Open Source Job Market in 2021

The open-source job industry is one of the biggest out there. However, the pandemic affected various sectors in a lot of ways.

The Linux Foundation teamed up with edX to survey several professionals and hiring managers to gain insights on open-source job skill demands, the hottest skills, and the state of the industry.

Here, let me mention some key highlights of the report.

Hiring Open-Source Talent is a Priority

While open-source skills were always in demand, it is now a priority in 2021.

Considering every type of service and product development relies on some form of open-source technology, 97% of the hiring managers agree to prioritize open-source talents.

The prime reason for this boost is the boom of cloud-native technologies surpassing Linux skill demand for the first time in history.

And, it is crucial to manage and scale cloud technologies to keep up with the demands.

Hence, the skills for cloud/container technologies are the most popular right now. And followed by the others. Here are the hottest skill sets right now:

• Cloud and container technologies (46%)

• Linux development and administration (35%)

• Networking technologies (26%)

• DevOps practises (24%)

• Security practises (23%)

Kubernetes, an open-source technology, has influenced this in a big way, and likely 4x times than usual, candidates are starting to get Kubernetes certification programs as per the report.

Of course, no matter what, you still need the foundations of working with Linux systems to expand your skillset to the cloud, networking, machine learning, and others.

Lack of Talent Gap With Growing Demands

Even if the demand for cloud, DevOps, networking, administration, and others have increased, there is still a big gap of talented candidates eligible for the roles.

Yes, the certification programs and eLearning courses by The Linux Foundation and edX have improved things. Still, the sudden growth opportunities will take time to be filled up by capable developers.

It was also reported that the professionals have been using DevOps practices more than ever (with 88% use, compared to 58% of professionals using it in 2018). And, this is a good thing.

Companies are starting to make hiring decisions on the basis of an open-source skill set, which is highly influential for a candidate.

Open-Source Community Growth & The Future

The report highlights the fact that the open-source skillset is in great demand. And, not just certifications, professionals contributing to open-source projects are more likely to get hired than the rest. 44% of the hiring managers would prefer such talents.

So, this should be good for the growth of the open-source community and the job industry at the same time.

And I think this is a good time for you to develop and explore open-source skill sets while contributing to the open-source community. If you’re wondering, you might want to start looking at The Linux Foundation training courses and certifications to get started.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts about this report in the comments down below.

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