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Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

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Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

#1

Post by Xcelerate »

I just finished graduate school and am trying to design a small personal website that showcases the research I've done to potential employers and explains how and why my skills would be useful in an industry/startup setting. I also want to give a little background about myself.

I've been looking at a variety of people's personal websites; however, I've noticed most of the researchers I follow tend to highlight their papers/publications on their website, which doesn't seem quite so useful for someone who wants to work in industry (in most of my interviews so far, I get the impression that publications are secondary to the technical skills I've acquired).

What are the best personal project websites you've seen? Something that a potential employer would look at and think "I need to hire this person".

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

#4

Post by Kequc »

Design is entirely personal preference. Therefore information-first is a good bet if you want to absorb as large of a demographic as possible. Keep the layout and page design simple. Load times should be fast or nearly instant for that sleek professional feel.

Minimalist modern design, sans any kind of framework (like Bootstrap for example) is the name of the game.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

#6

Post by brudgers »

Designing a personal website can be an interesting learning experience and an engaging creative act expressing a strong sense of aesthetic judgment and philosophy. On the other hand, there's something to be said for not overcooking the pudding and just giving the user what they're likely to be looking for.

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/

http://norvig.com/

http://www-cs-staff.stanford.edu/~uno/

Re: Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

#7

Post by blobman »

I've been running my personal projects website ( http://www.michalpaszkiewicz.co.uk ) for just over 2 years and I get a job offer almost every week (not just the typical spamming recruiters, but startup owners who said they liked my work). I'm also pretty certain I got my current job due to the fact I could impress my interviewers with my open source code. My design isn't great but what counts is the amount of material that is out there and how good it is. I'm not looking for design jobs, so my lack of design skills doesn't matter.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?

#8

Post by pimterry »

Sara Soueidan's is pretty great - https://sarasoueidan.com/ - especially the speaking section. She's amazing generally though, so it's quite a high bar!

I had some good feedback on mine as well - https://tim.fyi - and I'm pretty happy with it (love to hear what other people think too though). After the intro though, it's more about highlighting recent specific projects and talks and articles, rather than acting as a full CV. Sounds like that might be what you're going for?

If I were you, I'd keep it simple. Go for a short simple intro that highlights what you're about, a two or three sentence summary of what you've done and what you're good at, and then keep the body as something that gives more of a feel of what you're about and up to right now. Links to blog articles, things you're tweeting about etc.

You can provide an actual CV for people who want to dig into the details of your list of achievements and research in more detail, but if this is the first place people hear about you and it's your personal site, then a sense of personality and active things going on is more important imo.

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