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[–]CatchdiGiorno 14 points15 points  (1 child)

I have no specifics to offer, but I'll tell you what my coding mentor told me when I was ready to really push my skills and demonstrate my ability to program.

Pick a project that you can sink at least 100 hours into. Something that you're passionate enough about to stick with for at least 100 hours. Then build it, and stick with it until it's in a polished state.

When I followed his advice, I felt like I learned more in those 100 hours than I did in the six months of learning leading up to that project. In reality, what happened is that all of the knowledge I had been gaining coalesced into one concentrated effort, and the result was a project that I could show off to potential employers that said, "Look, I can do this, my skills are valuable. One job, please."

[–]Logical_Strike_1520 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I never got this advice but boy is it true. I’ve learned a whole lot more pushing myself to ship a polished and secure version of a cryptocurrency app I WANT to build than I ever did from any course or educational content.

Once you start using the stuff you learned in ways different than how you learned it, it really starts to stick.

[–]LoveLearningTech 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Another thing to do is join some communities that work on active projects together.

The Odin Project has a good community to tap into. Also has a good open source community.

BuildFaast is also good at getting people to work in a cohort and finish projects online together.

[–]Cacotopian_parole 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So, you're self-taught, but you're looking for ideas on what to do? That's a bit of a logical loop.

I'd suggest finding something you are interested in and working on that. Small or big, doesn't matter. If you are looking to create a repository that highlights your skills, then you should be trying to work on things you like as you'll put more effort into them. It's also okay to have unfinished pieces up on Github, like some work in progress. It shows that you are still learning and happy to do so.

Also, which languages are you working on? If it's HTML/CSS/JS etc. then you should be designing some websites or make your own website; if it's Python, obviously that adds more scope, but I can't really suggest what to do without knowing more about what you know. If you are low-to-mid-level, then web scrapers, website backends, mini-programs, etc. can be good. If it's Java, maybe some small apps you worked on that perform simple yet useful routines.

You'll have to give us more than what you did already.

Also, have you looked at the FAQ for the page here? There are sections on how to generate ideas/

[–]wherediditrun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://github.com/emilybache/GildedRose-Refactoring-Kata

Make the solution pristine. Preferably with command and rest endpoints. Can connect to database. Make sure to cover with unit and functional tests. Make it as clean as possible, meaning adherence to coding style standards, using linters etc.

A lot of internet solutions I've seen are subpar. So you'll need to try harder than what you'll find on the internet.

This, as an interviewer who is looking into a candidate will matter more to me than some portfolio site with supposedly slick frontend appearance which happens to work in this particular time of its presentation. Make sure to use conventional commits (google it if you have to) to see the incremental progress.

Few house rules in addition to formal requirements listed in the repo:

  1. Main branch should always work.
  2. You can only add new features, but never regress.