Ask HN: What are some good examples of personal websites (Software Engineers)? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some good examples of personal websites (Software Engineers)?

19 points__julia__7 comments

I am trying to build my own website, and I would like to get a sense of what makes a good and a great personal website. I am intending to start blogging as well. While I use FB/Twitter to express my interest and opinion, I am willing to keep my blog as a space to showcase open source experiments. In this case, do you see it as a duplication (Open Source on Github with Readme file + blogpost on how to re-build things and lessons learnt ).

The idea behind the blog and the website is to find a new a job, so it would be a place to show what I am capable at. My interest and work is around data science and data engineering.

If you are a manager or recruiter, what do you want to see in a website when you hire a Software/Data Engineer ?

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2 great examples I know of:

http://strml.net/ http://verekia.com/

I think the basics will do for most people. I don't think you should spend much time on it and go with the style of the second. A simple list of skills, previous projects, basic mission statement, and method to contact you is all you need to get hired as an employee or contractor. References and your ability to sell yourself over the phone/in the interview is what will seal the deal.

If you are looking to showboat or are in a particular industry that lends itself to showing off skills on the site, there could be a place for a unique website like the first one I linked to.

Play to your strengths. If that's a couple stints at big name companies, discuss those a bit and segue into what you are doing now and looking for.

If it's open source contributions, immediately link to your top projects on GitHub/your profile there.

If it's interactive design, you may wish to have a video demo reel, and perhaps do something creative with the overall site, like the first site I linked to.

Good luck, and above all keep it simple. A bad, hard to understand one is worse than none at all.

blog as a space to showcase open source experiments. In this case, do you see it as a duplication

http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup

A big salary can evaporate quickly. Between March 2001 and April 2004 roughly 400,000 American jobs in information technology were eliminated. Many of those who had coded Java in obscurity ended up as cab drivers or greeters at Walmart. A personal professional reputation, by contrast, is a bit harder to build than the big salary but also harder to lose. If you don't invest some time in writing (prose, not code), however, you'll never have any reputation outside your immediate circle of colleagues, who themselves may end up working at McDonald's and be unable to help you get an engineering job during a recession.

> The idea behind the blog and the website is to find a new a job, so it would be a place to show what I am capable at. My interest and work is around data science and data engineering.

Don't even bother with a website. Get a domain and just have it redirect to your GitHub. Pin the best projects you have and then change your about on Github to have your email.

Done. If the goal is to get a job a website is a distraction IMO. Focus on getting stuff done. A website is valuable for the long game, but if you want a job in the next 6 months I'd go with the above advice.

I made my personal site (http://zekehernandez.com) using Hugo (a static site generator) and have it hosted for free on Firebase. It was mostly easy (for someone who has little to no experience making websites), and again, free. I think static-site generators are perfect for personal sites/blogs.

I want to see honesty. And readability.

It doesn't have to be "pretty" - it needs to be "you".

It could be a WordPress instance (like my main site is). Or a custom-built jobbie like a buddy's site. Or a Squarespace or webly or wix thing.

Just make sure whatever you put on it is what you want people to know about you.

I'm a data engineer as well. I don't have a CV and use my website (www.marcel.is) as a CV-on-steorids where I can elaborate more on my activities and OS-projects. It has been successful so far.

I have many one-off projects on Github and I use my website to put some structure on top of them.

I like this one: http://cushon.org

I don't know who this is, but if you are reading this, bravo.

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