Contributing to open source is a big one. Purely personal projects are good, but I’ve found way more people are interested in open source work because it’s ‘more real’ and it shows you can work as part of an organization.

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If you aren’t cringing at your past at all, then you aren’t growing.

Well, these services do require money to run. If everyone were as ‘clever’ as you are then we’d have little content indeed.