How to Build an Online Portfolio for Cloud Professionals

Online portfolios are an awesome way to showcase your skills. In this post I'll show you what to put in yours.

We’re in one of the toughest IT job markets I’ve ever seen. Many tech companies have had layoffs. Others have reduced or stopped hiring. And, it’s unclear when things will start to improve.

But all is not lost.

There are still opportunities out there. And, eventually, companies will start expanding again.

If you’re looking for a job, you need to find a way to stand out. Especially if you’re new to the field.

One way to stand out is by creating an online portfolio of work. Portfolios can not only show hiring managers part of your technical skill sets, but show that you will go that extra step to find a good job.

If you’re a software programmer, it’s clear how to create a portfolio. You can build a project, host it on a site like GitHub, and you’re good to go.

But what about other IT roles, like those in cloud operations related roles? How can you create an online portfolio when your job is managing servers?

That’s what this post is about. I’m going to give you ideas for creating an online portfolio no matter what your role is.

5 Portfolio Ideas

Here are five things you can consider adding to your portfolio.

#1 Write “How-To” Blog Posts

One of the best ways to build out your portfolio is to write how-to blog posts. This is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise in a particular field or topic. You can get started for free on sites like Medium.com, Dev.to, or Hashnode. Start by writing about what you know to show that you can write well, structure thoughts clearly, and explain how to complete a task.

For example, if you're in cloud operations, you can write a blog post on "how to launch an EC2 instance and create an AMI."

The key is to make these posts relevant to the positions you’re applying to.

#2 Create Project Videos

Creating project videos is a step up from writing how-to posts. Videos are a great way to showcase your skills and creativity in a visual format. You can create a video that demonstrates how you completed a project from start to finish, highlighting the key features and functions. For example, you could create a video showing how to setup a scalable cloud architecture. You can upload your videos to platforms like YouTube or Vimeo and share them on your portfolio website.

#3 Publish Infra-as-Code Projects

If you're in the field of DevOps or cloud computing, you can showcase your skills by publishing infra-as-code projects on your portfolio website. Infra-as-code is the practice of managing infrastructure in a declarative manner, using code. By publishing your infra-as-code projects, you can demonstrate your ability to automate infrastructure and make it more scalable and efficient. You can publish your projects on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

#4 Contribute Code to an Open Source Project

Contributing code to an open source project is an excellent way to demonstrate your coding skills and experience. This requires you to be a proficient coder and familiar with version control systems like Git. You can contribute code to projects on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. By contributing code, you can show potential employers or clients that you can work collaboratively with others and have experience working on real-world projects.

#5 Contribute Documentation to an Open Source Project

If you're not a proficient coder, you can still contribute to open source projects by writing documentation. Writing documentation is an essential part of any project, and it requires excellent writing skills and attention to detail. You can contribute documentation to projects on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. By contributing documentation, you can demonstrate your ability to communicate complex concepts in a clear and concise manner.

5 Tools to Use

Once you start creating content for your portfolio, you’ll need a place to share them. Here are some tools you can consider using.

https://pages.github.com/ - A free place to host your main portfolio content. I’d pick something like this to be the main site for my portfolio. I’d show all of my work on other sites here, in one place.

https://medium.com/ - Free blogging platform. Write your how-to articles here.

https://dev.to/ - Technical blogging community that you can blog for free on.

https://hashnode.com/ - Another free blogging community. If you write good content on these sites you can start to build up a following, which will help your portfolio.

https://youtube.com/ - You know what to do with this one :)

Bonus: Skillmix Projects

If you’re looking for projects to work on, here is a collection I’m building:

https://skillmix.io/architectures/

These are currently AWS and Terraform specific, but will expand over time.