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Portfolio

Project Ideas

Projects prove what your resume claims. Each one here is chosen to be job-relevant, interview-walkable, and actually buildable in 1–3 weeks.

Backend

URL Shortener API

Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis

Demonstrates API design, database modeling, caching, and a system design problem interviewers actually ask about.

Features to build
  • ›POST /shorten → returns short code
  • ›GET /:code → redirect
  • ›Click analytics endpoint
  • ›Rate limiting
  • ›Redis cache for hot URLs
How to pitch it

“Built a URL shortener with FastAPI and PostgreSQL. Implemented Redis caching that reduced database load by ~90% for hot URLs. Designed with a hash-based short code system that scales to billions of entries.”

Job Queue System

Python, FastAPI, Redis (or RabbitMQ), PostgreSQL

Demonstrates async processing, worker patterns, and real backend engineering — not just CRUD.

Features to build
  • ›Submit jobs via API
  • ›Worker pool processes jobs async
  • ›Job status tracking
  • ›Retry on failure
  • ›Dead letter queue for failed jobs
How to pitch it

“Built an async job processing system with a FastAPI producer and Python worker pool. Implemented retry logic with exponential backoff and a dead letter queue for failed jobs.”

REST API with Auth

Node.js or Python, JWT auth, PostgreSQL

Every backend role expects you to understand auth patterns, middleware, and API design.

Features to build
  • ›User registration + login
  • ›JWT access + refresh tokens
  • ›Protected routes
  • ›Role-based authorization
  • ›Rate limiting per user
How to pitch it

“Built a production-style REST API with JWT authentication, refresh token rotation, and role-based access control. Designed with layered middleware for auth, logging, and rate limiting.”

Full-Stack

Personal Finance Tracker

Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL or SQLite

Real data modeling, user state, CRUD, and charts — hits almost every junior SWE interview topic.

Features to build
  • ›Add/categorize transactions
  • ›Monthly summary dashboard
  • ›Category breakdown chart
  • ›CSV import
  • ›Budget targets with alerts
How to pitch it

“Built a full-stack finance tracker with Next.js and PostgreSQL. Implemented CSV import with validation, real-time budget tracking, and a dashboard with category breakdowns.”

Dev Tools Dashboard

Next.js, TypeScript, external APIs

Shows API integration, data fetching patterns, and actually useful — easy to demo.

Features to build
  • ›GitHub stats integration
  • ›Weather or news widget
  • ›Uptime checker for URLs
  • ›Notes with markdown
  • ›Dark/light theme toggle
How to pitch it

“Built a personal dev dashboard integrating GitHub API for contribution stats, uptime monitoring for personal projects, and a markdown notes system.”

Frontend

Component Library

React, TypeScript, Storybook

Shows you understand composition, accessibility, prop design, and documentation.

Features to build
  • ›10+ reusable components
  • ›Storybook docs for each
  • ›TypeScript props with JSDoc
  • ›Dark/light mode support
  • ›Published to npm (bonus)
How to pitch it

“Built a typed React component library with Storybook documentation. Focused on accessibility, composability, and consistent prop APIs across 10+ components.”

Real-time Crypto/Stock Tracker

React, TypeScript, WebSockets or polling

Demonstrates real-time data, state management, and UI performance with frequent updates.

Features to build
  • ›Live price updates via WebSocket
  • ›Watchlist with local persistence
  • ›Price change alerts
  • ›Chart with historical data
  • ›Search and filter
How to pitch it

“Built a real-time price tracker using WebSocket connections for live updates. Optimized rendering with React.memo and virtualized lists to handle 100+ simultaneous price updates without jank.”

Data / ML-adjacent

Data Pipeline + Dashboard

Python, Pandas, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, React

Combines data engineering and backend — strong signal for platform/data-adjacent roles.

Features to build
  • ›Ingest CSV or API data on schedule
  • ›Clean and normalize records
  • ›Store in PostgreSQL
  • ›REST API to query aggregates
  • ›Simple dashboard to visualize
How to pitch it

“Built an end-to-end data pipeline that ingests raw CSV data, normalizes and validates it, stores in PostgreSQL, and exposes aggregated metrics via a REST API with a React dashboard.”

Universal rules
  • ✓One deployed, working project beats five half-finished ones.
  • ✓Every project needs a clean README: what it does, why you built it, how to run it.
  • ✓Be ready to walk through the code live — don't list anything you can't explain.
  • ✓Pick projects that match the role you're applying for — a React portfolio won't impress a backend team.
  • ✓GitHub commit history matters — spread commits over time, not 'initial commit + final push'.