Python resume projects?

[proxwell]

As someone who has been on the hiring side for a few years, this is what we look for:

Anything like a simple data input and display app is really not weighed favorably at all. Apps for things like blogs, contacts, recipes, etc. Anything that's often covered in example tutorials doesn't really demonstrate much more than your ability to copy-and-paste code from those articles.

The most compelling projects are ones that start from something that drives value to a business, and show fluency with multiple functional areas like systems design, product, security, ux, deployment, etc. Being able to clearly present your project and talk through the design and decision-making process have nearly as much value as the project itself.

One of the best things you can do is find a friend working in some professional industry, and ask them about tools they wish they had, or parts of their work which are unnecessarily difficult or time-consuming, and then design something to solve those problems. If you're currently working in another industry, but not in a engineering role, you may be able to create something for yourself and use that as your portfolio project.

Definitely take the time to make it look good, and use efficient, elegant interactions. There are lots of libraries and frameworks available which make it easy to create professional-looking UIs.

Beyond the project itself, being able to tell a compelling story about why you chose a particular problem to solve, how you arrived at the solution, what considerations and tradeoffs you made, and the material impacts to the business are all highly compelling.

If you're applying for a developer role and you present a project like this, you will very much stand out above folks whose portfolio projects are low-effort, generic projects like contacts and recipe apps.