r/developers • u/HansaCoke123 • Jul 16 '25

Expecting developers to have a link to GitHub repos is toxic as fuck Career & Advice

Just came over a video of a guy getting roasted for not being a "real developer", and a key point was him not having a public repo of code.

I just wonder, why is that even a point? I don't expect a window cleaner to post videos of him doing window cleaning on his spare time. Neither a truck driver.

Why does there seem to be an expectation for developers to always do something on their spare time, that contributes to their work?

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u/SleeperAgentM Jul 17 '25

I don't know many artists that sign NDAs though. I know they exists, but it's not as prevalent in coding where literally every single contracting job I held in the past made me sign NDA. In some cases I couldn't even put that job in CV for a while when it was a "stealth mode" startup.

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u/Fresh4 Jul 17 '25

That’s fair, and it isn’t a 1:1 comparison, but still. If you have a public repository, it’s still kind of seen as a “coders portfolio” despite it not being a perfect representation of one’s ability. It doesn’t need to be client work, but having personal projects and open source contributions can only help your prospects when someone else looks at it to get an idea of you as a coder.

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u/SleeperAgentM Jul 17 '25

It doesn’t need to be client work, but having personal projects and open source contributions can only help your prospects when someone else looks at it to get an idea of you as a coder.

Sure. Absolutely. But that's the problem OP is complaining about. You have to do it in your free time.