Portfolio Checklist for Software Engineers

1

First Impression

0/8

You have 8 seconds. Every element either moves a hiring manager toward “I need to talk to this person” or it’s noise.

Headline positioning statement — one sentence that says what you build and who it’s for. Not a tool list.Target roles stated clearly — say what you’re looking for so the right people self-select.CTA above the fold — a recruiter should see "View Artifacts" or "Book an Intro" without scrolling.Email capture popup — offer your résumé as a download or send it to their inbox. Name, email, done.Contact surface obvious — email, LinkedIn, and GitHub links visible from every page.Clean navigation — About, Projects, Artifacts, Blog, Press/Talks, Contact. That’s it.Custom domain with HTTPS — yourname.dev or similar. No default subdomain URLs.Mobile-responsive, accessible — recruiters browse on phones between meetings.

2

Proof of Work

0/7

This is your product catalog. Every card should make someone want to click through.

Each project card shows an outcome, not a description — "Cut API response time 60% for 50K daily users" not "Built a REST API with Express."1-sentence business impact visible on the card without clicking in.Tech scope tags — secondary to the outcome. Tags are filters, not headlines.Live demo link or demo video — a working app is best, but a short video walkthrough works.Repo link obvious — if there’s no live demo and no video, the project shouldn’t be on the index.Visual proof strip — tests passing badge, last deploy date, uptime or performance snapshot.No "coming soon" cards — either it ships or it doesn’t exist on this page.

3

Artifact Deep Dives

0/10

This is where you convert interest into a conversation. Each artifact is a story: situation → approach → result → reflection.

4

Technical Credibility Signals

0/16

Hiring managers and senior engineers will click into your repos. They’re looking for professional habits, not perfection.

5

Authority & Social Proof

0/6

Why you, not someone else. Build credibility through content, visibility, and community contribution.

Content

Blog posts that unpack real decisions — design choices, performance wins, lessons from outages.At least one "deep dive" post — mirrors a real engineering writeup. Your writing sample for async-first teams.Artifacts link to related posts — cross-pollinate your content. Keep people on your site.

Press & Talks

Dedicated press/talks page — interviews, articles, conference talks, awards, media features.Testimonials or recommendations — brief quotes with names and titles.

Open Source

Highlight meaningful contributions — merged PRs, maintained packages, issues resolved. Quality over quantity.

6

Discoverability & Distribution

0/6

Getting found. Make sure your portfolio works for you even when you’re not sharing it directly.

Basic SEO — page titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, sitemap, robots.txt.Social preview images (OG tags) — when shared on Slack or LinkedIn, it should look intentional.Favicons set — small detail that signals professionalism.LinkedIn profile linked and active — pinned post linking to your portfolio or best artifact.GitHub profile polished — pinned repos match your portfolio, profile README exists.Recruiter CTA banner — "Hiring a senior engineer? See my artifacts →" Make the next step obvious.

7

Maintenance

0/5

A stale portfolio works against you. Keep it alive or it signals abandonment.

All links work, all demos are live — broken links signal abandonment. Check monthly.CI is green on showcased repos — if the badge is red, you’re advertising that you don’t maintain your work.Add a new artifact or post at least monthly — shows you’re active and growing.Quarterly review — update screenshots, metrics, links. Archive stale projects with a “retired” note.“What’s New” section or changelog — optional but strong. Shows continuous improvement.

The Quality Bar

Don’t share until every one of these is true.

Every project has: live link or demo video, repo, architecture diagram, test evidence, deployment note, and an observability note.Homepage clearly states your target roles and how to contact you.No "coming soon" placeholders anywhere.You can explain every technical choice on your portfolio in a live conversation — if you can’t defend it, don’t display it.

First Impression

Proof of Work

Artifact Deep Dives

The Story

The Evidence

Technical Credibility Signals

Repository Basics

Testing

CI/CD

Observability

Security

Discoverability & Distribution

Maintenance

The Quality Bar