What skills do people in industry look for when they hire developers

Caveat: Industry means the software industry. And, in non software field, anyone developing/using the web

Industry is more and more looking for developers who have a 'FOSS skill set', even if not hired for FOSS development. So what skills are they looking for? Note: Application developers.

  • Published contributions to open source projects
  • Ability to study an existing codebase, debug it and modify/enhance it
  • Knowledge of the LAMP stack : PHP/Perl/Python + Apache + MySQL/PostgreSQL + GNU/Linux/BSD
  • Proficiency in one or more scripting languages - PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby
  • Shell scripting
  • Basics of Linux/BSD usage and administration
  • Familiarity with Subversion/Trac/CVS/Bugzilla

  • Familiarity with cc/gcc, make, automake, autoconf
  • CSS, HTML, XML basics - indepth Javascript
  • GUI toolkit
  • Fundamentals of SQL and familiarity with MySQL/PostgreSQL
  • Apache webserver configuration
  • Familiarity with wikis and mailing lists
  • Familiarity with Open Source CMS/CRM/ERP ...

Skills for Web developers

  • LAMP programming languages
  • Connecting to a database from any of the P* programming language
  • basic database administration - like hot/cold backups, load balancing between 2 or more databases, finding bottlenecks in queries
  • doing a join across 3 tables
  • Configuring a virtualhost on apache
  • Basic knowledge of tuning webservers and databases
  • Familarity with Javascript
  • Familarity with a Javascript framework - YUI/Dojo etc.
  • OOPs in any language
  • Knowledge of Design patterns is a major plus
  • Knowledge of using source control plus
  • Knowledge of any packaging scheme used by *nix systems

Comments

A. I believe that some knowledge of the following basic stuff is essential for any developer in *nix/*BSD:

A1. boot loader :- grub, lilo, managing multiple partitions/OS's

A2. basic knowledge of bash scripts. Should be able to at least peruse and comprehend /etc/rc* scripts.

A3. Ability to recompile the kernel

B. Some of this is complementary to stuff already mentioned.

B1. download and install one sourceforge project.

B2. evaluate competing (existing) FOSS applications for a given task - IE skills for application developers

C. Ability to RTFM and STFW is defenitely a pre-requisite IMHO