Ask HN: Are personal sites/portfolios important and how should you build one?

[alphast0rm]

I'm an incoming senior in college studying CS and Finance and one of my colleagues in the Valley mentioned that having a personal site with a portfolio makes candidates look exponentially more impressive when applying for jobs (e.g. organized code samples with explanations and context).

How important is it to have your own website or portfolio? Does having a blog component add significant value or is a collection of static pages sufficient?

Also, when creating a site is it acceptable to use a CMS like WordPress or do employers prefer if individuals build their sites from the ground up or use different web frameworks?

[tjr]

As I am neither a hiring manager, nor can I point to my own website and say "that helped me get a job", I offer the words of Philip Greenspun:

A big salary can evaporate quickly. Between March 2001 and April 2004 roughly 400,000 American jobs in information technology were eliminated. Many of those who had coded Java in obscurity ended up as cab drivers or greeters at Walmart. A personal professional reputation, by contrast, is a bit harder to build than the big salary but also harder to lose. If you don't invest some time in writing (prose, not code), however, you'll never have any reputation outside your immediate circle of colleagues, who themselves may end up working at McDonald's and be unable to help you get an engineering job during a recession.

http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup

In my own opinion, a blog component only makes sense if you wish to write short (3-paragraph) posts. Use Wordpress if what Wordpress offers is what you want. On one hand, writing your own web framework can be a good learning experience and a good portfolio piece in itself; on the other hand, good programmers reuse existing code when possible. NOT writing your own web framework can be just as much of an indicator of your skills as writing one.

[suyash → tjr]

"Many of those who had coded Java in obscurity ended up as cab drivers or greeters at Walmart." Are you kidding around? Java is one of the most desired language and companies are dying to find Java developers. You must not be a programmer, definitely not a Java programmer. Java programmers are respected highly and their skills are all time desired. Java is just going to get bigger and bigger in all kinds of devices and technologies. The one's who are driving cabs and working at Walmart are the fine art's/history/english etc majors (no offence but that's what it is).

[kevinrpope → suyash]

The quote explicitly states this was occuring in 2001-2004. In 2012 you are right that Java developers are in very strong demand. However, in 2002 that was definitely not the case.

[bmelton]

In kind of reverse order:

- It is absolutely acceptable to use an existing blog engine or CMS to post with. Many of the most respected developers use Wordpress, Blogger.com, Posterous or even just Google Plus to blog. There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever.

- As for how important it is to have your own website / portfolio, it depends on wat you intend to do. Career-wise, consider it a form of marketing. If you want to run a startup, or be a freelance developer or designer, then having a blog / portfolio, with the potential to get leads, is absolutely critical. If you want to work at a startup, showing knowledge on a subject is a good (though not guaranteed way) to get you to the front of the interview line faster, and can definitely get you hired over the next guy. In simple terms, if you have a portfolio, you can prove that you can do the work, and that you have done the work. The guy without the portfolio has to convince potential employers that he can.

If you're planning to do development, I would suggest putting your code on Github. That's something you can point potential employers to to show that you've done programming. Bear in mind that MANY applicants at programming jobs can't even complete FizzBuzz. Just showing what you can do is more likely to get you where you want to be. Also, Github is a great way to run into other people in the field. People can see your code, be impressed by your code, or use your code. Back before a lot of my old applications were purchased (long story) I had a company call me and offer me a job, out of the blue. They were using my code in their products already, and figured since they were already using my code, they might as well hire me to make the changes they were hiring for.

The other caveat that I always make with Github is that your code doesn't have to be good. It's usually never 'good enough'. Unless you're specifically building a portfolio application (which there is nothing wrong with), it doesn't matter whether or not your code is 'clever' or not, so long as it builds / works / is useful. If you have free time, it's great to go back and polish up old code for viewing, but 'works in progress' have no standard, in my opinion. Working code is worth gold.

The last point I'll make that you didn't really ask about regards blogging. For me, blogging is invaluable. Even if you never publish your blog posts, the act of writing them is self-affirming.

It's so much easier to write a widget that fetches RSS feeds than it is to explain to a child how to write a widget that fetches RSS feeds. The simple act of forming that explanation, even if only in your head, will cause you to be a better developer no matter what you do. Also, if you do publish your code, it'll open it up to critique by your peers. The biggest regret of my professional life is that I've spent too much time coding in isolation. Coding in isolation is fine, but learning takes longer and you're more likely to develop bad habits that don't get fixed. Show your code to your peers, to the world, and they'll give you tips back that make you better.

Sorry for the rant, but I hope it helps.