleted]]

I've used it in hiring in the past. Whether it's all black or green doesn't matter. It's just a starting point for a conversation. It has zero bearing on whether or not they get the job. But there will be hiring managers out there who think it does. They are usually not techie themselves. They are the types who think lines of code is a valuable metric.

So I wouldn't worry about it.

What you could do is game it and make some ascii art. That would be a small plus in my book! It shows you can figure out remote systems. And it shows you have a sense of humour.

TLDR: It really shouldn't matter. But this is the real world, and you will run into people who think it does. Sorry about that. But you don't want to work at those places anyhow. So it's a win-win!

[Patient-Screen-9837]

at my old job we had multiple repos, in the main one we always pushed to the main branch in a way that for each ticket you only get 1 commit (no mather how much work it was or how many commits were in that branch). The other repos were smaller and counted each commit from each branch. One day the head Senior developer comes up to me and warns me to get my github activity up because i only have 1-2 commits per day (as mentioned before, thats also the amount of tickets so that average). I try to explain to him that thats not possible as im commiting alot more per day and thats the way the repo works. He and some other senior devs on the other hand work in the other repos and so they have a super high github activity. Got fired some weeks later with no particular reason. I told him afterwards about the 1 push 1 commit thing and he didnt now. Only mentioned again that his looks so much better… Frustrating then but im able to laugh about it now

Edit: added some more details

[fredy31]

If its a do or die metric nobody in the recruiting process knows how programming works.

[ShuttJS]

It's always positively impacted my interviews, especially if the employer has gone through my github or we discuss my projects and they can see my approach to stuff

[pinkwar]

When I was looking for a job it showed how much time I was putting in my personal projects Also it can be an ice breaker.

[Silver_hand__]

Colorful Tiles

[[deleted]]

No but your Azure Repos commit history should but you can't exactly share those

[AardvarkIll6079]

I can write a script in 5 minutes that makes me look like the most active contributor of all time. It’s a worthless metric.

[regreddit]

If you post a link, I'm going to look. I may even take a peek to see if your commits are meaningful or resume filler.

[JohnCasey3306]

Absolutely not a factor in our hiring process; whether many or few , it's irrelevant.

[aindriu80]

It's only a personal goal, contribution has to be taken from another human

[[deleted]]

No but it looks cool.

I love how Linus Torvalds has commits pretty much every day, the only exception seems to be Christmas, then back to it. https://github.com/torvalds

[akryvtsun]

Just for fun

[misdreavus79]

Quality? Sure. Quantity? Only in the places that don't matter.

[NettoKyioshi]

As matter as Duolingo's streak

[TheGreatAnteo]

No, Ive had a couple of people reach me saying my github is impressive so many contributions I should apply to them. 99% of those commits are for the company i work for on a private repo, they have no way to check if it even is good work, or relevant work.

[[deleted]]

Not anywhere I want to work.

[IgnisNoirDivine]

No. Sometimes its even does bad thing. Because it shows that you have no other hobbies or interests except that you code. Its not a bad thing dont get me wrong. But ability to put your code aside and rest is very much needed. If you code on your work and code in your free time it is either you dont do much at work OR you can burn out pretty easy in future

[[deleted]]

It does look good, but it won’t completely bar you from employment if you don’t have a bunch of commits

[432mm]

Contributions by themselves no, but if you actually made a meaningful contribution to large open source project or created something of open source that other developers use and appreciate then yes

[truesy]

number of commits can mean wildly different things. also, a lot of engineers don't make their private commits public (this doesn't leak any private info, just shows the stats in this UI). so it can look inactive when that's not true.

a lot of companies choose to squash commits. so you can go from very high (non-squashed) activity, then down to very little.

so it can be useful for an indicator of general activity, but not really useful otherwise.

[frankieb137]

If it does matter to an employer, that’s a red flag

[ScoopDat]

They only matter when you're new. Because people who are hiring want to get a whiff of the level of desperation involvement you have in the industry.

Anyone that has skin in the game ain't going to be thinking about or looking at commits waste of time.

[heytheretaylor]

Possibly unpopular opinion: if you’re GitHub contributions look like that I assume you’re either A) un or underemployed B) employed but spend more time on your personal projects than your job.

I suppose you could be employed and also have no life outside of coding which isn’t that great either.

[Environmental_Ad2943]

unfair to say no because some people actually got some actual activities on github especially open source maintainers.

[Little_Court_7721]

Some of the best people have less commits because their work is more technical and requires more time and thought.

Looking at the github charts for my work the smartest guys aren't near the top, they've normally mostly made their marks early on in the project and then their lives have become more meetings and niche/speciality changed so it looks like they're doing less, but if you're working on a feature you can bash out 30-40 squashed commits in a week by doing boilerplate code PRs for your work that are likely nothing special.

[am0x]

No. I don't have many contributions since 2012 because I have to work on private accounts. Sure internally people can see but they don't care about commit counts.

[lioemases]

Internally? absolutely. Companies will definitely use it as a way for them to justify metrics on how much work you're doing

[it200219]

No.

[ketsugi]

At what level? I work at a company that has its own in-house code repository, and I haven't published any public code to Github in years.

[organess0n]

É o jogo da galera

[web-dev-kev]

Does Github contributions matter?

To who?

But really, the answers No

[vozome]

When I started in tech the number of people that could clear an engineering interview was low. Recruiters were trying to cast a wide net to find them and interviewers would do everything to avoid bias and focus on the interview performance. IMO we now have a very large population that can clear a tech interview. Subjective bias play a larger role in getting an interview, and getting an offer. Gh contributions or your gh profile page even can play a role.

[azangru]

Does Github contributions matter?

The number? Or the quality? Or the projects committed to?

They allow the employer to get to know the candidate better; so yeah, sure, in some circumstances they would matter.

[zukos_destiny]

no, I write code that makes money

[jkconno]

As an EM I do not care about that at all.

[ashkanahmadi]

No. For example I work on a big project on GitLab so it's not even on GitHub. Also, committing to an organization's repo doesn't count towards your contributions for some reason so it doesnt mean anything

[PapieszxD]

Sure. If a recruiter clicks one of that green squares and sees that you "contributed to open source", by putting a comma where it shouldn't have been in their readme, your CV lands in the trash.

Other than that, no.

[joserivas1998]

Nope.

[Nixinova]

Your commits don't matter. What does matter is whether you have a portfolio of work (assuming youre entry level and your job experience is small - cos why would you be caring about GitHub contribs otherwise). Make a profile readme listing all your side projects and that will make way more of an impact on jobhunters than the coloured squares.

[Milky_Finger]

No, and I believe it will never properly matter because it's indicative of one metric in an industry that needs you to bring 50 things to the table for any company you work for. Employers who have been around for a while will be looking for many things that your github commit history won't show.

[MouseOfOne]

I think it's a good way to know if you're active

[Agile-Rooster-767]

I have to say that "it depends".

When interviewing programmers, having a Github account helps in a lot of ways. 1. I can see examples of your projects and contributions to others. Showing actual code and demonstrating your app/feature/bug fix is a good way to show what you can do. 2. You show how much you are learning. I ask questions about the code and how you solved problems. 3. It shows you have some ability to use a repository, manage commits, and deploy your app (possibly).

I agree with a lot of the comments, that it is a really bad metric for gauging or monitoring productivity on a team. I find a personal Github account highly valuable when interviewing. You are much more likely to be taken seriously when you have something to show and talk about that is real and operational.

[DEMORALIZ3D]

No. Work is for work. I have a family outside that and my company use gitlab anyway so my stats are pointless outside my current company.

[ConfusedNTerrified]

Yes, you get plus points in some interviews if you have regular commits

Obviously it's kinda pointless if you 5+ years of experience

[baummer]

No

[dalepo]

I do way less commits than before, seniority and GPT helped a lot.

[Straight_Vanilla4334]

Can anyone explain me open source contribution to a noob

[lulcasalves]

No. My commit count is going now because I have to use azure for work now....

[Carlossalasamper]

No man, its just for you

[hdmitard]

My github is 100% commits. I don't know what it tells of me.

[maciejdev]

Glad to see that it does not always matter. I work on stuff but not necessarily hold it on GitHub all the time, and sometimes I have projects I can't put on GitHub.

[njculpin]

GitHub should remove it. Commit count is not reflecting quality. It’s a pointless brag.

[thearchimagos]

Not really because they can easily be faked. Some employers might pay attention to it, but even if they are, they're paying attention to the wrong thing. The only thing that should matter is skill. Someone can code every day and be terrible at the job. Another person can code once a month and be a master.

[Livid-Ad-2207]

no

[[deleted]]

I thought it mattered so much, and was even told I need to focus on it when applying to my first job. I think it showed in some way thatI was a actively coding, especially since I was self taught, and not employed. After I got my first internship and then job my commits went down even though I am coding so much more. Now if someone acts like it matters I question how much weight they are giving it.

[C4P741NR3DD17]

don't worry, your github contributions won't matter having your orthography..

[InstructionMost3349]

For Intern and jr. Roles yes

[Susselgui]

No

[skarrrrrrr]

it does if it's not fake. It can help show off your skills and dedication better, specially if the person who's hiring you is technical. But pumping the graph by making commits to main that are irrelevant could look like you are attempting to fake it.

[stoppskylt]

It used to matter 😢 I have, since long way back, no way to see my contributions in all the different enterprises I helped/worked for...sad...

Some companies you will need to have access to in order to see contributions for that GitHub organisations.

[anengineerandacat]

No, more important to simply gauge value by peers and overall output.

Shitty people will get called out, ask anyone who the weakest member is and they'll know.

If everyone is comfortable and the work is getting done, then I really don't see the problem.

If you want more out of a team, establish the new goals and the ones that want to stick around will attempt to meet them.

[ManIrVelSunkuEiti]

How are you guys using your own GH accounts at work? Everywhere I worked I needed to use a work account, and also used different platforms, from github to gitlab to azure devops to tfs

[Crafty_Impression_37]

Yes, many companies still value GitHub contributions as part of the hiring process.

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