06-22-2026, 02:39 PM
The advice "just make projects" is true but incomplete. Here's what actually moves the needle.
What doesn't work:
What works:
One or two projects you actually finished and can talk about in depth. A single well-built project with a working demo, good README, clean code, and a deployment beats five unfinished ones every time. Hiring managers run out of time quickly - if your first project fails to demo or load, they often don't look at the second.
Projects that solve a real problem (even a small one). "I built this because I needed X and nothing did exactly what I wanted" is a much better story than "I built a CRUD app to practice React." It shows motivation and product thinking.
Demonstrate the stack you want to be hired for. If you want a Python backend role, your pinned projects should be Python backend. Don't dilute with unrelated projects.
The README matters. Include: what it does, why you built it, how to run it, what you learned or what was interesting about it. Screenshots or a demo GIF. Tech stack. This is what the hiring manager actually reads.
Contributions to real open-source projects are worth more than personal projects if you can get them. Even documentation fixes or bug reports show you can navigate an existing codebase and communicate with a team.
Deploy everything. A project with a live URL is 10x more impressive than one that's only on GitHub. Fly.io, Railway, Render, Netlify, and Vercel all have generous free tiers.
For junior roles specifically: the portfolio matters more than it does at senior level. Spend more time on it. But don't spend so long building the perfect portfolio that you delay applying.
What doesn't work:
- Tutorial projects (to-do apps, weather apps, clones you followed step by step)
- Projects with no README or documentation
- Projects that don't work when you click the demo link
- 10 half-finished projects
What works:
One or two projects you actually finished and can talk about in depth. A single well-built project with a working demo, good README, clean code, and a deployment beats five unfinished ones every time. Hiring managers run out of time quickly - if your first project fails to demo or load, they often don't look at the second.
Projects that solve a real problem (even a small one). "I built this because I needed X and nothing did exactly what I wanted" is a much better story than "I built a CRUD app to practice React." It shows motivation and product thinking.
Demonstrate the stack you want to be hired for. If you want a Python backend role, your pinned projects should be Python backend. Don't dilute with unrelated projects.
The README matters. Include: what it does, why you built it, how to run it, what you learned or what was interesting about it. Screenshots or a demo GIF. Tech stack. This is what the hiring manager actually reads.
Contributions to real open-source projects are worth more than personal projects if you can get them. Even documentation fixes or bug reports show you can navigate an existing codebase and communicate with a team.
Deploy everything. A project with a live URL is 10x more impressive than one that's only on GitHub. Fly.io, Railway, Render, Netlify, and Vercel all have generous free tiers.
For junior roles specifically: the portfolio matters more than it does at senior level. Spend more time on it. But don't spend so long building the perfect portfolio that you delay applying.
