Why Every Developer Should Have A Portfolio

As a software developer in 2021, you must have come across various developers’ portfolios, developers talking about building or creating portfolios, and how it is important for every developer to have it. Like we say at AltCampus, your portfolio is the gateway to kickstart a great career. If you are a beginner developer, here’s a great article that explains how to build a great portfolio.

What exactly does a software developer’s portfolio look like? And why is it necessary?

A step up from tradition

Resumes are not outdated. Having a resume that precisely states your information is crucial for recruiters to know about you. However, what about skills? Simply stating them on resumes is practically useless since there is no visual component to prove that these skills have been used by you. Portfolios are the ultimate proof of your work and hence are useful.

Portfolios are simple one-page websites that contain all your skills, projects, and applications that you have built. As a web developer, portfolios are highly useful in showcasing all your skills and relevant projects where these skills have been used.

Here is one of our AltCampus alumni’s portfolio as a full stack developer - Raghuram’s Portfolio.

Portfolios like these will induce a sense of confidence to prospective clients, employees, etc, and give you an edge over competitors.

What should a portfolio contain?

• Who you are

  A short yet descriptive information about yourself as an intro sets the ball rolling. Preferably, this intro needs to be as informal as possible, so that you set a friendly tone with the readers. A simple greeting, with what you are currently working on, and how you can help / work with clients or companies is more than enough.

• Contact information

  Let people know how to contact you, and where to find you. Include your relevant GitHub, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles. Have a simple form field as well to let them send you a message through email for instant communication.

• Experience

  Give brief details on your past work experiences. Companies you worked in, projects / technologies you worked on can instill some confidence in readers’ minds and even provide context to your skills and abilities.

  Explain the roles and responsibilities you had while working on these projects. Clients or recruiters need to know that you have what it takes for them to trust you with their work. If you are a freelancer, explaining about different projects and showing end results can get you more referrals and work.

• Skills & Projects

  This is one of the most important sections in a portfolio. Listing your skills with related projects will instantly give a ton of information about what you can do and how much knowledge you have in technologies.

  If you are a MERN developer, you can focus on displaying both design and backend projects that showcase your expertise in technologies like ReactJS, MongoDB, ExpressJS, NodeJS, Redux, etc. Open source contributions are a huge plus to add to your portfolio. Contributing to open source is a key ingredient in proving your skills. In a recruiter’s eyes, you have already caught their attention since this is exactly what they are looking for. Along with the source code provided, they already have an initial impression of the kind of proficiency you have in developing front-end apps.

• Achievements & Badges

  If you have ranked high in some leaderboards in popular coding platforms like Codewars and Leetcode, you can display that in your portfolio. Or, if your work was recognized by your previous employer, you can showcase that as well with a brief explanation. Maybe you are a bug-bounty hunter and gained recognition for a bug you found and fixed? Add that in there and you can see how your portfolio takes you far ahead! 🚀

Keep building and keep shipping 🙌

Keep building projects and add them to your portfolio. The more you build, the more experience you get, and better visibility. This way, you will never run out of opportunities to pursue or people to connect with.

Share your learning journey, projects, etc., in relevant developer communities. You can reach a large number of people this way and help fellow developers. Once they land on your portfolio from there, you will find yourself getting projects and employment opportunities.

The tech market has changed in the last decade and becoming a software developer with relevant skills is much easier than it was before. Skills are valued more than degrees and certificates and the barrier to enter software development is virtually non-existent today. This is all the more reason to have a great portfolio that can show recruiters that you have the skills required to be hired as a developer.

With the demand for full-stack developers on the rise, it is a worthy investment to learn programming and become a full-stack developer. Your portfolio would really kick off with the added skills 🎯.

If you are looking for a great place to start learning programming and become job-ready as a developer, AltCampus is here to guide you throughout your journey. Sign up today and start learning for free 🙌