I'm a skilled open source maintainer, but I can't interview because of my disability.
### tl;dr I'm a skilled open source maintainer, but I struggle to demonstrate my worth in conventional interview settings because of my disability. 1. [What my challenges are](#1-what-my-challenges-are) 2. [What I currently do for a living](#2-what-i-currently-do-for-a-living) 3. [What I'm looking for](#3-what-i-m-looking-for) ### 1. What my challenges are I have 4 diagnoses: ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), ADHD, GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), and [Selective Mutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_mutism). I have trouble with face-to-face communication and arranging my thoughts in real time. In group social settings with unfamiliar people, I lose the ability to physically speak (though I can still communicate by writing down my thoughts on paper). I work best when I am able to sit alone in relative quiet, and when I am able to communicate asynchronously via text. For these reasons, I struggle to demonstrate my worth in conventional interview settings. For example, when asked an open-ended question over a video call, I lose the ability to use my voice. I appear anxious, uncertain, and lacking confidence to my interviewers, even though I would be fully capable of answering questions using text-based methods of communication. In the past, the jobs I've secured have involved either (a) minimal interviewing, or (b) an interview that I bombed, but compensated for in other ways (portfolio, post-interview emails, etc.). I have also never negotiated for salary (due to the added social nuances that negotiation entails). So, I currently do not feel equipped to secure a well-paying job using conventional interviewing skills alone. ### 2. What I currently do for a living I am an open source maintainer working for a research lab at a large university. For the past 2 years, I've maintained a highly-regarded Python package in a niche, data-driven research field. Our user base is small but meaningful; we serve the needs of other researchers, and help them conduct vital studies that are published in high-impact journals. The tasks I regularly perform include: * Interacting with a large legacy code base (that was previously developed by past researchers who had little-to-no industry experience at the time). * Performing recurring repository maintenance tasks (managing releases, pruning issue backlogs, updating dependencies, etc.). * Reviewing pull requests submitted by other developers within the lab, as well as external contributors from the community. * Guiding lab interns and grad students to help turn their research projects into fully-fledged features. * Working directly with our small user base to troubleshoot issues and implement requested features. * Handling complex image datasets packaged in niche, field-specific formats. * Studying grad-level concepts that are specific to my field, and applying that knowledge to develop and maintain image processing workflows. * Authoring tutorials and workshop materials to ease the learning curve for our software. * Maintaining a wiki that contains developer docs (to record internal processes and development decisions). * Reporting and fixing issues discovered in our upstream open-source dependencies. My full work history is open and available for anyone to view. (But, given the vulnerability of this post, I would prefer to stay anonymous.) ### 3. What I'm looking for Because I work as an open source maintainer for a publicly-funded research lab, I am under-paid and under-supported. I'm looking for assistance in finding a new job that will pay me a fair amount for my abilities, as well as one that will support me and help me grow as a developer. I am hoping for advice or ideas on how to find ways to mitigate the interviewing challenges I face. (For example, I would love to find tech companies that would accommodate for my communication needs by providing a text-based method of answering interview questions.) If you have thoughts or ideas that you'd like to share, please reach out to: selective.mutism.job.hunt@gmail.com Thank you kindly for your care and consideration. <3