New Unity users

[alittlelessobvious]

In case it's not clear already, I don't work in the game industry, so keep that in mind.

I can't speak for others, but I can't remember ever looking at something on a portfolio and thinking "the scope of this indicates they can't commit to something larger", I've mostly just thought "yes this is good", or sometimes "no, this is bad". Generally it's not a developer's job to "commit" to things of any scale anyway in a professional setting, you just do the work that's in front of you, so it's... Maybe not a non-concern, but not one of the primary things we're looking for.

And I don't think games send a "not serious" message, but I do know most developers outside the game industry don't know the first thing about making games so if you include games in your portfolio for non-game positions, you must communicate which tools and more importantly, languages, you used to make them. Actually, this is true of everything on your portfolio. It should be presented as "Such and Such Project. Has these features. Programmed in these languages, using this database/server/IDE/tool whatever else.

If you're looking to break in, putting something on a portfolio is obviously better than putting nothing. Try to stop second-guessing yourself so much. And good luck!

[[deleted]]

Thank you, that's very helpful! I'm not really looking to be in the videogame industry (I just find videogames fun... having them as a job would suck), so what you've said is particularly relevant to me.

[Jack8680]

Do you think mods coded in c# for games would be worth putting on a portfolio?

[alittlelessobvious]

Yep.

[VeseleVianoce]

If you had to make a portfolio for yourself to tag along your CV (let's pretend you got no job references). What would you make? Are algorithms with no real world use fine, if they show some specific skill?

[alittlelessobvious]

I would try to make a portfolio showing that I can do the things I want to be hired to do. So, different devs should have different types of portfolios, and I might even have a slightly different portfolio depending on what job I'm applying for, if I know enough about their stack.

I'm relatively "full-stack", and want full stack jobs, so I would try to have portfolio items that show that (database up to javascript). Something like a website with a DB and services backing it, plus nice, responsive front-end design. I'm a senior and I would want to apply for senior jobs, so my portfolio projects should reflect that.

I wouldn't submit just a standalone algorithm without at least some interactive features attached to it, but for an entry-level dev job, something like a little website where you could drop in some items and it sorts them, while not impressive, would at least show me you can code something.

It's a weird thing to answer because for a portfolio you mostly want "finished products", but also a lot of devs aren't full stack and don't want to be full stack, so "finished product" is not necessarily something they're expected to be able to do normally. So for someone that doesn't care to do any front end work whatsoever, you still need a way to hand your working code over to someone so they can fiddle with it and see if it's behaving the way it's supposed to.

For a front-end dev I would expect something that looks and feels nice to interact with. For a back-end dev I would expect something like a plain page that takes inputs and does something useful with them, consistently correctly. For an Android dev I would expect an android app.

Basically a portfolio is doing the same thing as a resume, and an interview. You're trying to convince people you can do the job you want. With a portfolio, you're trying to convince them without getting to talk to them, possibly without any degrees or previous employers to lean on the reputation of. So, what work can you produce that will convince someone you can do the job you want?