Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#11

Post by nfriedly »

You could try taking a few jobs on freelance sites. The upsides are money and real-world experience. The downside is that you (usually) can't put the code on GitHub (although you can put screenshots and links in your portfolio.)

Feel free to reach out to me for advice if you try this but need a little help.

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#12

Post by natnai »

I was in a similar position to you just a year ago. I landed a job at a great start up as an FE dev. I think the best thing you can do to help yourself is really to build solutions with technology you're interested in. There's no point in learning framework X just because it's the hot thing in the industry -- learn to solve problems and demonstrate that you can do so with the appropriate tools. Solve problems you're interested in solving and the right job will come to you, because solving problems that interest you means you'll do it better, and companies interested in solving those types of proteins will also he interested in hiring you. In view of this, I say, do whatever the hell you want, but make sure you DO IT WELL.

Always remember that developers are first and foremost problem solvers. We solve problems and code is our primary tool. That's all there is to it. No more, no less. Good companies hire problem solvers, not developers who can remember the redux and webpack docs verbatim.

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#14

Post by lopatin »

I can only speak from personal experience but here's what worked for me. Build one thing that will truly impress the senior engineers at whatever companies you're applying to. In order to be impressive, it has to solve an interesting engineering problem. Try to build it yourself. Fail (probably). Now go pick up a library that does the hard thing for you. What's great about this is that you're now very familiar with the hard problem and have ideas/opinions about it. That will make you a valuable contributor to that particular open source library. Your project will be the centerpiece of your resume, you have the lower level knowledge that will give you points during eng interviews, you've got an open source contribution that is actually impactful, and a war story for how you failed at some very hard problem (engineers love this). That is, go deep. Not wide. For me, the hard problem was real time sync of a multiplayer game but yours can be anything you're interested in. Drop your portfolio, call it a resume. Ditch the "wireframes" and don't even think about adding parallax to your site.

Edit: Your idea of recreating popular websites is also good though, I just think it's more of a shot in the dark. If I saw a resume with a couple projects recreating some sites, even if they're good, it just doesn't tell me much, just that you're basically competent and most companies are looking for more than that. But if I saw a re-creation of Slack or Gmail that is comprehensive and actually looks and feels like the real thing, and handles errors correctly, and handles off-line mode, and has the performance of the original and is open source ... I might just literally throw money at you.

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#15

Post by happyslobro »

DTrejo wrote: post #10

@Calist0 You would like my book on this, it answers all three of your questions: https://gum.co/CSGETMONEY - if you're not a white man you can email me and I'll send it to you for free! Cheers! D

And just like that, I now know what it feels like to be discriminated against based on race and gender :/

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#17

Post by [deleted] »

lopatin wrote: post #14

I can only speak from personal experience but here's what worked for me. Build one thing that will truly impress the senior engineers at whatever companies you're applying to. In order to be impressive, it has to solve an interesting engineering problem. Try to build it yourself. Fail (probably). Now go pick up a library that does the hard thing for you. What's great about this is that you're now very familiar with t…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#18

Post by shard972 »

happyslobro wrote: post #15
DTrejo wrote: post #10

@Calist0 You would like my book on this, it answers all three of your questions: https://gum.co/CSGETMONEY - if you're not a white man you can email me and I'll send it to you for free! Cheers! D

And just like that, I now know what it feels like to be discriminated against based on race and gender :/

but look at the bright side, you get to sit at the front of the bus!

Re: Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?

#19

Post by teknologist »

happyslobro wrote: post #15
DTrejo wrote: post #10

@Calist0 You would like my book on this, it answers all three of your questions: https://gum.co/CSGETMONEY - if you're not a white man you can email me and I'll send it to you for free! Cheers! D

And just like that, I now know what it feels like to be discriminated against based on race and gender :/

Is this a solution to the problem? Probably not.
Post reply on HN