TL:DR
- Astro is a fantastic framework.
- It is super easy to get up and running.
- It has fantastic templates.
- Vercel makes it simple to deploy.
- You should use it for your next portfolio, blog, etc.
- Look at my website here: https://www.craigaholliday.com/
What I needed
Long story short: I was laid off and needed a new personal website.
Most of my work is under NDA and also not publicly available.
For my website, I needed something more like a blog than a traditional portfolio website.
However, like other portfolio websites, the site still needed to look decent.
What I did
I picked Astro because I've heard great things about it, and it was something new to try.
I already built a blog website with Gatsby, and it worked great. However, it is always good to try new things.
So, I went to the Astro website to read through some of the docs and showcases.
Astro has a great set of starter themes you can pick from.
Among the themes was an excellent minimal theme, which you can copy as a template to a new GitHub repo. The readme for the repo covers how.
After copying the repo template, I:
- Change a few variables in the site configurations.
- Made some minor changes to the CSS and a few small design tweaks
- Added the information for all the projects I have worked on for the last four years
Finally, the website was done, and I could deploy it.
The obvious choice to do this was with Vercel, which was as easy as signing up for an account and pointing Vercel to my repo.
That's it!
Honestly, what took me the longest was writing the details for all of my projects. The rest was quick and easy.
What is in my portfolio
Instead of traditional portfolios with links to apps, screenshots, etc, my portfolio has the ~14 projects I have worked on for the past four years.
My work is not publicly available, so this is my solution: a lot of text about the problems I solved and how.
It feels very different from what others show, which can be good or bad.
This is what I have because of my contracting work and working on a B2B product that was private.
Let me know how you like it!
Hire me
Finally, I did not make this post to only share an easy way to make a portfolio.
I also made this post to shill for myself.
I am actively looking for my next job and would love some help. The job search scene is brutal right now.
I am a senior-level generalist software engineer with management experience. All of my projects go into detail on what I've done previously.
I love working with great people on great products and am independent of specific platforms, frameworks, or technology.
I appreciate sharing this post, my portfolio, LinkedIn, and website with anyone who needs my skillset!
Website: https://www.craigaholliday.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigaholliday/
Email: hello@craigaholliday.com
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