Module 4 · Career, projects and honesty Lesson 12 of 15
Build the portfolio project: one reviewed, tested, merged project on GitHub
Take a small project — a script, a small app, a data tool — and take it all the way: issues, a branch, tests, a pull request reviewed by the tool, and a merge. The process is the project. It is the thing you will talk about in the interview, so it has to be small enough to finish in a fortnight and concrete enough to show a person in one minute.
The concept
Take a small project — a script, a small app, a data tool — and take it all the way: issues, a branch, tests, a pull request reviewed by the tool, and a merge. The process is the project. Finish it before you start the next one. A half-built idea shows nothing; a small finished thing shows that you can finish.
Use the tool as a collaborator, not an author: ask it for a plan, a critique and a checklist, and write the work yourself. In the interview the questions will be about the decisions — why this, why not that — and only the work you did yourself has answers.
Write one paragraph beside the project: what problem it solves, what you used, and what you would do differently next time. That paragraph is the interview.
Worked example
Finished, it is a repository with real commit history, tests that run, and a merged pull request with review comments you answered.
Your practice task
Walk somebody through the pull request and why you made each change. The interview question is never "what did it do" — it is "why did you do it that way".
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
Take a small project — a script, a small app, a data tool — and take it all the way: issues, a branch, tests, a pull request reviewed by the tool, and a merge.
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Your certificate is ready, and the projects you built are the proof to attach to an application.
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Finish every lesson to unlock the certificate. Each one ends in a practice task — do them and the final project brief writes itself.