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Companies probably aren't even looking at your projects, but I'd keep it simple if all you wanted to do was build projects for a portfolio. Simple website with

by jmkr 5y ago

Companies probably aren't even looking at your projects, but I'd keep it simple if all you wanted to do was build projects for a portfolio. Simple website with login + database. If you're not getting a call back for interviews you should probably improve your resume. Maybe list and describe your projects as well, stuff you've learned from it, books you've read, communities/meetups you've gone to. > I'm not talking about "just follow your heart and build something you would want to use" In my opinion I do just build what I want. Passion projects are more interesting imo. You can describe and talk about them better, your goals, what you've learned, how you would do it differently, etc.

PaulHoule 5y ago
I would say the opposite. Whenever I have started a serious side project it changed my life in 18 months or so. It goes from "not getting called back" to recruiters (not from Amazon) contacting me. Usually my side projects involve finding some use of a new technology that other people aren't doing that doesn't seem that hard. Some examples are * In the late 1990s I made a Java applet that knocked off Apple's Quicktime VR * I built a web site that had an XML-based back end the week XML 1.0 was finalized and got a deal to write a chapter in a book * I made a web site of animal pictures, went on to make sites about cars and New York City, then made a list of topics from DBpedia and attached over a million images with near perfect accuracy * I made a workflow system for handling job applications and classifying job listings with machine learning that got me the first job I applied for Right now I have three side projects that form a series * a system for making "three-sided cards" that have a photo or art reproduction on the front, a description and QR code on the back, an associated web site as well as installations of the cards that have "digital twins" like https://gen5.info/$/XQ*42RXF-TLY:$B.8/ https://gen5.info/$/XQ*42RXF-TLY:$B.8/ that one is nearly wrapped up. * a persistence-of-vision display that mounts on the passenger side of my car (I need to have it perfectly debugged before I drive with it so I invented an error-correcting communication protocol to send graphical data back to my computer) * I want to do a sketch comedy act with a video game character projected like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost which is a "moon shot" for me because it involves software, hardware, being funny, finding a venue, etc. If I were looking for a new web-based project I'd use WebGL to give people a videogame-like experience. You can't make an AAA game but maybe you can make something like the trailer for an AAA game. In general I am seeing videogame interfaces (say the Pokédex or other "guides" you find in a game) as an inspiration for mobile interfaces.
- _ax6x 5y ago
  I'm curious, what exactly do you mean by "persistence-of-vision"?
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hASOre63Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hASOre63Nk That device has a single line of LEDs but they cover the space by spinning to make a 2-d image.
- jmkr 5y ago
  I think that addresses my opinion to build passion projects. I sometimes ask in interviews if they've checked out my repositories. I have a bunch, some skeletons, most unfinished, some doing an interesting thing whether large or small. The answer is usually "no." This is fellow devs, not HR. Which is why I think one should create projects for fun, and learning. As a person that sometimes does interviews, I make it a point to look at other's repositories, and I'm sure we'd have a great conversation about yours :) Given that in my experience projects aren't looked at I think your post describes a really good _projects_ section on a resume.
muzani 5y ago
The first filter (HR/recruiting) may not look at your projects. By the time they get to me (an engineer), I'm going to spend 15 mins digging through this candidate before the first interview. I will check whether your projects do CDN or whether you write functions with more than 4 arguments. There was a guy who put a project in a certain framework on his resume to prove he knew how to work with that framework. That project had one commit and it was titled something like "fris commit". That made me go "hmmmmm". I don't judge too harshly because I know not everyone puts their code open source. But I do pay a lot of attention to what someone puts out there. I have interviewers who say "Hey I loved your Medium posts" or "Hey I saw your screenshots on AI on Facebook", so I doubt I'm the only one.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  > I will check whether your projects do CDN Assuming you mean Content Delivery Network by CDN - why would you look at at that when it's just a project? For private use projects, I can't see a need for any sort of CDN, at all.
  - muzani 5y ago
    They don't need to, but sometimes some people do (especially juniors). That's the idea, appreciate the trivial things that people do on their projects.

by jmkr 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago

I would say the opposite. Whenever I have started a serious side project it changed my life in 18 months or so. It goes from "not getting called back" to recruiters (not from Amazon) contacting me. Usually my side projects involve finding some use of a new technology that other people aren't doing that doesn't seem that hard. Some examples are * In the late 1990s I made a Java applet that knocked off Apple's Quicktime VR * I built a web site that had an XML-based back end the week XML 1.0 was finalized and got a deal to write a chapter in a book * I made a web site of animal pictures, went on to make sites about cars and New York City, then made a list of topics from DBpedia and attached over a million images with near perfect accuracy * I made a workflow system for handling job applications and classifying job listings with machine learning that got me the first job I applied for Right now I have three side projects that form a series * a system for making "three-sided cards" that have a photo or art reproduction on the front, a description and QR code on the back, an associated web site as well as installations of the cards that have "digital twins" like https://gen5.info/$/XQ*42RXF-TLY:$B.8/ https://gen5.info/$/XQ*42RXF-TLY:$B.8/ that one is nearly wrapped up. * a persistence-of-vision display that mounts on the passenger side of my car (I need to have it perfectly debugged before I drive with it so I invented an error-correcting communication protocol to send graphical data back to my computer) * I want to do a sketch comedy act with a video game character projected like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost which is a "moon shot" for me because it involves software, hardware, being funny, finding a venue, etc. If I were looking for a new web-based project I'd use WebGL to give people a videogame-like experience. You can't make an AAA game but maybe you can make something like the trailer for an AAA game. In general I am seeing videogame interfaces (say the Pokédex or other "guides" you find in a game) as an inspiration for mobile interfaces.

_ax6x 5y ago
I'm curious, what exactly do you mean by "persistence-of-vision"?
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hASOre63Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hASOre63Nk That device has a single line of LEDs but they cover the space by spinning to make a 2-d image.
jmkr 5y ago
I think that addresses my opinion to build passion projects. I sometimes ask in interviews if they've checked out my repositories. I have a bunch, some skeletons, most unfinished, some doing an interesting thing whether large or small. The answer is usually "no." This is fellow devs, not HR. Which is why I think one should create projects for fun, and learning. As a person that sometimes does interviews, I make it a point to look at other's repositories, and I'm sure we'd have a great conversation about yours :) Given that in my experience projects aren't looked at I think your post describes a really good _projects_ section on a resume.

muzani 5y ago

The first filter (HR/recruiting) may not look at your projects. By the time they get to me (an engineer), I'm going to spend 15 mins digging through this candidate before the first interview. I will check whether your projects do CDN or whether you write functions with more than 4 arguments. There was a guy who put a project in a certain framework on his resume to prove he knew how to work with that framework. That project had one commit and it was titled something like "fris commit". That made me go "hmmmmm". I don't judge too harshly because I know not everyone puts their code open source. But I do pay a lot of attention to what someone puts out there. I have interviewers who say "Hey I loved your Medium posts" or "Hey I saw your screenshots on AI on Facebook", so I doubt I'm the only one.

chinathrow 5y ago
> I will check whether your projects do CDN Assuming you mean Content Delivery Network by CDN - why would you look at at that when it's just a project? For private use projects, I can't see a need for any sort of CDN, at all.
- muzani 5y ago
  They don't need to, but sometimes some people do (especially juniors). That's the idea, appreciate the trivial things that people do on their projects.