From
Josh Comeau
Date
September 8th, 2020
Subject
It's here! My portfolio book has been released.
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Josh Comeau

Hi there!

For the past few months, I've been writing a book: Building an Effective Dev Portfolio.

Mockup of a physical book

It's a look at how you can stand out to employers by building an awesome portfolio site that highlights the projects you've built. I was inspired to write this book after reviewing a couple hundred junior dev portfolios on Twitter. I found myself giving the same advice over and over. In fact, the vast majority of developer portfolio sites miss a ton of opportunities.

This book has a very specific audience in mind: junior developers who are looking for their first or second job, folks trying to break into the industry. Junior dev jobs are hyper-competitive: I tell the students I teach that every job offer you receive is easier than the previous one.

This book isn't technical; it's focused on helping you understand how to present yourself and your work. It's full of the tips and tricks I've learned working as a career coach for Journey Education / Concordia University, as well as the experience of interviewing developers at companies.

It's finally done! You can download here:

PDF (tablet, desktop):

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ePub (mobile):

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MOBI (Kindle):

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Please don't share these download links! If you enjoy the book, I'd love if you could share this URL instead:

https://joshwcomeau.com/effective-portfolio/

Link to this heading
General life update

So it's been a while since I've sent a newsletter. I've been dealing with an annoyingly persistent nerve issue, so I can only use a computer for a little bit each day, and I can't use a mouse/keyboard much at all. I've been using dictation software and eye-tracking, which has been a really interesting learning experience!

I have so much motivation to write more blog posts and tutorials. I recently left my job, and once my situation stabilizes, education will be my full-time focus!

I have published a single blog post since my last issue, on the subject of dynamic filtering within a Gatsby application:

The World's Sneakiest Route Change gatsby

When building a static site, it's not clear how certain kinds of experiences would work. We ran into this problem on a recent project at Gatsby: we wanted to have a dynamic filter, without hitting the API directly!

This post is an exploration of the solution we came up with. It's a neat little bit of magic, which could open the door to lots of cool stuff being built statically.

Before my nerves started acting up, I was working on some cheatsheets! I'm particularly excited for this one about React Spring:

close-up shot of a printed pageclose-up shot of a printed page

I'll have more information about this coming up soon :)


I know 2020 has been a rough year for many. I hope you've been doing alright! Wishing you all the best.

-Josh