February 3, 2025 • 39 mins
In this, I break down why every junior developer needs a capstone project that goes beyond simple tutorial or clone apps. I share why code-along and copycat projects may reinforce your skills, but ultimately fall short in showcasing true problem-solving ability. Instead, I explain how to create a meaningful project built around something you genuinely care about—one that solves real problems, targets real users, and demonstrates practical, hirable skills.
I discuss how capstones teach user-centered thinking, why it’s essential to iterate over months (not days), and how to utilize feedback. You’ll hear tips on brainstorming ideas from your previous industry experience or personal passions, plus the importance of picking a marketable tech stack and sticking with it long enough to master it. While freelance projects, open-source contributions, and smaller practice apps have their place, your capstone is the real game-changer that can set you apart from hundreds of other junior developers.
If you’re tired of being “just a code monkey” and ready to show you can tackle actual product development, user feedback loops, and innovative features, this one is for you. Whether you’re aiming for a product-based company or even planning to monetize your own application, a well-executed capstone project proves you’ve got what it takes. Let’s move beyond surface-level projects and create a robust portfolio piece that tells the world, "I’m serious about software development."
---------------------------------------------------
🔥 Webdev Career Help - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper/coaching
🎮 Join Discord - https://discord.gg/TpQe2k8Ab3
❤️ Support What I Do - https://www.patreon.com/donthedeveloper
Disclaimer: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
===========================
WEBDEV COURSES I HIGHLY RECOMMEND:
🎓 Learn Frontend - Scrimba (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
🎓 Learn Backend - Boot.dev (25% off): https://boot.dev/?promo=DONTHEDEVELOPER - Get 25% off your first payment with code "DONTHEDEVELOPER"
🎓 Already Experienced? Level Up Here - Code Crafters (40% off): https://app.codecrafters.io/join?via=donthedeveloper
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
Every junior developer trying to break into
the industry right now needs acapstone project.
I'm not talking about justputting your top projects on
your portfolio and maybe listingwhat you think is your best
project as a top project.
I'm talking about a projectthat you actually care about, a
(00:21):
project that you have worked onfor months, a project that you
actually care about, a projectthat you have worked on for
months, a project that you havethought through and that is
practical.
It's valuable.
You're trying to actuallycreate something that gives
value enough for people to useit.
It's something that canshowcase that you could build
(00:43):
stuff for the world with theskills that you're learning and
be hireable and be paid for it.
Now I'm going to go into detailof what that looks like and
what it's definitely not, but alot of junior developers you
guys have a lot of variety ofprojects.
A variety of, especiallysmaller projects are really good
for reinforcing concepts.
(01:04):
You're solving a bunch ofdifferent problems to work
through differentimplementations, maybe libraries
you're picking up, languagesyou're picking up and it's
really good for just reinforcinga lot of the implementations
that you're learning and usingthem in a slightly different
context.
It really helps solidify it.
It does.
Variety is good for learning,but depth, serious depth in a
(01:31):
capstone project is where youfinally start tapping into
solving real complex problemsand I don't see enough of that.
So before I go into essentiallywhat a capstone project is and
flush that out in a little bitmore detail, I want to go over
some misconceptions.
(01:52):
There are projects that juniordevelopers will kind of prop up
on their portfolio that aren'tas valuable as they think they
are to employers.
So, for example, like we'lljust start out with code along
projects, code along projects,code along projects are just
projects you are buildingthroughout whatever course
you're going through to learnthe concepts that you need to.
You know essentially build fullfledged applications, websites,
(02:16):
whatever you're trying to build.
But these projects can helpreinforce the concepts that
you're learning in a practicalmanner and I think they make
courses fun and I think theymake courses practical, useful.
Good, they help reinforce thoseconcepts, but they don't really
showcase your skill at all.
Right, these tutorial-basedprojects employers really don't
(02:38):
know how much time you spent onyour own, critically thinking,
problem solving on your own,without the dependency of that
tutorial and them kind ofwalking you through it.
They're probably some of thelowest value projects you can
have in your portfolio, butthere's also clone projects
which are really effective atreinforcing concepts.
(02:59):
So I say this a lot with CSS Alot of people struggle with CSS
for a while until they don't andthen they start to enjoy it.
But cloning a website andbuilding it locally can help,
especially building the layout.
If you're trying to aim forfront-end, you're trying to get
(03:21):
better with CSS, building outthat layout, writing good
semantic HTML and styling itproperly to look like the
website and making it responsive.
And even if they don't have amobile version, that, uh, looks
great.
You can kind of come up withyour own mobile version, just
experimenting with, likebuilding a full-fledged website,
not having to come up with adesign on your own whatsoever.
(03:41):
Um, it can just help reinforceconcepts and you could use this
clone model to also reinforce.
Like you know, as a front enddeveloper, if you were trying to
get better with JavaScript,you're trying to build
interactivity with a website,like building a clone that has
some of the functionality thatmaybe Spotify you really like
(04:03):
Spotify.
Cloning some of the basicfunctionality of that, at least
on the front end, and if you'rekind of learning backend as well
, building that on the backendcan help reinforce the concepts
that you're trying to learn.
It's really good forreinforcing.
But you don't really have therights for any of this
copyrighted material.
You keep it local, you don'tput it on your portfolio.
But also like a clone, you'renot really thinking through any
(04:24):
problems.
You're kind of just mimickinghow these features work, which
will help reinforce, becauseyou're thinking about how to
apply the concepts that you'relearning and you are mimicking
features that have already beenthought out.
You don't really have to thinkabout the user at all.
You don't have to think aboutthe drawbacks to this feature,
(04:45):
not really doing any criticalthinking.
You are just kind of turningyour mind off and just focusing
on applying the concepts thatyou just learned, to build out
these features that you didn'thave to really think of.
Clone projects are really goodfor reinforcement.
They're not good for portfolioprojects and then open-ended
(05:06):
tutorial projects.
Essentially, these are projectswhere courses will encourage
you to.
They'll tell you what to build,but they won't tell you how to
build it, so the implementationis up to you entirely usually.
But they still have this kindof defined type of app that
(05:28):
you're supposed to build andit's usually curated to
reinforce the concepts thatyou've just learned.
The idea was well thought offor that purpose, but you're not
really being creative.
You're not really going outidentifying problems that need
to be solved through technology,through code, and you're not
really building any solutionsthat could provide real value to
(05:52):
people.
You are just essentiallybuilding a templated project
where you get creativity withthe implementation but not the
idea.
And this templated project ison you know hundreds of other
people's portfolios as well.
There's nothing unique about it.
It doesn't say anything uniqueabout you or the types of
(06:13):
problems you want to solve, soit's still a low value project.
And then sometimes people go foropen source projects because
they hear oh, contribute to opensource, that's going to help me
break into the industry.
Well, it's anothermisconception.
I think if you're using adeveloper tool, if you're using
even just a web-based app, thatis open source.
(06:34):
If you are using thatfrequently and you like it and
you kind of maybe even like themissions of the contributors,
the authors, whoever created it,whoever's trying to run it,
whoever's trying to solve acertain problem in the industry,
if you believe in what they'redoing and you want to give back
and you want to spend asignificant amount of time
(06:55):
contributing to open source andgetting to know their policies
and their way of doing thingsand build relationships with
other people that also careabout that app and you just
slowly ramp up the issues thatyou solve and start solving more
complex issues that come about.
That is an awesome reason toget to open source.
That is an awesome.
Those are great open sourcecontributions that can look
(07:18):
really good when you're tryingto break into the industry.
But often people are just tryingto use that as a checkbox where
, oh, I make one contribution,very minor.
I put it on my resume I am acontributor to this project.
You're full of shit is what youare.
That's not a good reason.
To check off.
That box of open source is nota good reason to get into open
(07:41):
source.
It's not a good reason to makecontributions and I promise you
it's not going to provide youany value and sway any opinions
in a positive manner towardshiring managers.
So a lot of people get intoopen source for the wrong
reasons.
So stop, just stop that.
(08:01):
Please just stop that.
That's a huge misconception.
And then the last one, before weget into the capstone, is
freelance.
A lot of people here and I'vegiven this advice myself with
extra context, but I've giventhis advice to other people
where they were kind of stuckbuilding tutorial based projects
or they didn't know what tobuild and I'm like, well, you
know, what you could do is buildsomething practical, doesn't
(08:30):
have to be complex, just like goin your local community and
look or look up local businessesin your community.
Do their websites suck?
Do they have any?
A lot of businesses just have asocial media presence but no
website right, and they'remissing out on organic traffic
that could come from searchengines.
So you can go to localbusinesses and you can kind of
build a landing page forbusinesses or something basic or
something even a bit morecomplex.
(08:51):
But often, very often,especially when you don't have
experience in the industry,especially when you don't have a
fleshed out portfolio, you arenot going to get the trust of
clients that are going to pay alot of money or what complex
projects built.
You don't have that trustbecause you don't have that
reputation built up as afreelance developer.
Yet when you get thatreputation built up, especially
(09:11):
over years, that's when youstart getting a lot of the more
complex projects and trust andbig contracts.
And that's its own headache, bythe way, but you need to build
up to that.
So even just introducing acouple of freelance projects on
your portfolio, it showsinitiative but it doesn't really
show depth of knowledge.
A lot of people getting intofreelance are building very
(09:33):
surface level things and that,quite frankly, can just be built
with WordPress or a sitebuilder.
So you know, if you're buildingit with your stack, who gives a
shit, you're not really solvingany important problems.
So that's the problem withfreelance.
If you want to dip into agencywork professionally, you might
consider working with clientsand going that route.
(09:54):
They are going to value thatmuch more than a product-based
position where you're going tobe like most people.
When they break into theindustry, become software
engineers, they're usually kindof working on a product and that
product is iterated on over andover and over and over and
that's what you're doing.
That's your day-to-day,potentially for years.
(10:14):
Right, and there could bedifferent products launched,
different apps that you're goingto be working on, but
essentially it's internal.
Well, you're going to beworking on apps of the company
that might be facing outward andmight have users, or it might
be like a business to businessmodel, but still like an actual
product, think of like a SaaSproduct.
That's typically what you'regoing to be aiming for for a lot
(10:38):
of open debt positions whenyou're breaking into the
industry initially when you'rebreaking into the industry
initially.
So agency route and going thefreelance route could be an
option.
But even if you considerbuilding your skills up and
going into depth to really behireable for product-based roles
, that will carry over intoother types of contract and
(11:00):
agency work as well, into othertypes of contract and agency
work as well.
So the goal is to really focuson a capstone project, a single
project.
You could build other projectson the side, but there should be
one project that you never stopworking on.
You always come back to, youalways iterate when you get user
(11:22):
feedback, when you get newideas to make it even better for
the people that use it, andwe'll talk about that in a bit.
But the capstone project isyour project.
That really solidifies a lot ofwhat you're learning, a lot of
the concepts that you'relearning, and it shows that
depth of knowledge.
It shows employers that depthof knowledge.
(11:43):
It creates more interestingconversation in the interview.
It looks professional but itcreates a lot of interesting
conversation in the interview,especially product-based
positions, because you're goingto go over, like, if you get
users, like real users, usingyour app, which is what you
should aim for, that's awesome.
(12:03):
Why the hell did you decide tobuild it?
That's an interesting questionthat comes up.
Why did you decide to flesh outthese features?
Okay, now let's dive into theimplementation.
Why did you decide to implementit this way?
What do you think is going tohappen if, right now, you have
what?
50 users?
What happens when you have10,000?
Do you see where thisimplementation breaks down?
(12:26):
These are interestingconversations that are going to
come up in an interview youmight be challenged with and
some of you might not havethought about some of these, but
they're still good questions tothink about and eventually come
up with answers for.
But these are questions thatcome up with important projects,
valuable projects, capstoneprojects.
(12:46):
That's where the interestingconversation comes up, where
employers can start digging intothis project, your
implementations, your decisions,your care or non-care for the
users that are using your app,your process for iterating.
Now the employer can startbuilding trust with you.
Just because you've been forcedto think about some of this
(13:07):
right, because you're flushingsomething out for months and
months and months andpotentially over a year, and you
have users.
You've encountered problems andtribulations that you could
talk about.
What an interesting conversationto have in the interview that
you're not going to have withyour cat gallery or your random
(13:27):
e-commerce app or your CMS thatyou built.
Who gives a shit?
Those are good for reinforcingskills but, like these are
generic basic projects and youknow they are that you don't
care about, the employer is notgoing to care about.
Like a lot of people that areapplying for positions the same
(13:48):
position you are applying forlike a lot of them are just
building these crud projects toreinforce their skills that are
meaningless and that just die,go to die in a graveyard, gain
no users whatsoever.
They're incrediblyuninteresting.
So to think about, like whatyou can build for a capstone
project, I think some peoplereally struggle with this idea
(14:10):
of like okay, so if I'm supposedto work on this project for a
long time, what the hell do Ibuild, right?
Oh, by the way, if you'retrying to become a front-end
developer, I highly recommendyou check out Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front-end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them honestly.
(14:31):
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
one of the best front endcurriculums out there for self
taught developers.
And they're backed by MDN, aleading and well respected
(14:55):
resource in the developercommunity, and I actually
personally run my own menteesthrough the program to prepare
them for front end developerjobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
the program to prepare them forfront-end developer jobs, and if
you choose to sign up via myaffiliate link below in the
description, you actually get30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
(15:15):
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
And let's get back to the topic.
Here's a few ideas to kind ofget your creative juices flowing
or just get some ideas in yourhead, but I want you to
understand that coming up withproject ideas, identifying
(15:38):
problems that exist in the world.
That can be solved with thecode that you're learning.
That can be solved throughsolutions that you build.
Think of it like a muscle.
You have to train that andthere are strategies to
brainstorm.
There are tons of guides to beable to do that, but it is
something you have to train.
A lot of leaders in the industry, especially like a lot of
(16:02):
product owners and CEOs, they'vekind of trained their mind to
identify problems in theindustry, especially like a lot
of product owners and CEOs.
They've kind of trained theirmind to identify problems in the
world, and a lot of them willhave like a notepad where they
just write down ideas over andover and over.
But that didn't happeninstantly.
They kind of train themselvesto do that over time and that's
what you can do.
But I'll give you a few ideasto start with.
So think about your old industry.
(16:23):
You are going into a newindustry where a lot of other
people are learning a lot ofwhat you're learning and there's
going to be some differences,because your curiosity should
let you spend time kind of doingside quests and learning extra
things that you're curious about, and that's kind of what makes
(16:45):
you unique.
The idea is like, what makes mea unique developer?
But one thing thatautomatically makes you a unique
developer is you and your oldindustry.
What industry did you come from?
Almost always there aredevelopers in that industry.
What the hell are they building?
They're probably building theapps and tools that you use to
(17:07):
be able to do your job.
Now, if you're like me, I'veused a lot of crappy software in
my old industry, a lot ofsoftware that if I had the time
at that time and I had theknowledge I would have built,
and very differently.
What could you go back andbuild in that industry that you
(17:32):
wish you could have used whenyou were on the job?
One thing hiring managers lookfor and companies look for is to
bring in people that care abouttheir product.
It's probably going totranslate into more longevity of
the company.
(17:52):
When you care about the users,it's not just about impressing
your manager, not getting fired.
It's about like oh, I'mactually finally starting to
build real things for theseusers.
I'm seeing the feedback come in.
It's helping them out.
This app seeing the feedbackcome in.
It's helping them out.
This app helps them in theirlife.
Like this is rewarding.
That can translate intolongevity of developers at that
(18:13):
company that give a shit aboutthe product and the users right.
So you went through that oldindustry.
You might not like yourposition, you might not like the
direction that your oldposition was going in.
But what if you were adeveloper in that industry?
Do you think you would likethat industry again?
Maybe you left and it's notlike you disliked it, you were
(18:34):
just trying to kind of up yourgame a bit and learn new skills.
But but think about what youwould build in that industry.
That would probably catch theattention of some tech teams in
that industry.
You already know the industry,you know the users, you know the
problems that exist.
(18:55):
So you don't have to do a lot ofcritical thinking to be able to
identify those problems.
You just have to think aboutall the times that you were
frustrated using the crappysoftware that you used.
What would you builddifferently?
And that's an avenue where youcan take your old industry
experience and you can reallyshow the uniqueness that stands
(19:17):
out among the crowd of a bunchof surface level devs that don't
give a shit about what companythey work at, when you kind of
(19:38):
express yourself as someone that, like hey, came from this
industry.
This is your story.
I came from this industryreally crappy software.
We were all really frustratedwith it.
So I built something entirelydifferent that, like you know
what I'm doing right now.
I'm actually reaching out to alot of these companies.
I'm saying, hey, I know mysoftware is kind of like
fundamental basic right now, butlike, this is what I plan on
(19:59):
fleshing it out to, very open tofeedback.
But I am willing to, you know,outsource this to you guys to at
least give it a try, even ifit's for free and, if you like
it, 30 days we could talk aboutkind of like some payment plan.
You could look at some monetaryvalue with that.
But still, the idea is to buildsomething that's useful and
think about like, how do I putit out in front of people?
(20:21):
And you might have to learn alittle bit of marketing and cold
emails and reaching out topeople.
These are all extra skills thatwill eventually help you out in
life.
But you know, this is a valuable, practical project that most
junior developers are notwilling to build, and a big
reason why is because a lot ofjunior developers just get bored
(20:43):
.
They have a ton of graveyardprojects.
Because they don't know whereto go with a project, or they
get discouraged with it, or theyencounter a problem that's too
difficult, and then they move onright.
They give up too easily or theydon't care about the project
enough.
You could be that juniordeveloper that actually
continues to flush out thisproduct for many months.
(21:04):
I'm telling you that is onething that'll make you stand out
from many other juniordevelopers.
But also you could think about,like what apps do you want to
build?
I had a fitness timer that umwould do like interval training,
but I wanted custom intervalswhere this my rest periods were
(21:29):
um less in the beginning where Iwas doing lighter weight, and
then they were greater, like upto two minutes when I was doing
heavier weight over the courseof my workout.
I could not find a timer forthe life of me, and this is a
while ago, but that's an appthat I could have built for
myself.
That is practical and useful,and if it's valuable to you you
(21:52):
find it useful it's probablyvaluable to other people.
You just have to think abouthow to market it, how to present
it with a proper landing page,and that's another thing that
you really got to flush out withthis capstone project, like
make it look like a professionallooking project that people
would want to use.
You focus on that and it reallyhelps your capstone project
(22:15):
stand out from so many otherpeople.
But what apps do you want tobuild?
They could be useful apps foryou.
They could just be somethingthat, like you know what this
sounds like a really cool idea.
I want to go ahead and flushthis out.
You know, I wish Spotify hadthis feature where you could
create a community and you couldhave give certain permissions
(22:41):
to people to be able to add andedit playlists and stuff like
that.
And you know what you know,streamers might even find this
useful.
Or, you know, maybe just myfriends would find this useful.
But if my friends find thisuseful, I bet you other people
that, like wanted to buildcommunities, or even like
fitness groups that wanted theoption for flexibility in like
(23:01):
building a bunch of playlistsand their members could
contribute, like maybe you know,gyms would find this useful and
you could just like.
It's just that, trying to expandyour thought about who would
find this useful and how wouldthey find it useful.
What features would this groupcare about?
What features would this groupcare about?
That's user-centered thinking,that's becoming a user-centered
(23:26):
developer, and that is one ofyour primary goals.
It's to understand what you'rebuilding, because you understand
what it's solving and who it'ssolving this problem for.
When you start leaning in anddiving into becoming a
(23:47):
user-centered developer now,you're going to get a lot of
product positions that are kindof like now they're looking at
you, now they care about you,especially when the problems
that you're solving line up,even at a basic level, with what
they're trying to build, whatthey're trying to solve, what
industry they're in.
You look for that alignment.
(24:07):
A lot of junior developers willjust build a variety of apps and
just throw all that spaghettion the wall and see what sticks.
You don't want to be thatdeveloper.
500 other people are doing thatfor that same position.
Don't be that dev.
You're just wasting your time,your valuable time, trying to be
that dev.
You're a developer thatactually gives a shit about
(24:27):
their craft and you care aboutthe problems that you're solving
.
It doesn't mean you can'texpand and solve a variety of
problems and you might find likeI actually really like solving
this problem more.
I'm going to double down onthis and get better with this.
So I think variety is also goodfor exposure.
Just building a variety of appsto get a feel for like what you
(24:50):
like building, you can do avariety of technologies and just
try different stuff.
That's completely fine.
But when we're talking about acapstone project, the thing that
really makes you stand out,we're thinking a little bit
differently.
So think about, like whatindustry you care about you, you
know, maybe like mental healthis a big thing for you.
Maybe the environment is a bigthing for you.
(25:11):
Maybe just social issues are abig thing.
Maybe fitness is a big thing,maybe cooking is a big thing,
like what's important to you.
What do you care about?
There are probably devs in thatindustry.
But no matter what you choose,there are probably devs in that
(25:31):
industry.
But no matter what you choose tobuild, you eventually want to
double down on a tech stack, totry to get very good with a
bunch of tech stacks.
No one has that amount of timein the world.
I think getting exposure todifferent things until you
(25:52):
really find something you likeis valuable.
But eventually you need toreally go deep into a tech stack
and sometimes you mighthopefully you're doing a bit of
research to see, like, okay,what big cities around me are
like, what are they hiring for?
What kind of tech stacks arethey hiring for?
Do I even want to stay in thisarea?
(26:12):
Do I want to try to relocate toa different area?
What are they hiring for?
How about my entire country?
Like, if I had to, like, getthe average top three tech
stacks that are um companies arehiring for?
What are they?
You should do some of thatresearch on your own, but I want
to actually and this might becontroversial but I want to
encourage you to just doubledown on a marketable tech stack
(26:35):
and then build or solve problemsthat you want to solve through
that tech stack, even if thattech stack isn't the best use
case or it's it's not the besttech stack to solve that
particular problem.
I think sometimes people gethung up on, especially in the
JavaScript world.
I think it's completely fine.
(26:56):
Completely fine If you are, youwant to stick with JavaScript,
you want to apply for JavaScriptpositions.
It's completely fine to buildstuff with node, even though
it's not going to be the most orthe best organizer, the most
efficient to be able to solveyour problem, especially if you
I'm not even going to get intoit.
That's.
That's a whole can of worms, um, but building something with
(27:19):
node, building a full stackapplication with node to be able
to flush out this idea andbuild, solve problems in the
industry that you want to solvethem in, um, maybe node isn't
the best tool.
Maybe react isn't the best tool.
Maybe you're just really aimingand gunning for front end
positions.
React isn't the best tool for alot of front end apps, but you
(27:41):
probably want to utilize reactand build complex things with it
, to be able to deepen yourknowledge with react and solve.
You know several problems or adeeper problem with the react,
so I don't think you need tochoose the best technology for
every single problem at thejunior level.
I think eventually, you justgot to pick a stack after you've
(28:01):
done your research and doubledown on that and then focus on
the problems that you're solving, the apps that you're building
and eventually, that capstoneproject that you're building to
really go deep as you flush outa ton of features.
So, um, a few other things toconsider.
Um, we talked about making yourapp valuable, but like aim to
(28:26):
for users.
If you launch an app, whatcommunities are going to care
about that?
Are there subreddits?
Are there Twitter groups?
Are there LinkedIn groups?
Where can you go to advertisethis?
Maybe you just do paidadvertisement to get your first
100 users to be able to use yourapp so they can start giving
you feedback and you have a wayfor them to be able to submit
feedback and what happens withthat your app, so they can start
giving you feedback and youhave a way for them to be able
(28:47):
to submit feedback and whathappens with that.
You can start involving theScrum and Agile process where
you kind of like document whatyou think is important.
You identify that.
You talk to users if you want,but now that I have some feature
ideas or bug fixes that I needto do, let's go and document it.
Even if you're just creatingGitHub issues to start with,
(29:07):
right, you're documenting it.
You're listing out therequirements.
You're fleshing these out.
Maybe you flush out moretechnical requirements and you
break it down a little bit more.
You have a bit of a historywith that.
Your repo could.
It probably should be public ifyou're trying to get a job to
be, you know, so employers coulddig into it if they really
wanted to.
Um, and a lot of you'll findthat employers will start to dig
(29:29):
into your projects a little bitmore when there's complexity in
it, when it kind of piquestheir curiosity.
They're taking you seriously asa candidate and they want to
dig into your implementation, tobe able to ask you questions in
the interview.
But, um, yeah, you're, you'refleshing out issues and then you
are um, and once you flesh outthe requirements you are
(29:50):
building, you're coding it outand then you are pushing out
changes as you get new featuresout, you're pushing them out to
production and then your userscan use them.
They can give you feedbackagain, even if it's just
positive.
But then that feedback comes inas you're just iterating in a
loop.
Now you're going through theagile process, so you're
(30:14):
documenting a lot of thesefeatures, a lot of what you need
to get done, and push out intoyour app the scrum process and
you are iterating with the agileprocess.
You know you could expand onboth of those to make it a
little bit more complex, butlike that alone is more than
what most people are doing andthat's going to be impressive to
an employer when you can talkthrough your process of being
able to get feedback, write therequirements, plan things out
(30:40):
and then code and push out thosefeatures.
That question comes up prettyoften in an interview.
Now, if you get customers usingit, you get monetary validation
.
That's also something tohighlight with the project.
That's impressive.
A lot of junior developers canbuild SaaS products.
I think a lot of you don'tthink you can, but you can With
(31:01):
many, many, many months divinginto a capstone project and even
potentially over a year.
Now when you think about it itbecomes a little bit more
realistic, like, yeah, I couldprobably flesh out kind of this
application that people wouldpay for.
I probably could.
You're not gonna be good withpricing models necessarily, or
maybe you are, maybe you're asalesman who knows, but you
(31:23):
might have to learn additionalthings and you got to be careful
about how much time you spendoutside of coding to really grow
as a developer, which is whyfreelance can kind of sideline
you, because you're doing a lotof client work.
You got to focus on your legal,your communication skills, your
marketing, your outreach right.
So this is why I usuallycaution people to not go the
(31:45):
freelance route because it cansidetrack them entirely from
growing as a developer, unlessthey really want to do that.
But same with, you know, tryingto push out a sass product
you're trying to monetize.
Be very careful.
Your your goal isn't to buildthis, um, this sass product that
is bringing a significantamount of income in.
(32:05):
It's just like let's buildsomething, let's build a mindset
to be able to build somethingthat people would probably pay
for.
And maybe over the comingmonths I'll kind of learn where
I could market it.
Maybe I'll learn pricing alittle bit and, yeah, I'll just
toss maybe, um, a PayPal link orsomething like that where
people can donate, uh, users candonate if they appreciate the
(32:28):
app.
You could start with somethinglike that, but some of that
monetary uh, that that revenuecan show some sort of like
social validation that your appis useful.
You're building real shitpeople would pay for and that
could be powerful, but itdoesn't have to be.
It's more about developing themindset of building something
(32:48):
that people would probably payfor, even if you had to flesh
out the idea a little bit more.
And if you're building devtools, keep in mind, like not
everything is.
I talk about front-end a lot, Italk about web development a lot
, but you can build dev tools.
You can build mobile apps, youcan build kind of like native
applications for Mac or Windowsso you can build, like,
(33:12):
different types of applications.
It doesn't have to be a website, but you could also build a dev
tool I think a lot of peoplethink of like CRUD applications
for web dev where, like, yourusers are essentially users that
are using your product.
But what about building adeveloper tool?
You use developer tools right,so you know what they are.
What about building a developertool that's useful for other
(33:33):
devs?
So your users are devs and yourgoal is to create a better
developer experience.
Maybe not like the best UI ifit has a UI at all but you are
creating the best developer userexperience possible and you got
to do a bit of research tocreate good developer
experiences and you can learnfrom the apps that you or the
tools, the developer tools thatyou already build on what a good
(33:54):
developer experience is.
What do I like about this tool?
What don't I like?
What don't I want to replicatein my product.
You can learn from the bugs andthe bad experiences of the
tools that you use.
I would try to get some sort ofpresence, like even if it's
like a landing page for yourwebsite, if it's a social media
(34:15):
presence where you're kind ofbuilding a bit of an identity
for this app and you're showinglike this is a real tool that
you can use and that's going toprovide you value, whether it is
a landing page, whether it is asocial media presence, whether
it's you going on podcasts andtalking about it, potentially
(34:35):
whether it's you just startingoff sharing it on LinkedIn and
joining a couple of communitiesand asking the mods if you could
share that, or giving practicaladvice like, let's say, you
build like we'll just go back tofitness, maybe you build like a
fitness app and your goal ofmarketing, essentially, or your
branding for people to learnabout you as a passionate
(34:59):
fitness enthusiast who alsobuilds dev tools.
You're getting that story outbecause you start a blog and you
talk about building this appand you would wish that you in
your situation 5, 10 years agowould have had a tool like this,
right, and you wish that yourfriends would have had a tool
and your gym would have had thistool.
It could have been so usefulfor everyone and you create a
(35:22):
story around this by talkingabout it over and over and over,
and a blog is a really good wayto do that.
Twitter is good, linkedin isgood for that.
You could do different mediums.
You could start your ownpodcast giving fitness advice.
It doesn't have to be talkingabout your app, but just like
talking about the industry thatyour app is in.
That's what a lot of companiesdo.
Uh, make sure for your repo,you know.
(35:46):
Make sure it just has properreadme.
You can look up, like, what toinclude in your read readme but
at the very least, like thereadme should include
installation instructions, howto get it up and running and you
could talk about some of thefeatures or the customizability
of it and how to do that in yourapplication.
But you could also talk aboutsome of the user-focused
features in your Readme as well.
(36:06):
You could really flesh out avery professional-looking Readme
.
A lot of employers will careabout that.
But get a professional domain.
If it's a website, get a domain, a professional one.
Stop with these subdomains thatdeactivate like.
You're going to have a varietyof projects where you can have,
like whether you choose herokuor another tool.
(36:27):
You could have some subdomainthat links to your second and
third project.
But your capstone make it lookprofessional.
Get a professional lookingdomain for less than $10 a year,
same with your portfolio.
I highly recommend it.
If we're talking about buildingand fleshing out a capstone that
looks like a real professionalproject, splurge a little bit
(36:49):
with that.
Work an extra hour to be ableto afford it.
Work an extra two hours if youneed to, for the entire year to
be able to get that domain.
I do think it makes yourproject look more professional.
But you know, if you reallyjust worked on a project for a
week and that's what you'relabeling as a capstone, it
probably isn't worth paying fora domain.
Um, is there anything else?
(37:21):
No, that's it.
That's all I have.
I had a pretty big outline fortoday and I think I covered
everything.
I think this video is, uh,pretty long, but I like the main
thing with this is I think oneof the worst questions I get
asked is what, what do I build?
And often the question, whatthey're really asking is tell me
what to build, or they're notasking it.
They're telling me tell me whatto build and I'll build it.
(37:42):
You are not a code monkey.
You bring a ton of uniquenessto you that no one is going to
know, but you and you need tocreatively think, you need to
critically think, you need toproblem solve on your own.
You need to do proper research.
You need to creatively think,you need to critically think,
you need to problem solve onyour own.
You need to do proper research.
You need to do a little bit ofsoul searching about what the
hell you give a shit about todevelop this unique persona,
(38:04):
this your unique presentation ofa developer to showcase the dev
industry.
Why you?
Why should a company hire youout of like 500 other developers
?
Why?
Why you?
What is unique about you?
(38:25):
What do you bring to the team?
And a lot of people aren'tthinking about this stuff, but
it does take a bit of soulsearching to figure out what
kind of projects that you wantto build.
Stop Like, if you're looking fortemplated projects to reinforce
skills, that's fine.
But if you're looking forportfolio projects to make you
stand out, stop asking otherpeople to tell you what to build
(38:46):
.
You are completely missing thepoint.
And if you get to this part ofthe video and you, I swear, if I
see one comment, one commentabout what you or what I think
you should build, I'm going tolose it.
But if you got to this far inthe video and you aren't going
(39:06):
to take time after this to do alittle bit of brainstorming and
think about what I said.
I think you're going to have areally, really rough time in
this industry and you'reprobably never going to break
into this industry.
So please take what I saidseriously.
Be creative, find what makesyou unique, because that is what
is going to make you stand out.
Every junior developer trying to break into
the industry right now needs acapstone project.
I'm not talking about justputting your top projects on
your portfolio and maybe listingwhat you think is your best
project as a top project.
I'm talking about a projectthat you actually care about, a
(00:21):
project that you have worked onfor months, a project that you
actually care about, a projectthat you have worked on for
months, a project that you havethought through and that is
practical.
It's valuable.
You're trying to actuallycreate something that gives
value enough for people to useit.
It's something that canshowcase that you could build
(00:43):
stuff for the world with theskills that you're learning and
be hireable and be paid for it.
Now I'm going to go into detailof what that looks like and
what it's definitely not, but alot of junior developers you
guys have a lot of variety ofprojects.
A variety of, especiallysmaller projects are really good
for reinforcing concepts.
(01:04):
You're solving a bunch ofdifferent problems to work
through differentimplementations, maybe libraries
you're picking up, languagesyou're picking up and it's
really good for just reinforcinga lot of the implementations
that you're learning and usingthem in a slightly different
context.
It really helps solidify it.
It does.
Variety is good for learning,but depth, serious depth in a
(01:31):
capstone project is where youfinally start tapping into
solving real complex problemsand I don't see enough of that.
So before I go into essentiallywhat a capstone project is and
flush that out in a little bitmore detail, I want to go over
some misconceptions.
(01:52):
There are projects that juniordevelopers will kind of prop up
on their portfolio that aren'tas valuable as they think they
are to employers.
So, for example, like we'lljust start out with code along
projects, code along projects,code along projects are just
projects you are buildingthroughout whatever course
you're going through to learnthe concepts that you need to.
You know essentially build fullfledged applications, websites,
(02:16):
whatever you're trying to build.
But these projects can helpreinforce the concepts that
you're learning in a practicalmanner and I think they make
courses fun and I think theymake courses practical, useful.
Good, they help reinforce thoseconcepts, but they don't really
showcase your skill at all.
Right, these tutorial-basedprojects employers really don't
(02:38):
know how much time you spent onyour own, critically thinking,
problem solving on your own,without the dependency of that
tutorial and them kind ofwalking you through it.
They're probably some of thelowest value projects you can
have in your portfolio, butthere's also clone projects
which are really effective atreinforcing concepts.
(02:59):
So I say this a lot with CSS Alot of people struggle with CSS
for a while until they don't andthen they start to enjoy it.
But cloning a website andbuilding it locally can help,
especially building the layout.
If you're trying to aim forfront-end, you're trying to get
(03:21):
better with CSS, building outthat layout, writing good
semantic HTML and styling itproperly to look like the
website and making it responsive.
And even if they don't have amobile version, that, uh, looks
great.
You can kind of come up withyour own mobile version, just
experimenting with, likebuilding a full-fledged website,
not having to come up with adesign on your own whatsoever.
(03:41):
Um, it can just help reinforceconcepts and you could use this
clone model to also reinforce.
Like you know, as a front enddeveloper, if you were trying to
get better with JavaScript,you're trying to build
interactivity with a website,like building a clone that has
some of the functionality thatmaybe Spotify you really like
(04:03):
Spotify.
Cloning some of the basicfunctionality of that, at least
on the front end, and if you'rekind of learning backend as well
, building that on the backendcan help reinforce the concepts
that you're trying to learn.
It's really good forreinforcing.
But you don't really have therights for any of this
copyrighted material.
You keep it local, you don'tput it on your portfolio.
But also like a clone, you'renot really thinking through any
(04:24):
problems.
You're kind of just mimickinghow these features work, which
will help reinforce, becauseyou're thinking about how to
apply the concepts that you'relearning and you are mimicking
features that have already beenthought out.
You don't really have to thinkabout the user at all.
You don't have to think aboutthe drawbacks to this feature,
(04:45):
not really doing any criticalthinking.
You are just kind of turningyour mind off and just focusing
on applying the concepts thatyou just learned, to build out
these features that you didn'thave to really think of.
Clone projects are really goodfor reinforcement.
They're not good for portfolioprojects and then open-ended
(05:06):
tutorial projects.
Essentially, these are projectswhere courses will encourage
you to.
They'll tell you what to build,but they won't tell you how to
build it, so the implementationis up to you entirely usually.
But they still have this kindof defined type of app that
(05:28):
you're supposed to build andit's usually curated to
reinforce the concepts thatyou've just learned.
The idea was well thought offor that purpose, but you're not
really being creative.
You're not really going outidentifying problems that need
to be solved through technology,through code, and you're not
really building any solutionsthat could provide real value to
(05:52):
people.
You are just essentiallybuilding a templated project
where you get creativity withthe implementation but not the
idea.
And this templated project ison you know hundreds of other
people's portfolios as well.
There's nothing unique about it.
It doesn't say anything uniqueabout you or the types of
(06:13):
problems you want to solve, soit's still a low value project.
And then sometimes people go foropen source projects because
they hear oh, contribute to opensource, that's going to help me
break into the industry.
Well, it's anothermisconception.
I think if you're using adeveloper tool, if you're using
even just a web-based app, thatis open source.
(06:34):
If you are using thatfrequently and you like it and
you kind of maybe even like themissions of the contributors,
the authors, whoever created it,whoever's trying to run it,
whoever's trying to solve acertain problem in the industry,
if you believe in what they'redoing and you want to give back
and you want to spend asignificant amount of time
(06:55):
contributing to open source andgetting to know their policies
and their way of doing thingsand build relationships with
other people that also careabout that app and you just
slowly ramp up the issues thatyou solve and start solving more
complex issues that come about.
That is an awesome reason toget to open source.
That is an awesome.
Those are great open sourcecontributions that can look
(07:18):
really good when you're tryingto break into the industry.
But often people are just tryingto use that as a checkbox where
, oh, I make one contribution,very minor.
I put it on my resume I am acontributor to this project.
You're full of shit is what youare.
That's not a good reason.
To check off.
That box of open source is nota good reason to get into open
(07:41):
source.
It's not a good reason to makecontributions and I promise you
it's not going to provide youany value and sway any opinions
in a positive manner towardshiring managers.
So a lot of people get intoopen source for the wrong
reasons.
So stop, just stop that.
(08:01):
Please just stop that.
That's a huge misconception.
And then the last one, before weget into the capstone, is
freelance.
A lot of people here and I'vegiven this advice myself with
extra context, but I've giventhis advice to other people
where they were kind of stuckbuilding tutorial based projects
or they didn't know what tobuild and I'm like, well, you
know, what you could do is buildsomething practical, doesn't
(08:30):
have to be complex, just like goin your local community and
look or look up local businessesin your community.
Do their websites suck?
Do they have any?
A lot of businesses just have asocial media presence but no
website right, and they'remissing out on organic traffic
that could come from searchengines.
So you can go to localbusinesses and you can kind of
build a landing page forbusinesses or something basic or
something even a bit morecomplex.
(08:51):
But often, very often,especially when you don't have
experience in the industry,especially when you don't have a
fleshed out portfolio, you arenot going to get the trust of
clients that are going to pay alot of money or what complex
projects built.
You don't have that trustbecause you don't have that
reputation built up as afreelance developer.
Yet when you get thatreputation built up, especially
(09:11):
over years, that's when youstart getting a lot of the more
complex projects and trust andbig contracts.
And that's its own headache, bythe way, but you need to build
up to that.
So even just introducing acouple of freelance projects on
your portfolio, it showsinitiative but it doesn't really
show depth of knowledge.
A lot of people getting intofreelance are building very
(09:33):
surface level things and that,quite frankly, can just be built
with WordPress or a sitebuilder.
So you know, if you're buildingit with your stack, who gives a
shit, you're not really solvingany important problems.
So that's the problem withfreelance.
If you want to dip into agencywork professionally, you might
consider working with clientsand going that route.
(09:54):
They are going to value thatmuch more than a product-based
position where you're going tobe like most people.
When they break into theindustry, become software
engineers, they're usually kindof working on a product and that
product is iterated on over andover and over and over and
that's what you're doing.
That's your day-to-day,potentially for years.
(10:14):
Right, and there could bedifferent products launched,
different apps that you're goingto be working on, but
essentially it's internal.
Well, you're going to beworking on apps of the company
that might be facing outward andmight have users, or it might
be like a business to businessmodel, but still like an actual
product, think of like a SaaSproduct.
That's typically what you'regoing to be aiming for for a lot
(10:38):
of open debt positions whenyou're breaking into the
industry initially when you'rebreaking into the industry
initially.
So agency route and going thefreelance route could be an
option.
But even if you considerbuilding your skills up and
going into depth to really behireable for product-based roles
, that will carry over intoother types of contract and
(11:00):
agency work as well, into othertypes of contract and agency
work as well.
So the goal is to really focuson a capstone project, a single
project.
You could build other projectson the side, but there should be
one project that you never stopworking on.
You always come back to, youalways iterate when you get user
(11:22):
feedback, when you get newideas to make it even better for
the people that use it, andwe'll talk about that in a bit.
But the capstone project isyour project.
That really solidifies a lot ofwhat you're learning, a lot of
the concepts that you'relearning, and it shows that
depth of knowledge.
It shows employers that depthof knowledge.
(11:43):
It creates more interestingconversation in the interview.
It looks professional but itcreates a lot of interesting
conversation in the interview,especially product-based
positions, because you're goingto go over, like, if you get
users, like real users, usingyour app, which is what you
should aim for, that's awesome.
(12:03):
Why the hell did you decide tobuild it?
That's an interesting questionthat comes up.
Why did you decide to flesh outthese features?
Okay, now let's dive into theimplementation.
Why did you decide to implementit this way?
What do you think is going tohappen if, right now, you have
what?
50 users?
What happens when you have10,000?
Do you see where thisimplementation breaks down?
(12:26):
These are interestingconversations that are going to
come up in an interview youmight be challenged with and
some of you might not havethought about some of these, but
they're still good questions tothink about and eventually come
up with answers for.
But these are questions thatcome up with important projects,
valuable projects, capstoneprojects.
(12:46):
That's where the interestingconversation comes up, where
employers can start digging intothis project, your
implementations, your decisions,your care or non-care for the
users that are using your app,your process for iterating.
Now the employer can startbuilding trust with you.
Just because you've been forcedto think about some of this
(13:07):
right, because you're flushingsomething out for months and
months and months andpotentially over a year, and you
have users.
You've encountered problems andtribulations that you could
talk about.
What an interesting conversationto have in the interview that
you're not going to have withyour cat gallery or your random
(13:27):
e-commerce app or your CMS thatyou built.
Who gives a shit?
Those are good for reinforcingskills but, like these are
generic basic projects and youknow they are that you don't
care about, the employer is notgoing to care about.
Like a lot of people that areapplying for positions the same
(13:48):
position you are applying forlike a lot of them are just
building these crud projects toreinforce their skills that are
meaningless and that just die,go to die in a graveyard, gain
no users whatsoever.
They're incrediblyuninteresting.
So to think about, like whatyou can build for a capstone
project, I think some peoplereally struggle with this idea
(14:10):
of like okay, so if I'm supposedto work on this project for a
long time, what the hell do Ibuild, right?
Oh, by the way, if you'retrying to become a front-end
developer, I highly recommendyou check out Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front-end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them honestly.
(14:31):
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
one of the best front endcurriculums out there for self
taught developers.
And they're backed by MDN, aleading and well respected
(14:55):
resource in the developercommunity, and I actually
personally run my own menteesthrough the program to prepare
them for front end developerjobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
the program to prepare them forfront-end developer jobs, and if
you choose to sign up via myaffiliate link below in the
description, you actually get30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
(15:15):
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
And let's get back to the topic.
Here's a few ideas to kind ofget your creative juices flowing
or just get some ideas in yourhead, but I want you to
understand that coming up withproject ideas, identifying
(15:38):
problems that exist in the world.
That can be solved with thecode that you're learning.
That can be solved throughsolutions that you build.
Think of it like a muscle.
You have to train that andthere are strategies to
brainstorm.
There are tons of guides to beable to do that, but it is
something you have to train.
A lot of leaders in the industry, especially like a lot of
(16:02):
product owners and CEOs, they'vekind of trained their mind to
identify problems in theindustry, especially like a lot
of product owners and CEOs.
They've kind of trained theirmind to identify problems in the
world, and a lot of them willhave like a notepad where they
just write down ideas over andover and over.
But that didn't happeninstantly.
They kind of train themselvesto do that over time and that's
what you can do.
But I'll give you a few ideasto start with.
So think about your old industry.
(16:23):
You are going into a newindustry where a lot of other
people are learning a lot ofwhat you're learning and there's
going to be some differences,because your curiosity should
let you spend time kind of doingside quests and learning extra
things that you're curious about, and that's kind of what makes
(16:45):
you unique.
The idea is like, what makes mea unique developer?
But one thing thatautomatically makes you a unique
developer is you and your oldindustry.
What industry did you come from?
Almost always there aredevelopers in that industry.
What the hell are they building?
They're probably building theapps and tools that you use to
(17:07):
be able to do your job.
Now, if you're like me, I'veused a lot of crappy software in
my old industry, a lot ofsoftware that if I had the time
at that time and I had theknowledge I would have built,
and very differently.
What could you go back andbuild in that industry that you
(17:32):
wish you could have used whenyou were on the job?
One thing hiring managers lookfor and companies look for is to
bring in people that care abouttheir product.
It's probably going totranslate into more longevity of
the company.
(17:52):
When you care about the users,it's not just about impressing
your manager, not getting fired.
It's about like oh, I'mactually finally starting to
build real things for theseusers.
I'm seeing the feedback come in.
It's helping them out.
This app seeing the feedbackcome in.
It's helping them out.
This app helps them in theirlife.
Like this is rewarding.
That can translate intolongevity of developers at that
(18:13):
company that give a shit aboutthe product and the users right.
So you went through that oldindustry.
You might not like yourposition, you might not like the
direction that your oldposition was going in.
But what if you were adeveloper in that industry?
Do you think you would likethat industry again?
Maybe you left and it's notlike you disliked it, you were
(18:34):
just trying to kind of up yourgame a bit and learn new skills.
But but think about what youwould build in that industry.
That would probably catch theattention of some tech teams in
that industry.
You already know the industry,you know the users, you know the
problems that exist.
(18:55):
So you don't have to do a lot ofcritical thinking to be able to
identify those problems.
You just have to think aboutall the times that you were
frustrated using the crappysoftware that you used.
What would you builddifferently?
And that's an avenue where youcan take your old industry
experience and you can reallyshow the uniqueness that stands
(19:17):
out among the crowd of a bunchof surface level devs that don't
give a shit about what companythey work at, when you kind of
(19:38):
express yourself as someone that, like hey, came from this
industry.
This is your story.
I came from this industryreally crappy software.
We were all really frustratedwith it.
So I built something entirelydifferent that, like you know
what I'm doing right now.
I'm actually reaching out to alot of these companies.
I'm saying, hey, I know mysoftware is kind of like
fundamental basic right now, butlike, this is what I plan on
(19:59):
fleshing it out to, very open tofeedback.
But I am willing to, you know,outsource this to you guys to at
least give it a try, even ifit's for free and, if you like
it, 30 days we could talk aboutkind of like some payment plan.
You could look at some monetaryvalue with that.
But still, the idea is to buildsomething that's useful and
think about like, how do I putit out in front of people?
(20:21):
And you might have to learn alittle bit of marketing and cold
emails and reaching out topeople.
These are all extra skills thatwill eventually help you out in
life.
But you know, this is a valuable, practical project that most
junior developers are notwilling to build, and a big
reason why is because a lot ofjunior developers just get bored
(20:43):
.
They have a ton of graveyardprojects.
Because they don't know whereto go with a project, or they
get discouraged with it, or theyencounter a problem that's too
difficult, and then they move onright.
They give up too easily or theydon't care about the project
enough.
You could be that juniordeveloper that actually
continues to flush out thisproduct for many months.
(21:04):
I'm telling you that is onething that'll make you stand out
from many other juniordevelopers.
But also you could think about,like what apps do you want to
build?
I had a fitness timer that umwould do like interval training,
but I wanted custom intervalswhere this my rest periods were
(21:29):
um less in the beginning where Iwas doing lighter weight, and
then they were greater, like upto two minutes when I was doing
heavier weight over the courseof my workout.
I could not find a timer forthe life of me, and this is a
while ago, but that's an appthat I could have built for
myself.
That is practical and useful,and if it's valuable to you you
(21:52):
find it useful it's probablyvaluable to other people.
You just have to think abouthow to market it, how to present
it with a proper landing page,and that's another thing that
you really got to flush out withthis capstone project, like
make it look like a professionallooking project that people
would want to use.
You focus on that and it reallyhelps your capstone project
(22:15):
stand out from so many otherpeople.
But what apps do you want tobuild?
They could be useful apps foryou.
They could just be somethingthat, like you know what this
sounds like a really cool idea.
I want to go ahead and flushthis out.
You know, I wish Spotify hadthis feature where you could
create a community and you couldhave give certain permissions
(22:41):
to people to be able to add andedit playlists and stuff like
that.
And you know what you know,streamers might even find this
useful.
Or, you know, maybe just myfriends would find this useful.
But if my friends find thisuseful, I bet you other people
that, like wanted to buildcommunities, or even like
fitness groups that wanted theoption for flexibility in like
(23:01):
building a bunch of playlistsand their members could
contribute, like maybe you know,gyms would find this useful and
you could just like.
It's just that, trying to expandyour thought about who would
find this useful and how wouldthey find it useful.
What features would this groupcare about?
What features would this groupcare about?
That's user-centered thinking,that's becoming a user-centered
(23:26):
developer, and that is one ofyour primary goals.
It's to understand what you'rebuilding, because you understand
what it's solving and who it'ssolving this problem for.
When you start leaning in anddiving into becoming a
(23:47):
user-centered developer now,you're going to get a lot of
product positions that are kindof like now they're looking at
you, now they care about you,especially when the problems
that you're solving line up,even at a basic level, with what
they're trying to build, whatthey're trying to solve, what
industry they're in.
You look for that alignment.
(24:07):
A lot of junior developers willjust build a variety of apps and
just throw all that spaghettion the wall and see what sticks.
You don't want to be thatdeveloper.
500 other people are doing thatfor that same position.
Don't be that dev.
You're just wasting your time,your valuable time, trying to be
that dev.
You're a developer thatactually gives a shit about
(24:27):
their craft and you care aboutthe problems that you're solving
.
It doesn't mean you can'texpand and solve a variety of
problems and you might find likeI actually really like solving
this problem more.
I'm going to double down onthis and get better with this.
So I think variety is also goodfor exposure.
Just building a variety of appsto get a feel for like what you
(24:50):
like building, you can do avariety of technologies and just
try different stuff.
That's completely fine.
But when we're talking about acapstone project, the thing that
really makes you stand out,we're thinking a little bit
differently.
So think about, like whatindustry you care about you, you
know, maybe like mental healthis a big thing for you.
Maybe the environment is a bigthing for you.
(25:11):
Maybe just social issues are abig thing.
Maybe fitness is a big thing,maybe cooking is a big thing,
like what's important to you.
What do you care about?
There are probably devs in thatindustry.
But no matter what you choose,there are probably devs in that
(25:31):
industry.
But no matter what you choose tobuild, you eventually want to
double down on a tech stack, totry to get very good with a
bunch of tech stacks.
No one has that amount of timein the world.
I think getting exposure todifferent things until you
(25:52):
really find something you likeis valuable.
But eventually you need toreally go deep into a tech stack
and sometimes you mighthopefully you're doing a bit of
research to see, like, okay,what big cities around me are
like, what are they hiring for?
What kind of tech stacks arethey hiring for?
Do I even want to stay in thisarea?
(26:12):
Do I want to try to relocate toa different area?
What are they hiring for?
How about my entire country?
Like, if I had to, like, getthe average top three tech
stacks that are um companies arehiring for?
What are they?
You should do some of thatresearch on your own, but I want
to actually and this might becontroversial but I want to
encourage you to just doubledown on a marketable tech stack
(26:35):
and then build or solve problemsthat you want to solve through
that tech stack, even if thattech stack isn't the best use
case or it's it's not the besttech stack to solve that
particular problem.
I think sometimes people gethung up on, especially in the
JavaScript world.
I think it's completely fine.
(26:56):
Completely fine If you are, youwant to stick with JavaScript,
you want to apply for JavaScriptpositions.
It's completely fine to buildstuff with node, even though
it's not going to be the most orthe best organizer, the most
efficient to be able to solveyour problem, especially if you
I'm not even going to get intoit.
That's.
That's a whole can of worms, um, but building something with
(27:19):
node, building a full stackapplication with node to be able
to flush out this idea andbuild, solve problems in the
industry that you want to solvethem in, um, maybe node isn't
the best tool.
Maybe react isn't the best tool.
Maybe you're just really aimingand gunning for front end
positions.
React isn't the best tool for alot of front end apps, but you
(27:41):
probably want to utilize reactand build complex things with it
, to be able to deepen yourknowledge with react and solve.
You know several problems or adeeper problem with the react,
so I don't think you need tochoose the best technology for
every single problem at thejunior level.
I think eventually, you justgot to pick a stack after you've
(28:01):
done your research and doubledown on that and then focus on
the problems that you're solving, the apps that you're building
and eventually, that capstoneproject that you're building to
really go deep as you flush outa ton of features.
So, um, a few other things toconsider.
Um, we talked about making yourapp valuable, but like aim to
(28:26):
for users.
If you launch an app, whatcommunities are going to care
about that?
Are there subreddits?
Are there Twitter groups?
Are there LinkedIn groups?
Where can you go to advertisethis?
Maybe you just do paidadvertisement to get your first
100 users to be able to use yourapp so they can start giving
you feedback and you have a wayfor them to be able to submit
feedback and what happens withthat your app, so they can start
giving you feedback and youhave a way for them to be able
(28:47):
to submit feedback and whathappens with that.
You can start involving theScrum and Agile process where
you kind of like document whatyou think is important.
You identify that.
You talk to users if you want,but now that I have some feature
ideas or bug fixes that I needto do, let's go and document it.
Even if you're just creatingGitHub issues to start with,
(29:07):
right, you're documenting it.
You're listing out therequirements.
You're fleshing these out.
Maybe you flush out moretechnical requirements and you
break it down a little bit more.
You have a bit of a historywith that.
Your repo could.
It probably should be public ifyou're trying to get a job to
be, you know, so employers coulddig into it if they really
wanted to.
Um, and a lot of you'll findthat employers will start to dig
(29:29):
into your projects a little bitmore when there's complexity in
it, when it kind of piquestheir curiosity.
They're taking you seriously asa candidate and they want to
dig into your implementation, tobe able to ask you questions in
the interview.
But, um, yeah, you're, you'refleshing out issues and then you
are um, and once you flesh outthe requirements you are
(29:50):
building, you're coding it outand then you are pushing out
changes as you get new featuresout, you're pushing them out to
production and then your userscan use them.
They can give you feedbackagain, even if it's just
positive.
But then that feedback comes inas you're just iterating in a
loop.
Now you're going through theagile process, so you're
(30:14):
documenting a lot of thesefeatures, a lot of what you need
to get done, and push out intoyour app the scrum process and
you are iterating with the agileprocess.
You know you could expand onboth of those to make it a
little bit more complex, butlike that alone is more than
what most people are doing andthat's going to be impressive to
an employer when you can talkthrough your process of being
able to get feedback, write therequirements, plan things out
(30:40):
and then code and push out thosefeatures.
That question comes up prettyoften in an interview.
Now, if you get customers usingit, you get monetary validation
.
That's also something tohighlight with the project.
That's impressive.
A lot of junior developers canbuild SaaS products.
I think a lot of you don'tthink you can, but you can With
(31:01):
many, many, many months divinginto a capstone project and even
potentially over a year.
Now when you think about it itbecomes a little bit more
realistic, like, yeah, I couldprobably flesh out kind of this
application that people wouldpay for.
I probably could.
You're not gonna be good withpricing models necessarily, or
maybe you are, maybe you're asalesman who knows, but you
(31:23):
might have to learn additionalthings and you got to be careful
about how much time you spendoutside of coding to really grow
as a developer, which is whyfreelance can kind of sideline
you, because you're doing a lotof client work.
You got to focus on your legal,your communication skills, your
marketing, your outreach right.
So this is why I usuallycaution people to not go the
(31:45):
freelance route because it cansidetrack them entirely from
growing as a developer, unlessthey really want to do that.
But same with, you know, tryingto push out a sass product
you're trying to monetize.
Be very careful.
Your your goal isn't to buildthis, um, this sass product that
is bringing a significantamount of income in.
(32:05):
It's just like let's buildsomething, let's build a mindset
to be able to build somethingthat people would probably pay
for.
And maybe over the comingmonths I'll kind of learn where
I could market it.
Maybe I'll learn pricing alittle bit and, yeah, I'll just
toss maybe, um, a PayPal link orsomething like that where
people can donate, uh, users candonate if they appreciate the
(32:28):
app.
You could start with somethinglike that, but some of that
monetary uh, that that revenuecan show some sort of like
social validation that your appis useful.
You're building real shitpeople would pay for and that
could be powerful, but itdoesn't have to be.
It's more about developing themindset of building something
(32:48):
that people would probably payfor, even if you had to flesh
out the idea a little bit more.
And if you're building devtools, keep in mind, like not
everything is.
I talk about front-end a lot, Italk about web development a lot
, but you can build dev tools.
You can build mobile apps, youcan build kind of like native
applications for Mac or Windowsso you can build, like,
(33:12):
different types of applications.
It doesn't have to be a website, but you could also build a dev
tool I think a lot of peoplethink of like CRUD applications
for web dev where, like, yourusers are essentially users that
are using your product.
But what about building adeveloper tool?
You use developer tools right,so you know what they are.
What about building a developertool that's useful for other
(33:33):
devs?
So your users are devs and yourgoal is to create a better
developer experience.
Maybe not like the best UI ifit has a UI at all but you are
creating the best developer userexperience possible and you got
to do a bit of research tocreate good developer
experiences and you can learnfrom the apps that you or the
tools, the developer tools thatyou already build on what a good
(33:54):
developer experience is.
What do I like about this tool?
What don't I like?
What don't I want to replicatein my product.
You can learn from the bugs andthe bad experiences of the
tools that you use.
I would try to get some sort ofpresence, like even if it's
like a landing page for yourwebsite, if it's a social media
(34:15):
presence where you're kind ofbuilding a bit of an identity
for this app and you're showinglike this is a real tool that
you can use and that's going toprovide you value, whether it is
a landing page, whether it is asocial media presence, whether
it's you going on podcasts andtalking about it, potentially
(34:35):
whether it's you just startingoff sharing it on LinkedIn and
joining a couple of communitiesand asking the mods if you could
share that, or giving practicaladvice like, let's say, you
build like we'll just go back tofitness, maybe you build like a
fitness app and your goal ofmarketing, essentially, or your
branding for people to learnabout you as a passionate
(34:59):
fitness enthusiast who alsobuilds dev tools.
You're getting that story outbecause you start a blog and you
talk about building this appand you would wish that you in
your situation 5, 10 years agowould have had a tool like this,
right, and you wish that yourfriends would have had a tool
and your gym would have had thistool.
It could have been so usefulfor everyone and you create a
(35:22):
story around this by talkingabout it over and over and over,
and a blog is a really good wayto do that.
Twitter is good, linkedin isgood for that.
You could do different mediums.
You could start your ownpodcast giving fitness advice.
It doesn't have to be talkingabout your app, but just like
talking about the industry thatyour app is in.
That's what a lot of companiesdo.
Uh, make sure for your repo,you know.
(35:46):
Make sure it just has properreadme.
You can look up, like, what toinclude in your read readme but
at the very least, like thereadme should include
installation instructions, howto get it up and running and you
could talk about some of thefeatures or the customizability
of it and how to do that in yourapplication.
But you could also talk aboutsome of the user-focused
features in your Readme as well.
(36:06):
You could really flesh out avery professional-looking Readme
.
A lot of employers will careabout that.
But get a professional domain.
If it's a website, get a domain, a professional one.
Stop with these subdomains thatdeactivate like.
You're going to have a varietyof projects where you can have,
like whether you choose herokuor another tool.
(36:27):
You could have some subdomainthat links to your second and
third project.
But your capstone make it lookprofessional.
Get a professional lookingdomain for less than $10 a year,
same with your portfolio.
I highly recommend it.
If we're talking about buildingand fleshing out a capstone that
looks like a real professionalproject, splurge a little bit
(36:49):
with that.
Work an extra hour to be ableto afford it.
Work an extra two hours if youneed to, for the entire year to
be able to get that domain.
I do think it makes yourproject look more professional.
But you know, if you reallyjust worked on a project for a
week and that's what you'relabeling as a capstone, it
probably isn't worth paying fora domain.
Um, is there anything else?
(37:21):
No, that's it.
That's all I have.
I had a pretty big outline fortoday and I think I covered
everything.
I think this video is, uh,pretty long, but I like the main
thing with this is I think oneof the worst questions I get
asked is what, what do I build?
And often the question, whatthey're really asking is tell me
what to build, or they're notasking it.
They're telling me tell me whatto build and I'll build it.
(37:42):
You are not a code monkey.
You bring a ton of uniquenessto you that no one is going to
know, but you and you need tocreatively think, you need to
critically think, you need toproblem solve on your own.
You need to do proper research.
You need to creatively think,you need to critically think,
you need to problem solve onyour own.
You need to do proper research.
You need to do a little bit ofsoul searching about what the
hell you give a shit about todevelop this unique persona,
(38:04):
this your unique presentation ofa developer to showcase the dev
industry.
Why you?
Why should a company hire youout of like 500 other developers
?
Why?
Why you?
What is unique about you?
(38:25):
What do you bring to the team?
And a lot of people aren'tthinking about this stuff, but
it does take a bit of soulsearching to figure out what
kind of projects that you wantto build.
Stop Like, if you're looking fortemplated projects to reinforce
skills, that's fine.
But if you're looking forportfolio projects to make you
stand out, stop asking otherpeople to tell you what to build
(38:46):
.
You are completely missing thepoint.
And if you get to this part ofthe video and you, I swear, if I
see one comment, one commentabout what you or what I think
you should build, I'm going tolose it.
But if you got to this far inthe video and you aren't going
(39:06):
to take time after this to do alittle bit of brainstorming and
think about what I said.
I think you're going to have areally, really rough time in
this industry and you'reprobably never going to break
into this industry.
So please take what I saidseriously.
Be creative, find what makesyou unique, because that is what
is going to make you stand out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!