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Coding Your Future: A Guidebook for Students

19 Google Summer of Code

Any internship or placement you do will help your CV stand out from the crowd. Any experience you get before you graduate will be a key part of your story enabling you to build your knowledge, improve your skills and gain professional experience through paid employment.

19.1 Get paid to write Open Source Software

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global, online program focused on bringing new contributors into open source software development. GSoC contributors work with an open source organization on a 12+ week programming project under the guidance of mentors. It’s open to students (and beginners) in open source software development see figure 19.1 (Googler 2025; S. Taylor, Radomile, and Ortíz 2025)

Google Summer of Code summerofcode.withgoogle.com has been running annually since 2004. Students and other beginners get paid to write free and open source software (FOSS) by fixing bugs and adding features to a range of different software projects. (Googler 2025) 🌞

Figure 19.1: Google Summer of Code summerofcode.withgoogle.com has been running annually since 2004. Students and other beginners get paid to write free and open source software (FOSS) by fixing bugs and adding features to a range of different software projects. (Googler 2025) 🌞

In 2025, there are 184 summer projects to choose from with experienced mentors. Applications for GSoC Contributors are open from March 24 - April 8, 2025.

19.2 Participating organisations

There are a wide range of organisations participating in 2025 including:

19.3 How to apply for GSoC

Applying for Google Summer of Code isn’t like applying for other kinds of summer internships, you don’t just send your CV and covering letter off and wait to be invited to an interview. You have to be more proactive, GSoC advises contributors to follow eight basic steps:

  1. Read The Friendly Manual (RTFM), there’s lots of it but it is well-written and self-explantory. See summerofcode.withgoogle.com
  2. Write down a list of the skills and knowledge you have. What languages do you know? What tools are you familiar with?
  3. Look through the mentoring organisations on the program site
  4. Browse the organisations site and repositories. Look at the code and the issue tracker, what are the bugs and feature requests?
  5. Narrow your list down to one or two organisations, then talk to them via whatever chat channel they are using, see making first contact in section 19.4
  6. Write your proposal, go for quality over quantity. One or two proposals max
  7. Verify your application meets the requirements, many applicants don’t do this
  8. Don’t leave it to the last minute, start talking to the organisation long before the deadline.

Once you’ve figured out which of the projects interest you most, it’s time to start getting in touch with them.

19.4 Making first contact with an OSS project

Here’s what GSoC advice on making first contact with an Open Source Software (OSS) project, start by observing:

  • Join both the development and user mailing lists and spend a few days just reading the conversations
  • Read posts on their mailing list archives
  • Join the project’s discussion forums/chat channel (IRC, Discourse, Discord, Slack) and lurk for a bit
  • Read all the available information on past GSoC projects
  • Take a stab at going through the project documentation, at least to the point where you feel like you can ask questions that are not already extensively covered in the docs.

At the end of yocur “listening and research” phase you’ll understand how, where and when the community interacts and know the best way to ask questions and discuss your proposal. See making first contact

19.5 Are you good enough for GSoC?

If you’re wondering if you’re good enough for GSoC, mentors are looking for

  1. soft skills and
  2. technical skills

The softer people skills include:

  • You can find out where to go for help with technical questions
  • You can take and respond well to feedback, including negative feedback
  • You can work independently
  • You know when to ask questions
  • You can communicate effectively, see figure 19.2

… and hard technical skills include:

  • You can install and configure software packages on your own
  • You have access to a functioning computer
  • You have experience using the programming language and operating system of the project

If that sounds like you, it is worth applying for GSoC. (S. Taylor, Radomile, and Ortíz 2025)

Hard skills and soft skills aren’t much use without each other. You will need both to survive and thrive but most science and engineering education focuses on your hard skills, not your soft skills. Why? Because hard skills are often much easier to measure. Hard and soft skills sketch by Visual Thinkery is licensed under CC-BY-ND

Figure 19.2: Hard skills and soft skills aren’t much use without each other. You will need both to survive and thrive but most science and engineering education focuses on your hard skills, not your soft skills. Why? Because hard skills are often much easier to measure. Hard and soft skills sketch by Visual Thinkery is licensed under CC-BY-ND