Do Back-End Developers Even Have Portfolios?

Isn't a portfolio basically a visual-arts thing? It had never before occurred to me that any kind of developer would have one, though now you mention it I can see how front-end web design could have enough overlap with graphic design that it would make sense for them.

I am not a full back-end developer, more full stack currently. I do not have a portfolio. Linking to github and highlighting projects is usually enough for prospective employers and gets me into interviews.

War-stories yes, portfolios no.

For example, how am I supposed to show off the OS build system for a proprietary rackmount widget that goes in a large airplane, where its chief achievement is seamlessly running patched and cross-compiled code that I didn't make which is also proprietary?

Or an internal ERP system that doesn't exist anymore for company which been acquired and digested by a bigger one.

I can't show off the code I'm proud of, I don't have permission or infrastructure to run it on my own... At best I might be able to make some sort of video in advance, but that won't tell you anything about the pieces I really worked on. It is both frustrating and freeing.

If I was a backend developer (and I am not one FWIW), I imagine I can't point at the back end of production systems that I've worked on because the internals are covered by an NDA, some legal intellectual property restriction, or I'm barred from doing it under some information security policy.

I.e., it may be impossible to create a portfolio for the majority of things you work on as a backend developer. Front-end developers work a lot on public-facing things that lack any of these restrictions, and so it is likely much easier to create a portfolio website. Screenshots of the back-end may land someone in court.

No.

I don’t spend time after work coding and I never have. No one is going to take time looking at a portfolio when every job opening gets hundreds of applications. Your resume barely gets looked at.

I'm a journeyman back end programmer. I've kept up a GitHub account full of explorations of various topics for years. I've had maybe 2 potential employers check it out.

I have a blog with lots of homelab and programming related writing on it.

I'm not sure what a "portfolio" would do differently, other than create more work.

I bothered creating a back-end dev portfolio. I have web pages that describe things I worked on. Some contain working software.

I feel it's necessary for my career. It explains to a potential employer or interviewer or recruiter the depth of my skills.

I'm highly confident a well-structured portfolio doesn't actually help in today's job search. In past job search efforts maybe it helped.

I don't know if LinkedIn and GitHub are enough. I have neither.

My back-end portfolio shows about 20% of the backend projects I worked on. When a project I launch doesn't get adopted and shows no interest from users I shut it down, often within a month. Some of my best work won't be seen by anyone.

I'm a still relatively early career back end developer, and github basically acts as a portfolio for anything that potential companies would want to see.

Think about what a portfolio site demonstrates. For a front end developer, these sites provide an opportunity to flex your design intuition and raw development skills by putting something flashy together. Your site could make a difference because it's demonstrating that you can do the day-to-day tasks you're being hired to do.

For a back end developer, the results of our work are less immediately obvious for someone who isn't already technically inclined, and by the time you talk to someone like that, you've already cleared the initial screening bar that a portfolio site would get a front end dev past. There's no real visual component to the work I do, so a site doesn't demonstrate anything related to my job. I still maintain a personal site with some rough details, but I don't think it's really helpful for my career.

I would also consider that front end devs generally enjoy working on the front end, while back end devs generally enjoy their work on the back end. So I'm way less likely to do web dev in my spare time, especially since 90% of portfolio sites have no back end whatsoever.

Back end coder for about 18 years.

I don't have one, and no employer in an interview has ever really expressed interest in something like that.

its called a resume?

I don't have a portfolio for my professional work, but I have a personal GitHub account I can point to for a number of topics (osdev, embedded, reverse-engineering...). I've started a blog to document some of my personal work, which can be politely summarized as the kind of computer engineering which is not taught in class.

Both have proven useful to help nail my latest job as a demonstration of various skill sets they were looking for. I do not think making a portfolio would be that useful in my case over the resources I've already put out there.

8 YoE checking in. I have a github, but that's about it and even that is mostly geared toward my endeavors to go full-stack. The fact is that no one cares. In my area of expertise (restful web apps with a spring-java-jpa stack) you don't really need to look at someone's whole project in order to tell if they're experienced and knowledgable. Often it's just a matter of a quick conversation or some pair coding. "Build me a ReSTful API using spring that takes in a string and returns the reverse", and we sit on a call together while you do that, followed by "describe to me a piece of functionality that you built that you're proud of, and another one that you were frustrated by" with some followup questions for each. It's how every interview I've ever participated in, on either side, worked.

I think this is a disadvantage many developers face. Their entire life's work is tied to some proprietary product and when they leave their company (or get laid off), they effectively have nothing to show for it. Sure, you have the experience and the knowledge gained, but nothing material. This is why I encourage devs to turn proprietary work into something that's "theirs." For example, writing blog posts about your work, contributing to open source (or convincing your company to opensource something you worked on), side projects, etc.

It's unfortunate that we have to do this extra work, compared to, for instance, researchers in academia or, say, a Linux maintainer, who "own" their work (or at least get credit for it).