Proving your passion

Just Like Riding a Bike

I spent much of the past month in Louisiana visiting my fiance’s family. We boiled shrimp and enjoyed time with family by the pool. Coming back to coding after all of that was a bit odd. You quickly forget what your projects looked like and even some of the specific language syntax. But it comes back to you just as fast. Most recently, I have been building a portfolio website to showcase personal projects and freelance work. This is the story of the start of that journey.

What to include?

The first hurdle I faced was simply what to include. What is important for a potential employer to see? I broke it down into a few different sections. First, they need to see something that represents you. This has to be something that is personal and unique. Ultimately, an employer does not hire your projects or experience. They hire you, a unique individual with a story to tell.

It is also important that you experience be shown off. Employers don’t want to hire someone who wants to become an engineer. They hire people who are engineers. Therefore, a clearly organized section of past freelance work and personal projects that show off your talent should be included. Last, one should include a contact section that an employer can use to get in touch.

Where to start?

That all sounds very simple. But it becomes intimidating for new developers. New developers often ask themselves the question (and I am in this boat at times), “What really does make me special as a developer? Where is my niche?” Building a portfolio website helps us in this way as we are forced to clearly mark out who we are and what we do. That means that building a portfolio website is a great starting project for developers just out of a coding bootcamp.

Just keep going

One last problem that pops up for developers building their website is that their project section might seem somewhat sparse. I certainly feel this way at times, having completed only one freelance project and a few personal projects. However, this simply encourages us to keep coding and building things we can show off. If nothing else, we just need to keep on coding.