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I'm an (veteran?) Software Dev with close to 20 years experience. I've never had a portfolio, I always thought a resumé and a list of successfully completed pro

I'm an (veteran?) Software Dev with close to 20 years experience. I've never had a portfolio, I always thought a resumé and a list of successfully completed projects was enough. HR usually only looks at resumé, freelance customers usually couldn't care less of it seems. Only devs would care about another devs portfolio (in my opinion). Any other opinions?

eafkuor 8y ago
A portfolio seems pretty useless to me if you have a decent CV.
nfriedly 8y ago
I don't think it's a requirement, but I'm pretty sure mine's helped me get hired, both for freelance and full-time gigs. I've definitely had interviews where it seemed like they were already sold on me before the interview even started. > Only devs would care about another devs portfolio (in my opinion). It's often devs who perform some of the interviews ;) Also, my portfolio has quite a bit more content then you'd ever want to put in a resume. I don't feel like there's any need to limit it to 1-2 pages, so it has 90+ projects with pictures and 1-3 paragraphs of text describing each one. I think that has to have some impact, even if only on a subliminal level.
h4b4n3r0 8y ago
From my past life as a hiring manager: having a portfolio (or better yet a demo that you can show during your interview) helps junior hires a lot. It helps in 2 major ways: 1. I can see that the junior hire actually _did_ something worthwhile in addition to their mandatory coursework 2. It creates a topic for discussion that is: a). more comfortable for the candidate and b). more revealing about their work-related traits. It's a win-win. For senior candidates I just look at the track record. If they have a relevant project on e.g. GitHub, I might take a look, but it's not going to sway anything in a major way unless it happens to be exactly the domain expertise we're looking for, which happened only once. That's a small company though. A large company will not even look at your portfolio or GitHub unless you're a GitHub superstar of some sort, and maybe not even then. There are several well publicized stories when people who drive huge projects on GH failed to get an offer from FANGs of the world. The best dev we hired though, had nothing on github and did not have a portfolio. He just wrote code three times faster than anybody I've ever seen and without any bugs.
aspit 8y ago
I have it mostly for speaking and blogging purposes; however, I get a pretty decent stream of people reaching out to me over it which would be really cool if I were looking for a job! I think it also really helps candidates stand out.
Baeocystin 8y ago
Looking at all of these portfolios only serves to remind me that although I work in tech, I have very little in common with frontend devs in terms of what I think is good or interesting. Most of what has been posted as examples of 'these are great personal sites!' I find actively annoying. I am not a stick in the mud. :) I just work in a different part of the field, and finding work has never been an issue. So do many others, and they're fine, too. I wouldn't worry about it.

eafkuor 8y ago

A portfolio seems pretty useless to me if you have a decent CV.

nfriedly 8y ago

I don't think it's a requirement, but I'm pretty sure mine's helped me get hired, both for freelance and full-time gigs. I've definitely had interviews where it seemed like they were already sold on me before the interview even started. > Only devs would care about another devs portfolio (in my opinion). It's often devs who perform some of the interviews ;) Also, my portfolio has quite a bit more content then you'd ever want to put in a resume. I don't feel like there's any need to limit it to 1-2 pages, so it has 90+ projects with pictures and 1-3 paragraphs of text describing each one. I think that has to have some impact, even if only on a subliminal level.

h4b4n3r0 8y ago

From my past life as a hiring manager: having a portfolio (or better yet a demo that you can show during your interview) helps junior hires a lot. It helps in 2 major ways: 1. I can see that the junior hire actually _did_ something worthwhile in addition to their mandatory coursework 2. It creates a topic for discussion that is: a). more comfortable for the candidate and b). more revealing about their work-related traits. It's a win-win. For senior candidates I just look at the track record. If they have a relevant project on e.g. GitHub, I might take a look, but it's not going to sway anything in a major way unless it happens to be exactly the domain expertise we're looking for, which happened only once. That's a small company though. A large company will not even look at your portfolio or GitHub unless you're a GitHub superstar of some sort, and maybe not even then. There are several well publicized stories when people who drive huge projects on GH failed to get an offer from FANGs of the world. The best dev we hired though, had nothing on github and did not have a portfolio. He just wrote code three times faster than anybody I've ever seen and without any bugs.

aspit 8y ago

I have it mostly for speaking and blogging purposes; however, I get a pretty decent stream of people reaching out to me over it which would be really cool if I were looking for a job! I think it also really helps candidates stand out.

Baeocystin 8y ago

Looking at all of these portfolios only serves to remind me that although I work in tech, I have very little in common with frontend devs in terms of what I think is good or interesting. Most of what has been posted as examples of 'these are great personal sites!' I find actively annoying. I am not a stick in the mud. :) I just work in a different part of the field, and finding work has never been an issue. So do many others, and they're fine, too. I wouldn't worry about it.