Treat Your Web Development Portfolio Projects Like Products | Landing Page Tips

07/13/22 • 51 min

Whether you’re an aspiring developer building out portfolio projects, or a software engineer building out their website or app in hopes to get users, an effective landing page will go A LONG WAY in helping convince users that what you’ve built is worth their time.
A long time ago, we used to get away with just being code monkeys, but nowadays, being able to code is only part of your job. You’re not just a coder, you’re a problem solver.
What problem are you solving? Well, you have to take the time to understand what problems people are having and what type of solutions could make those peoples’ lives easier.
A secret that some of the higher quality bootcamps don’t share with you is that they teach their students to build products, not just random personal projects. Your portfolio projects should be driven around building something that solves at least one problem for someone and gives them the result they’re looking for. This demonstrates a user-centered mindset that is highly valued by almost any company.
This is a different way of thinking for many software engineers, but this is key not only to exponentially increasing your value as a software engineer but also to making it much more likely that your side project could eventually bring in additional profit one day.
Jennifer Westbrook (guest):
Website - https://www.jenwestwriting.com/freebies

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Previous Episode

How To Become A No-code Developer (And Get Paid)

Not many people realize this, but no-code and low-code apps are quite sophisticated now. You can create both web and mobile apps with little to no code. I brought on a no-code developer to share his journey in this field. We talked about quite a few things:

Who is this career right for?
What are no-code and low-code apps actually capable of? And what are their current limitations?
What paid opportunities exist for people that want to get into this field?
The progression of this movement over the next 3-5 years.
Will this movement replace software engineers?
And additional advice sprinkled in throughout the episode.

For those just wanting to break into tech, this episode is for you. Enjoy!
Dan Hafner (guest):
Website - https://dappermobileapps.com

Next Episode

Are Coding Interviews ACTUALLY Broken?

People are FRUSTRATED with the current state of coding interviews. Down with data structures and algorithm interviews! Why am I being tested ON THE SPOT in the interview, only to have my anxiety spike? Do hiring managers even know what the hell they’re doing!?
We’ve landed on a controversial topic for sure in this video! I brought on 2 hiring managers and put them on the spot with many of the common concerns I’ve heard about the interview process. One has extensive experience training and hiring in the startup world. One has a tremendous amount of experience doing the same at FAANG companies.
I think these 2 were the perfect people to bring on for this. I challenge them with many of these frustrations developers have. Both are VERY honest, so I hope you’re ready. They may challenge a couple of your assumptions about the hiring process. Try to keep an open mind during this episode. Enjoy!
Scott Ferguson (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottferg
Daniel Tomko (guest):
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko

DonTheDeveloper Podcast - Treat Your Web Development Portfolio Projects Like Products | Landing Page Tips

Transcript

Don Hansen00:00:13.449

Welcome back to our web development podcast, where we help aspiring developers get jobs and junior developers grow. In this episode, we're gonna be diving into how to create an effective landing page, effective sales page, an effective homepage. Essentially, I invited on a copywriter to share all of our secrets, um, because I think a lot of aspiring developers, especially, but a lot of software developers. I think we, well, I know we have the ca