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Comment by shorts_theory | Hacker News Reader

Glad to see Google keeping this alive! I benefited a lot from participating in the GSoC program twice and I probably wouldn't be where I am right now without it! It can't be overstated how valuable the mentorship and open-source community experience is for programmers in the beginning of their careers.

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Great, sure. But the motivation is not purely altruistic, is it? I imagine this is a great recruiting vehicle. (Which is... good for them, not dinging them for it.)

It may not be purely altruistic, but seems like a net good. Participants aren’t under any obligation to work for Google, and for some participants working for Google might be a desirable opportunity! If not, this is a chance to get experience working on impactful open source projects and get paid for it.

Personally I think it’s great when incentives align this way.

It's rarely altruistic but this seems very win/win to me. Talent without a record can prove their chops and get hired above their on-paper experience level, Google gets an additional avenue of recruitment.

I don't think it is for recruiting which is such a missed opportunity for them. I participated in two GSoC and interviewed with Google later. Somehow, they were the one which gave zero fuck to GSoC or anything else in the CV and just focused on their coding round for evaluation.

A few years ago GSoC students could get directly get an interview at Google, but the rule has been changed since then and I don't think they use GSoC for recruiting anymore.

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