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Ask HN: What makes a project on an entry-level dev's resume stand out?

6 points by weakfish ↗ HN
I'm a Poli Sci major getting a minor in CS (long story) and am curious what I can do project-wise to make them stand out from the crowd of simple CRUD to-do lists.

I'm currently working on a web app [0] to track my running data, but it has a long way to go and is frankly fairly useless at the moment.

[0] https://github.com/John123Allison/RunJS

25 comments

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mcgrathpm11
users, showing you learned from user feedback to iterate on the project
andrewstuart
The most powerful thing you can do is to fix 100 bugs on an extremely well known open source project, and put that on your resume, with links to all the github issues/commits.
weakfish
What would you suggest for finding a project that is sufficiently complex to matter, but not too large for a student to contribute to?
parkaboy
Not "extremely well known," but our startup has released open source developer SDKs (currently Android and Arduino) and example apps for our consumer hardware device (haptic wristband). It's just been me and a colleague working on these in our spare cycles.

https://github.com/neosensory

We'll take any help we can get with contributing to any of the projects posted up there.

andrewstuart
To the original poster .....

If you are being welcomed in to this project then you should take up the offer and then do some serious hard work fixing every possible issue you can in the github issues and asking guidance from the project maintainers as much as you can when you get stuck.

weakfish
This looks really cool. What are some ways to contribute without owning a wristband, specifically to any of the Java-based apps? Thanks!
parkaboy
Any sort of code review, basic testing on different systems/OSes, or clean-up (whether in code or documentation) is welcome. Some of the libraries for Satellite-tracking etc. are actually agnostic of requiring a wristband. The apps can generally be run / partially tested without needing to connect to a band.
andrewstuart
What programming technologies are you fascinated by, really interested in and love?

Answer that and then I'll suggest projects.

weakfish
Good/decent with Python, Java, Go. Not a fan of front-end web, unfortunately. Really intrigued by Go the most, and am into back end server work, and would _like_ to learn systems level stuff but need to learn/read a lot more before that.

Thanks!

s1t5
Pick a project that you already use yourself. You'll have a lot more context and will be much less likely to just give up at the first problem you run across.
SwiftyBug
You should check out projects made for Deno[1]. It's a new promising. It's like Node, but it runs TypeScript natively. One thing that will dictate the success of this project is if the community can migrate Node's ecosystem into Deno. There's plenty of projects being built for Deno.

[1]: https://deno.land/

hackermailman
Check code triage site

Pick one where someone actually reviews PRs and there isn't hundreds of them sitting open from months ago

econnors
create something – like you have – but ship it to production. opening a project and seeing setup instructions like you have makes it seem like one of those other crud apps, nobody will take the time to do it.

"Check out this thing I made - runwithjohnjs.com" will have a much greater effect.

For bonus points, write about how you built it (just use dev.to).

A cool project will get you in the door, then you just have to perform well on the interview (for which many prep materials exist online).

weakfish
Cool! I appreciate the feedback. I actually do have a Heroku hosted production environment setup with CI/CD, but it's in maintenance mode until I feel comfortable showing it off.
runT1ME
While personal projects are good, even more impressive is contributing features and/or bug fixes to larger open source projects.

It's sometimes much more challenging to dive into an existing project, learn their frameworks/style/design, and work with existing contributors.

However it's also much closer to what happens on a real development team. Whereas a project with a single author can show coding skill, working in a large open source project shows collaboration, communication, and soft skills as well.

It is a huge gold star on a resume in my opinion.

mettamage
How do you get the ball rolling on that and are there any good open source projects to start on?
detaro
I'd suggest going by what you use. At least for me, the initial motivation worked way better when fixing a bug on or improving something I regularly use. That can range from some random browser extension to tooling of a programming language you use. Sending PRs to one-person projects can be a bit hit-and-miss if they are active, but on the other hand they're often happy about any contribution they get that shows someone else cares about their thing. On the other hand, large projects are more likely to have a community where someone might help a first-time contributor through the steps.
jppope
Go do REAL client work/ side work. You're half-brother's cousin's neighbor desperately needs a site/ app / script / etc, and you should build it for them. Contrived projects that lack the messiness of the real world tell you virtually nothing about an applicant.
emerged
I would go for a candidate who came up with an idea, designed the solution, got some other people involved, and executed on it well. Solo projects are good but to really sell your value it helps to show you can work well with others.
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[dead] ykevinator
Ambition and modesty, also you may want to swap major and minor, it's nearly impossible to get a dev job with this (if this is your goal)
maps7
I think exposure and knowledge of the technologies that my team uses is the most important.

Our dev environment set up, coding standards, testing standards, release process etc will all be taught when joining the team.

I haven't seen it before but if you were able to say I fixed these bugs on this project (that had the same stack as my teams') then it would be something that stands out - I should take my own advice!