My career path is a bit more "everything goes". I started as software integration at Zend, the PHP company (compiling lots of stuff). Then founded my own company working full time on it for 8 years, and just in the past two years (while the company is still running with the other founders) started working as a senior developer. So Its kinda depends what you actually do?

I think having big open source projects with your name on them not only helps doing better in the world, but also looks good on your resume, its stuff you can show as proof you know what you are doing.