you can use Algora.io (it’s open source) to cover 120+ countries for the bounty payout - it would be a fantastic showcase on our website (founder here)
A lot of OSS companies are currently hiring. Contribute to their codebase to stand out, get experience, network & improve your resume. Some also share feature bounties on GitHub (https://algora.io) so you can even make money in the process.
I know dozens of engineers who landed jobs within a few months by actively contributing to OSS.
I run a bounties platform (https://algora.io) and I've seen people who create bounties try to use some AI like Devin to solve them (@seveibar livestreamed trying it) just for fun and in all cases AI failed to solve the bounties.
A Rust project that rewarded 300+ bounties ($37k) is now building an AI coding agent with the aim to solve bounties on Algora - it's an interesting benchmark I guess.
Curious myself what the next years might look like, but from everything I've seen so far we're definitely not there yet.
It doesn't have to be thankless - some projects award bounties or contract their contributors (see https://algora.io). Similarly OP could compensate the maintainers for their help updating the software.