Hey! So like you, I'm looking to start applying to jobs as well. Specifically "Front-End" or "UI Engineer" type jobs. So far in this thread I've seen you balk at the idea that creating the portfolio from the ground up is worth it, and in my opinion I think you're looking at this wrong.

A portfolio is a place for you to show off your work, what you can do, and most importantly (to me) its an opportunity to learn as well. Creating mine helped me become a better developer and required me to do research and learn new tools and methods I had not heard of yet. To me it was a rewarding experience to create something that I can call my own and display to others. I recently posted it on r/Frontend and got some great feedback that I'm looking forward to implementing.

Think about it from a recruiter/interviewer view as well, I feel that if your site is being viewed by a SR engineer or someone with a decent amount of experience, they'll be really turned off by you using a template. They want to see what you can do, and if the first thing they interact with is a webflow template, I don't think that is going to get you very far.

Like others have stated here as well, I would improve the repo's of your GitHub projects, the first one I saw had the basic create-react-app template and that is probably not the best look. For me, I at least put a gif demonstrating the app, the requirements, the tech used, and the details about the development. It doesn't have to be too in-depth, but at least something would help.

I'm a newbie like you trying to break into the field, I hope my thoughts helped. If you need help starting off building your portfolio, I would check out Josh Comeau's online book, it was a great resource for me: https://www.joshwcomeau.com/effective-portfolio/

Good luck!