Question about officially recognizing .NET open-source contributions on LinkedIn

[ivanPeshterskii]

Hello,
I am an active open-source contributor to the .NET ecosystem. I regularly submit pull requests to Microsoft's official .NET repositories, including dotnet/docs and dotnet/samples. Some of my pull requests have been reviewed and merged, while others have been closed or are still under review.
I would like to represent these contributions accurately on my LinkedIn profile, potentially under the Experience section as an "Open Source Contributor – .NET".
Is there an official way for Microsoft or the .NET team to verify or recognize this type of contributor experience on LinkedIn?
I want to make sure that I describe my relationship with Microsoft and the .NET project accurately and do not imply that I am a Microsoft employee.
I would be happy to provide links to my GitHub profile and merged pull requests if needed.
Thank you for your time and guidance!

[johnkaram02]

I'm a community contributor too, not on the .NET team, so treat this as practical advice rather than an official answer. As far as I know, there's no verification or endorsement process for external contributors. Microsoft doesn't confirm "contributor" roles on LinkedIn, and the .NET Foundation doesn't issue certificates for PRs. The good news is that open-source contributions are verifiable by design, because anyone can click through to the PRs.

What tends to work well and stays accurate:

• Don't put Microsoft as the employer in the Experience section. A position with Microsoft as the company reads as employment, and LinkedIn shows the Microsoft logo next to it. Use one of these instead:
  • Projects: e.g. "Contributions to .NET documentation (dotnet/docs, dotnet/samples)", with a link to a GitHub search of your merged PRs, such as https://github.com/dotnet/docs/pulls?q=is:pr+author:<you>+is:merged.
  • Volunteering, with the organization written as "Open source (.NET)" rather than linked to the Microsoft company page.
  • Or an Experience entry under a company name like "Open Source" / "Self-employed", titled "Open Source Contributor", with the repos listed in the description.
• Describe the merged work concretely: "12 merged PRs to dotnet/docs: fixed X, rewrote the Y sample for .NET 10". Count only merged PRs. Open or closed ones are fine to mention in an interview, but not as accomplishments.
• Link evidence in the Featured section: your GitHub profile, or one or two PRs you're proud of. A reviewer comment from a maintainer approving your change is the closest thing to "recognition" there is.
• If you want a public signal beyond your profile: some .NET blog posts and docs "What's new" pages have credited community contributors by GitHub handle. If your name ever shows up in one, linking to it is accurate and verifiable.

Wording like "Community contributor to the .NET open-source project" makes it clear that you aren't claiming to work for Microsoft.