Building a personal project 101

A realistic guide to choosing, scoping, and showing off your work

In tech, “build a side project” is advice you hear early and often. And to be fair, it’s not bad advice. A strong personal project — especially if you’re earlier in your career — can showcase your skills, make you more memorable in interviews, and provide a unique story to tell that’s entirely yours.

But here’s the part that gets left out: most personal projects don’t make it that far. They stall. They stay private. Or they get rushed into existence without ever really making an impact.

Before you commit to one, it’s worth asking: what’s the real goal, and is this the best path to get there?

Personal projects aren’t magic. They’re strategic.

If your goal is to land a job, applying to more roles or prepping for interviews will probably get you there faster than starting a project from scratch. Sending applications builds momentum. Interviewing builds skill. Shipping a personal project — one that actually helps you stand out — takes time, judgment, and effort.

That said, there are still good reasons to build one.

Maybe you want to:

• Fill a gap in your resume with proof you can ship something real
• Practice a new tech stack in a way that sticks
• Show off design skills, product instincts, or passion for a topic
• Build credibility in a niche you want to enter
• Talk about something tangible you’ve built if you lack formal experience

If those are your goals, a personal project can work. But you need to be intentional, because not all projects are created equal.

Common ways personal projects backfire

It’s easy to fall into traps that waste time or even work against you.

They never launch

A half-finished, unpublished project doesn’t tell a compelling story. It suggests a lack of follow-through. If you’re going to build something, commit to launching it, however minimal the first version.

They’re not impressive in any dimension

Not every project needs to be technically complex. But it does need to be impressive somewhere. That might mean:

• A beautifully simple user experience
• A clearly defined, timely use case
• A quirky or creative spin on something familiar
• Deep personal connection to the problem

If it’s not technically hard, it should still be interesting.

You can’t talk about it clearly

If you built something cool but struggle to explain what it does, why it matters, or how you built it, the value drops fast. Most interviewers won’t read your code. They’ll ask you to explain it. That’s where you shine — or fall flat.

It’s locked behind a login

If your demo requires an account or doesn’t show anything on first load, most recruiters or hiring managers will bounce. Make it easy for someone to try. Seed a demo user. Expose public data. Don’t assume they’ll sign in.

Choosing what to build: start with strengths and interests

The best projects aren’t built from scratch. They’re built from your story.

Think about:

• What skills do you already have?
• What do you want to showcase?
• What do you personally care about?
• What kind of roles are you targeting?

You're not building the next unicorn startup. You're creating a portfolio artifact — a piece of work that helps someone say, “Yes, this person can do the job.”

Here are some examples that show personal connection, relevance, or cleverness:

• You love dogs → Build a memory game with different breeds
• You follow gymnastics → Make a data viz app showing the evolution of Olympic scores
• During flu season → Build a handwashing app that plays a custom song and gives a fun fact
• It’s election season → Create a site comparing candidates’ policy stances

What matters is that it means something to you. That’s what gives it staying power and talking points.

Position your project like a product

Most engineers skip this step. You shouldn’t.

Great startups obsess over product positioning — what the product is, who it’s for, what problem it solves. You don’t need a 20-page deck. But a simple framework can help clarify your idea.

Try filling this in:

[Product name] is a [product category]For [target user]Who [user need or problem],That [main benefit of your solution].Unlike [existing alternatives],[Product name] [key differentiator].

Example:

GymData is a data storytelling site For fans of women’s gymnastics Who want to understand trends in difficulty and scoring over time, That visualizes moves and medal outcomes across decades. Unlike generic sports sites, GymData focuses specifically on elite gymnastics and makes judging data accessible.

This helps you focus on the project and tell the story later. And if you want to go further, write one sentence about a technical decision too:

To build the interactive scoring timeline, I used D3.js instead of Chart.js because it gave me more flexibility to animate transitions across years.

Scoping: build something you can actually ship

This is where most projects derail. People jump straight into code without scoping the project, and then get overwhelmed or stuck. Here’s how to prevent that.

Step 1: List every screen

Go beyond the obvious. Include:

• Empty states
• Error messages
• Confirmation dialogs
• Account settings or modals, if relevant

Step 2: List every feature, screen by screen

Each feature should be one sentence. Start with a verb:

• User can log in
• User can create a post
• User can delete a comment
• User sees a “no posts yet” message

Step 3: Estimate how long each one will take

Be honest. And then multiply by 3.

Step 4: Cut until you can finish in 40 hours

That’s one month of part-time work. Launch first. Add features later.

If you scope to 40 hours, you’ll likely end up spending closer to 100. But you’ll also have something real to show at the end.

Talking about your project is half the job

Let’s say you finish the build. Congrats. Now the focus shifts to communicating what you did and why it matters. Most interviewers won’t open your repo. They’ll ask, “Tell me about a project you’re proud of.” Your job is to make that story land.

Prepare these talking points:

What was the hardest technical challenge?

Pick something you can explain clearly. Bonus if it shows good judgment, tradeoffs, or debugging under pressure.

Why did you make the choices you did?

Talk about tradeoffs. Why you picked X framework. Why you didn’t build Y feature. What constraints you worked within.

What’s the story behind the project?

Share your motivation. Why this idea? Why now? That makes it stick in people’s minds.

What would you do next?

Don’t end with “It’s done.” Talk about what you’d add or improve with more time, users, or resources.

This shows you’re reflective and thinking like a builder.

Build intentionally or don’t build at all

A personal project can help you stand out. But it’s not the only path to getting hired, and it’s not always the fastest.

If you’re going to build something, build it to launch. Build it to talk about. Build it to show what you can do and how you think.

And if you’re not ready to commit to that? That’s okay. You can always come back to the idea later.

Just don’t let an unfinished project become the thing that stalls your momentum.