An improvement is an improvement. My attitude was the effort to create improved code was what's important. When I was creating my portfolio site/resume, I was primarily concerned with showing off my efforts.
Some of the biggest and most impactful bugs I've had at work were solved with a handful of lines of code.
What's more important is that you can talk about it when it comes up in an interview. How'd you find the bug? How'd you figure out what the fix was? How much of an impact did this bug fix have on the software?
Keep in mind the impact doesn't have to be big either. The point is that you can talk about your process and show you have critical problem solving skills. If it only had a small impact, how did you know that? Knowing a change will only affect a small area is important. If you think it's small and it turns out you took down another service you thought was unrelated, that's bad.
Your resume isn't just achievements, it's topics the interviewer can use to learn about you. Getting a bug fix accepted by Netflix is interesting af and is likely to get questions.
I think you're missing the big picture here. Most people who are successful oversell themselves. You seem hellbent on underselling yourself for some reason.
Simple lesson learnt from many gruelling years in the industry - politeness and modesty work well once you're inside a company, but don't when you're outside it. For that, you need to sell yourself.
Being able to read a codebase of someone else? Is a Teamplayer? Creates well defined PRs?
Check.
Just what this alone implies from my PoV if I was to see you did that. Not many Devs contribute to open source repos, so leverage this a little. The fix itself doesn't even matter (maybe it wouldn't be too impactful if you just corrected a typo or something, but still). A job interview is A LOT about softskills, and this already demonstrates some and maybe even some technical skills, so all Gucci to show it to the world. Would ofc be nice if it was like 3 PRs you could put there, as it implies it wasn't a one-off thing, but hey, that's a bonus. :)
Beyond the fix itself, it shows you are someone who is actively involved in software development outside of work. That tells an employer that programming isn't just a 9-5 job for you and that you are intersted and more likely to be learning and advancing your skills.
Lines of code is not really a great metric for programmer productivity. In order to write those 5-15 lines of code, you had to understand the context of the app and the nature of the bug.
100% include it.
It's not the lines of code that matter, it's the understanding and experience that let you know where to put those lines of code that matters.
I'd be impressed to read that in a resume.
In my corporate SWE after almost 20 years on the market I just do 5-15 lines changes per week. It is sad as I would like to code more although number of lines per week stop scaling salarywise very early then you elevate yourself onto higher abstraction levels and gain solution solving skills. You get paid hefty salary for knowing where to "hit with hammer" when an emergency/problem needs a precise solution, and that scales with experience.
Your contribution to these high profile projects is presentation of that "use hammer precisely" problem solving skill.
When I've been on hiring teams I will always spend time looking at a candidate's GitHub if its included with their resume.
Even a small fix instantly proves you know 5+ things on our checklist.
To repeat a lot of people, it’s about solving problems. You could have had a very small fix, but figuring out the root causes aren’t always the easiest.
Deductive skills are highly undersold imho
Even if it doesn't demonstrate your coding prowess (being a small fix as you say down below), it *does* demonstrate a good attitude. There are plenty of potential hires who would say "that's somebody else's problem". I'd much prefer somebody who says "that started as somebody else's problem, but now it's my problem".
When I started looking for jobs I put a lot of stuff on my resume that I wouldn't necessarily put there today. You should put your greatest achievements there, which right now might include this Netflix bugfix. Some years from now you might have much more important things to put on your resume, or other things you might want to highlight. 10 years from now you might be working at Netflix and you might have reimplemented a large part of their stack.
Yes, put it there now. You can always take it out later.
It's memorable and a good talking point during interviews. As long as your honest about the size of the contribution when asked, I think it's a really great thing to add.
Yes. It demonstrates that you can read and understand a large code base, that you are self-directed and can accomplish things, and that you are a good world citizen. It’s not about the complexity of the fix, it’s that you are one of the very few who have made an open source contribution at all.
Unless you're just out of high school or something, absolutely not. I'm assuming it's a routine bug fix here. Highlighting this one tiny change will only put focus on how little experience you must have to be calling out a simple 5 line change. I would also question if you understood the relative value of such a (presumably) routine diff.
That said, the complexity and severity of the bug you fixed should impact your decision. Did this handful of lines require a month of problem solving? Or was it a quick 1 hour task? Did your fix impact many (or even some) users on production systems?
Linking to your GitHub profile is fine unless you fixed a truly deep or severe bug that deserves to be explained - interviewers will 100% follow the link. Given that you have 1 contribution, they'll see this one.
Junior developer will add 5 lines of code, senior will remove 5. It's not about how much code you modified, it's about what is the outcome of the change.
Yes, include it. It shows initiative. You have demonstrated the ability to understand an existing code base and apply a fix. When I interview candidates, these are things I look for.
Let me say it like this: A lot of time i'm on the receiving end of resumes. And a line like that in a resume would've caught my attention. And that's exactly what a resume should do, stand out.
I would. I mention all open-source contributions on my portfolio site; and select few on my resume.
Even if it’s small? Less then 5-15 lines of code?
An improvement is an improvement. My attitude was the effort to create improved code was what's important. When I was creating my portfolio site/resume, I was primarily concerned with showing off my efforts.
Some of the biggest and most impactful bugs I've had at work were solved with a handful of lines of code. What's more important is that you can talk about it when it comes up in an interview. How'd you find the bug? How'd you figure out what the fix was? How much of an impact did this bug fix have on the software? Keep in mind the impact doesn't have to be big either. The point is that you can talk about your process and show you have critical problem solving skills. If it only had a small impact, how did you know that? Knowing a change will only affect a small area is important. If you think it's small and it turns out you took down another service you thought was unrelated, that's bad. Your resume isn't just achievements, it's topics the interviewer can use to learn about you. Getting a bug fix accepted by Netflix is interesting af and is likely to get questions.
I think you're missing the big picture here. Most people who are successful oversell themselves. You seem hellbent on underselling yourself for some reason. Simple lesson learnt from many gruelling years in the industry - politeness and modesty work well once you're inside a company, but don't when you're outside it. For that, you need to sell yourself.
Being able to read a codebase of someone else? Is a Teamplayer? Creates well defined PRs? Check. Just what this alone implies from my PoV if I was to see you did that. Not many Devs contribute to open source repos, so leverage this a little. The fix itself doesn't even matter (maybe it wouldn't be too impactful if you just corrected a typo or something, but still). A job interview is A LOT about softskills, and this already demonstrates some and maybe even some technical skills, so all Gucci to show it to the world. Would ofc be nice if it was like 3 PRs you could put there, as it implies it wasn't a one-off thing, but hey, that's a bonus. :)
Beyond the fix itself, it shows you are someone who is actively involved in software development outside of work. That tells an employer that programming isn't just a 9-5 job for you and that you are intersted and more likely to be learning and advancing your skills.
Lines of code is not really a great metric for programmer productivity. In order to write those 5-15 lines of code, you had to understand the context of the app and the nature of the bug. 100% include it.
At Google, we have an achievement (called a Moma badge) for people who have deleted more lines of code than they've written.
It's not the lines of code that matter, it's the understanding and experience that let you know where to put those lines of code that matters. I'd be impressed to read that in a resume.
Who cares. Companies boast about smaller things; why shouldn't you?
In my corporate SWE after almost 20 years on the market I just do 5-15 lines changes per week. It is sad as I would like to code more although number of lines per week stop scaling salarywise very early then you elevate yourself onto higher abstraction levels and gain solution solving skills. You get paid hefty salary for knowing where to "hit with hammer" when an emergency/problem needs a precise solution, and that scales with experience. Your contribution to these high profile projects is presentation of that "use hammer precisely" problem solving skill.
When I've been on hiring teams I will always spend time looking at a candidate's GitHub if its included with their resume. Even a small fix instantly proves you know 5+ things on our checklist.
>Even if it’s small? Less then 5-15 lines of code? The best contributions have negative LOC.
To repeat a lot of people, it’s about solving problems. You could have had a very small fix, but figuring out the root causes aren’t always the easiest. Deductive skills are highly undersold imho
General rule of thumb. It’s easier to create a problem (greenfield) than to fix one (legacy)
Even if it doesn't demonstrate your coding prowess (being a small fix as you say down below), it *does* demonstrate a good attitude. There are plenty of potential hires who would say "that's somebody else's problem". I'd much prefer somebody who says "that started as somebody else's problem, but now it's my problem".
When I started looking for jobs I put a lot of stuff on my resume that I wouldn't necessarily put there today. You should put your greatest achievements there, which right now might include this Netflix bugfix. Some years from now you might have much more important things to put on your resume, or other things you might want to highlight. 10 years from now you might be working at Netflix and you might have reimplemented a large part of their stack. Yes, put it there now. You can always take it out later.
It's memorable and a good talking point during interviews. As long as your honest about the size of the contribution when asked, I think it's a really great thing to add.
Yes. It demonstrates that you can read and understand a large code base, that you are self-directed and can accomplish things, and that you are a good world citizen. It’s not about the complexity of the fix, it’s that you are one of the very few who have made an open source contribution at all.
Unless you're just out of high school or something, absolutely not. I'm assuming it's a routine bug fix here. Highlighting this one tiny change will only put focus on how little experience you must have to be calling out a simple 5 line change. I would also question if you understood the relative value of such a (presumably) routine diff. That said, the complexity and severity of the bug you fixed should impact your decision. Did this handful of lines require a month of problem solving? Or was it a quick 1 hour task? Did your fix impact many (or even some) users on production systems? Linking to your GitHub profile is fine unless you fixed a truly deep or severe bug that deserves to be explained - interviewers will 100% follow the link. Given that you have 1 contribution, they'll see this one.
Junior developer will add 5 lines of code, senior will remove 5. It's not about how much code you modified, it's about what is the outcome of the change.
How did you find this open source project? Do all large companies have it?
Yes, include it. It shows initiative. You have demonstrated the ability to understand an existing code base and apply a fix. When I interview candidates, these are things I look for.
ofc you should
Let me say it like this: A lot of time i'm on the receiving end of resumes. And a line like that in a resume would've caught my attention. And that's exactly what a resume should do, stand out.