upvote
> It gives hope that Google/ESRI won't always be the dominant mapping platform

Are they? I get the impression that only consumer-facing stuff is Google, to give people a familiar color scheme¹ as well as allow terribly formatted search queries to still work (if google can do one thing it's search). However, anything using geo data in a back-end fashion seems about evenly split between government base maps, OpenStreetMap, and a collection of misc providers that Google is one of

¹ conversely, I struggle to find my home town on Google Maps. It's all about vague, washed-out shapes, besides the bright shop icons and, nowadays, advertising pins. It's a matter of what you're used to so I can very much understand that the average consumer, who's less familiar with maps than me, is totally lost when getting Carto as a map

reply
Lyft even pays people to contribute to OSM
reply
Many companies do. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, TomTom, Über, Komoot, VKontakte; I see German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish local governments mentioned; Austrian emergency dispatch; USA school bus operator...

Full list: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing/Activi...

It's more surprising at this point that Google isn't getting in on the fun, at least taking the good bits and calling their own data a 'separate layer' so they don't have to contribute anything back. (And of course no Chinese companies, since accurate maps are illegal there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...)

reply
How do I get a job like this? Should I just email the team leads or is it the kind of job that's done in-person in another country?
reply
I'd say government is your best bet unless you live in a low-income country and can get into one of these teams
reply