These are the notes of the previous "How to Build a Portfolio That Reflects Your Real Skills" event:

Properties of an ideal portfolio repository:

• Built to prove employable skills and readiness for real work
• Fewer projects, carefully chosen to match job requirements
• Clean, readable, refactored code, and follows best practices
• Detailed READMEs (setup, features, tech stack, decisions, how to deploy, testing strategy, etc)
• Logical, meaningful commits that show development process <- you can follow the git history for important commits/features
• Clear architecture (layers, packages, separation of concerns) <- use best practices
• Unit and integration tests included and explained <-- also talk about them in the README
• Proper validation, exceptions, and edge case handling
• Polished, complete, production-like projects only
• “Can this person work on our codebase?” <-- reviewers will ask this
• Written for recruiters, hiring managers, and senior engineers
• Uses industry-relevant and job-listed technologies <- tech stak should match the CV
• Well-scoped, realistic features similar to real products
• Consistent style, structure, and conventions across projects
• Environment variables, clear setup steps, sample configs
• Minimal, justified dependencies with clear versioning
• Proper logging, and meaningful log messages
• No secrets committed, basic security best practices applied
• Shows awareness of scaling, performance, and future growth <- at least have a "possible improvements" section in the README
• a list of ADRs explains design choices and trade-offs <- should be a part of the documentation

📌 Backend & Frontend Portfolio Project Ideas

These projects are intentionally reusable across tech stacks. Following tutorials and reusing patterns is expected — what matters is:

• understanding the architecture
• explaining trade-offs
• documenting decisions clearly

☕ Junior Java Backend Developer (Spring Boot)

1. Shop Manager Application

A monolithic Spring Boot app designed with microservice-style boundaries. Features

• Secure user registration & login
• Role-based access control using JWT
• REST APIs for:
• Users
• Products
• Inventory
• Orders
• Automatic inventory updates when orders are placed
• CSV upload for bulk product & inventory import
• Clear service boundaries (UserService, OrderService, InventoryService, etc.)

Engineering Focus

• Clean architecture (controllers, services, repositories)
• Global exception handling
• Database migrations (Flyway/Liquibase)
• Unit & integration testing
• Clear README explaining architecture decisions

2. Parallel Data Processing Engine

Backend service for processing large datasets efficiently. Features

• Upload large CSV/log files
• Split data into chunks
• Process chunks in parallel using:
• ExecutorService
• CompletableFuture
• Aggregate and return results

Demonstrates

• Java concurrency
• Thread pools & async execution
• Performance optimization

3. Distributed Task Queue System

Simple async job processing system. Features

• One service submits tasks
• Another service processes them asynchronously
• Uses Kafka or RabbitMQ
• Tasks: report generation, data transformation

Demonstrates

• Message-driven architecture
• Async workflows
• Eventual consistency

4. Rate Limiting & Load Control Service

Standalone service that protects APIs from abuse. Features

• Token bucket or sliding window algorithms
• Redis-backed counters
• Per-user or per-IP limits

Demonstrates

• Algorithmic thinking
• Distributed state
• API protection patterns

5. Search & Indexing Backend

Document or record search service. Features

• In-memory inverted index
• Text search, filters, ranking
• Optional Elasticsearch integration

Demonstrates

• Data structures
• Read-optimized design
• Trade-offs between custom vs external tools

6. Distributed Configuration & Feature Flag Service

Centralized config service for other apps. Features

• Key-value configuration store
• Feature flags
• Caching & refresh mechanisms

Demonstrates

• Caching strategies
• Consistency vs availability trade-offs
• System design for shared services

🐹 Mid-Level Go Backend Developer (Non-Kubernetes)

1. High-Throughput Event Processing Pipeline

Multi-stage concurrent pipeline. Features

• HTTP/gRPC ingestion
• Validation & transformation stages
• Goroutines & channels
• Worker pools, batching, backpressure
• Graceful shutdown

2. Distributed Job Scheduler & Worker System

Async job execution platform. Features

• Job scheduling & delayed execution
• Retries & idempotency
• Job states (pending, running, failed, completed)
• Message queue or gRPC-based workers

3. In-Memory Caching Service

Redis-like cache written from scratch. Features

• TTL support
• Eviction strategies (LRU/LFU)
• Concurrent-safe access
• Optional disk persistence

4. Rate Limiting & Traffic Shaping Gateway

Reverse-proxy-style rate limiter. Features

• Token bucket / leaky bucket
• Circuit breakers
• Redis-backed distributed limits

5. Log Aggregation & Query Engine

Incrementally built system: Step-by-step

1. REST API + Postgres (store logs, query logs)
2. Optimize for massive concurrency
3. Replace DB with in-memory data structures
4. Add streaming endpoints using channels & batching

🐍 Mid-Level Python Backend Developer

1. Asynchronous Task Processing System

Async job execution platform. Features

• Async API submission
• Worker pool (asyncio or Celery-like)
• Retries & failure handling
• Job status tracking
• Idempotency

2. Event-Driven Data Pipeline

Streaming data processing service. Features

• Event ingestion
• Validation & transformation
• Batching & backpressure handling
• Output to storage or downstream services

3. Distributed Rate Limiting Service

API protection service. Steps

• Step 1: Use an existing rate-limiting library
• Step 2: Implement token bucket / sliding window yourself

4. Search & Indexing Backend

Search system for logs or documents. Features

• Custom indexing or Elasticsearch
• Filtering & time-based queries
• Read-heavy optimization

5. Configuration & Feature Flag Service

Shared configuration backend. Steps

• Step 1: Use a caching library
• Step 2: Implement your own cache (explain in README)

🟦 Mid-Level TypeScript Backend Developer

1. Asynchronous Job Processing System

Queue-based task execution. Features

• BullMQ / RabbitMQ / Redis
• Retries & scheduling
• Status tracking

2. Real-Time Chat / Notification Service

WebSocket-based system. Features

• Presence tracking
• Message persistence
• Real-time updates

3. Rate Limiting & API Gateway

API gateway with protections. Features

• Token bucket / sliding window
• Response caching
• Request logging

4. Search & Filtering Engine

Search backend for products, logs, or articles. Features

• In-memory index or Elasticsearch
• Pagination & sorting

5. Feature Flag & Configuration Service

Centralized config management. Features

• Versioning
• Rollout strategies
• Caching

🟨 Mid-Level Node.js Backend Developer

1. Async Task Queue System

Background job processor. Features

• Bull / Redis / RabbitMQ
• Retries & scheduling
• Status APIs

2. Real-Time Chat / Notification Service

Socket-based system. Features

• Rooms
• Presence tracking
• Message persistence

3. Rate Limiting & API Gateway

Traffic control service. Features

• Per-user/API-key limits
• Logging
• Optional caching

4. Search & Indexing Backend

Indexing & querying service.

5. Feature Flag / Configuration Service

Shared backend for app configs.

⚛️ Mid-Level Frontend Developer (React / Next.js)

1. Dynamic Analytics Dashboard

Interactive data visualization app. Features

• Charts & tables
• Filters & live updates
• React Query / Redux / Zustand
• Responsive layouts

2. E-Commerce Store

Full shopping experience. Features

• Product listings
• Search, filters, sorting
• Cart & checkout
• SSR/SSG with Next.js

3. Real-Time Chat / Collaboration App

Live multi-user UI. Features

• WebSockets or Firebase
• Presence indicators
• Real-time updates

4. CMS / Blogging Platform

SEO-focused content app. Features

• SSR for SEO
• Markdown or API-based content
• Admin editing interface

5. Personalized Analytics / Recommendation UI

Data-heavy frontend. Features

• Filtering & lazy loading
• Large dataset handling
• User-specific insights

6. AI Chatbot App — “My House Plant Advisor”

LLM-powered assistant with production-quality UX. Core Features

• Chat interface with real-time updates
• Input normalization & validation
• Offensive content filtering
• Unsupported query detection
• Rate limiting (per user)
• Caching recent queries
• Conversation history per session
• Graceful fallbacks & error handling

Advanced Features

• Prompt tuning (beginner vs expert users)
• Structured advice formatting (cards, bullets)
• Local LLM support
• Analytics dashboard (popular questions)
• Voice input/output (speech-to-text, TTS)

✅ Final Advice

You do NOT need to build everything. Instead, pick 1–2 strong projects per role and focus on depth:

• Explain the architecture clearly
• Document trade-offs (why you chose X over Y)
• Show incremental improvements
• Prove you understand why, not just how

📌 Portfolio Quality Signals (Very Important)

• Have a large, organic commit history → A single or very few commits is a strong indicator of copy-paste work.
• Prefer 3–5 complex projects over 20 simple ones → Many tiny projects often signal shallow understanding.

🎯 Why This Helps in Interviews

Working on serious projects gives you:

• Real hands-on practice
• Concrete anecdotes (stories you can tell in interviews)
• A safe way to learn technologies you don’t fully know yet
• Better focus and long-term learning discipline
• A portfolio that can be ported to another tech stack later (Java → Go, Node → Python, etc.)

🎥 Demo & Documentation Best Practices

• Create a 2–3 minute demo / walkthrough video
• Show the app running
• Explain what problem it solves
• Highlight one or two technical decisions
• At the top of every README:
• Add a plain-English paragraph explaining what the project does
• Assume the reader is a complete beginner

🤝 Open Source & Personal Projects (Interview Signal)

Always mention that you have contributed to Open Source or built personal projects.

• Shows team spirit
• Shows you can read, understand, and navigate an existing codebase
• Signals that you can onboard into a real-world repository
• Makes you sound like an engineer, not just a tutorial follower

Entre architecte, développeur et facilitateur, le Tech Lead doit jongler avec une vision 360° du produit et de l’équipe. Souvent perçu comme une étape naturelle dans une carrière technique, ce rôle n’est pas une obligation et comporte son lot de défis : réunions à n’en plus finir, décisions difficiles, et la pression de livrer tout en protégeant son équipe.

Dans ce talk, je partagerai des anecdotes et outils concrets pour : - Faire des feedbacks qui font grandir (sans démotiver)\, - Prioriser entre fonctionnalités et dette technique\, - Architecturer une application sans créer de monstre\, - Protéger son équipe des perturbations externes\, - Prendre des décisions impopulaires (et les assumer).

Public cible : Développeurs, Tech Leads, managers techniques. Format : Retour d’expérience + conseils actionnables + échanges avec le public. À emporter : 3 outils pour concilier leadership et technique sans s’épuiser.

Welcome to The Test Tribe Huddle (North America Edition) - A virtual gathering bringing together North America’s testers to learn, connect, and grow — together.

The Test Tribe Huddle (North America Edition) is our online community gathering designed especially for testers across the U.S. and Canada. Join passionate testing minds for a 2 hour event, conversations, and shared learning around modern testing, leadership, automation, and the fast-changing future of quality.

Whether you lead teams or ship product quality hands-on — this huddle is your space to learn, ask, contribute, and connect with peers who care about quality as much as you do.

🕒 When & Where 📅 Wednesday, December 10, 2025 🕘 12:00 Noon – 02:00 PM ET 💻 Online \| Free to attend

🎤 Topics and Speakers

1. Talk on Practical Applications of GenAI for Automated Testing (Hal Deranek, Senior Principal of Quality Engineering)
2. Fireside chat: Communication as a Testing Superpower (Jackie McDougall, QA Director, Trissential)

👉 Join the North America Slack Community:

Want to stay connected with the Community before and after the Huddle?

https://join.slack.com/t/thetesttribecommunity/shared_invite/zt-3d26k0l8n-ypFJV4YCMQ9y6CWUCKLazA

Meet peers, get session updates, and be part of the conversations that continue long after the event ends.

💡 Why Join? Discover fresh insights on AI, automation, and testing leadership Connect with fellow testers from North America Be part of the world’s largest testing community

🎯 Who’s This For? Testers, Test Leads, QA Managers, Directors, Heads, SDETs, Quality Advocates — everyone shaping product quality.

🚀 Join the Huddle Reserve your free spot and be part of this region-wide community experience!

Hosted by The Test Tribe — the world’s largest software testing community.

About The Test Tribe: The Test Tribe is the World’s Largest Software Testing Community turned EdTech Startup. Started in 2018 with a mission to give Testing Craft the glory it deserves while we co-create Smarter, prouder, and confident Testers.

We take pride in solving upskilling and growth for global Testing professionals through our unique offerings like Expert Courses, Membership, Cohorts, Offline Mixers, online Community spaces, and a lot of global Events.

Our offerings enable Software Testers globally to collaborate, learn, and grow together. With around 600+ Software Testing Events like Conferences, Hackathons, Meetups, Webinars, etc., and with other Community initiatives, we have reached a global footprint of over 120K+ Testers from 130+ Countries. We intend to provide life-altering growth to every single Testing professional on the planet through community and technology.

Welcome to The Test Tribe Huddle (North America Edition) - A virtual gathering bringing together North America’s testers to learn, connect, and grow — together.

The Test Tribe Huddle (North America Edition) is our online community gathering designed especially for testers across the U.S. and Canada. Join passionate testing minds for a 2 hour event, conversations, and shared learning around modern testing, leadership, automation, and the fast-changing future of quality.

Whether you lead teams or ship product quality hands-on — this huddle is your space to learn, ask, contribute, and connect with peers who care about quality as much as you do.

🕒 When & Where 📅 Wednesday, December 10, 2025 🕘 12:00 Noon – 02:00 PM ET 💻 Online \| Free to attend

🎤 Topics and Speakers

1. Talk on Practical Applications of GenAI for Automated Testing (Hal Deranek, Senior Principal of Quality Engineering)
2. Fireside chat: Communication as a Testing Superpower (Jackie McDougall, QA Director, Trissential)

👉 Join the North America Slack Community:

Want to stay connected with the Community before and after the Huddle?

https://join.slack.com/t/thetesttribecommunity/shared_invite/zt-3d26k0l8n-ypFJV4YCMQ9y6CWUCKLazA

Meet peers, get session updates, and be part of the conversations that continue long after the event ends.

💡 Why Join? Discover fresh insights on AI, automation, and testing leadership Connect with fellow testers from North America Be part of the world’s largest testing community

🎯 Who’s This For? Testers, Test Leads, QA Managers, Directors, Heads, SDETs, Quality Advocates — everyone shaping product quality.

🚀 Join the Huddle Reserve your free spot and be part of this region-wide community experience!

Hosted by The Test Tribe — the world’s largest software testing community.

About The Test Tribe: The Test Tribe is the World’s Largest Software Testing Community turned EdTech Startup. Started in 2018 with a mission to give Testing Craft the glory it deserves while we co-create Smarter, prouder, and confident Testers.

We take pride in solving upskilling and growth for global Testing professionals through our unique offerings like Expert Courses, Membership, Cohorts, Offline Mixers, online Community spaces, and a lot of global Events.

Our offerings enable Software Testers globally to collaborate, learn, and grow together. With around 600+ Software Testing Events like Conferences, Hackathons, Meetups, Webinars, etc., and with other Community initiatives, we have reached a global footprint of over 120K+ Testers from 130+ Countries. We intend to provide life-altering growth to every single Testing professional on the planet through community and technology.

Most organisations don't struggle with change because of strategy or technology, they struggle because change is fundamentally human. In this episode of Hub & Spoken, Jason Foster, CEO & Founder of Cynozure, speaks with Sunil Kumar, Chief Transformation Officer, to explore why transformation so often stalls and what leaders can do to make it stick. Drawing on more than 26 years working across airlines, telecoms, finance and FMCG, Sunil explains why context, such as geopolitics, customer behaviour, industry shifts and internal culture, is the deciding factor in how change lands. When leaders ignore that context, resistance and fatigue follow. Jason and Sunil discuss the human realities behind change, including: Why people naturally resist it How values and beliefs influence adoption Why narrative and excitement matter more than familiar project metrics Sunil also shares his practical "push, pull, connect" model for building momentum and why adoption, not go-live, should be the true measure of success. 🎧 Listen to the full episode now Cynozure is a leading data, analytics and AI company that helps organisations to reach their data potential. It works with clients on data and AI strategy, data management, data architecture and engineering, analytics and AI, data culture and literacy, and data leadership. The company was named one of The Sunday Times' fastest-growing private companies in both 2022 and 2023 and recognised as The Best Place to Work in Data by DataIQ in 2023 and 2024. Cynozure is a certified B Corporation. 

If you're at Identiverse D.C. next week or just near enough DC to make the trip, there is a tentative IdentiBeer pop-up meetup in the evening of Wednesday November 19th.

As venue isn't yet decided, it works a little like a secret speak-easy:

Either come to the Grand Ballroom area of the MGM National Harbor Hotel and find our IdentiBeer ambassador Jim McDonald, and/or follow the link below to register (so we know who to expect) and get updates right up until Wednesday evening. You can wear your conference badge if you are at the conference - bonus marks if you have an Identity at the Center sticker or an IDPro sticker!

And for those of you attending the Gartner IAM Summit in Grapevine a few weeks from now:

An IdentiBeer Gartner IAM edition is in planning for Monday Dec 8th! Follow the ~~white rabbit~~ meetup group to get more information!

After 1,500+ conversations with CDOs and VPs of data , guest Malcolm Hawker noticed a disturbing pattern: a "limiting mindset" that causes data leaders to fail. He argues that too many leaders blame external factors such as "culture" , "data literacy", or a lack of support rather than taking accountability for delivering value. In this conversation, Malcolm breaks down how this mindset is reinforced by the analyst and consultant community and why it leads to a "value fatigue" where no one can prove their own ROI. He offers a clear path forward, starting with a simple 3-question framework for any new CDO and explains why "culture" is actually an outcome of delivering value, not a prerequisite for it. We also discuss his new book, "The Data Hero Playbook," tackle the "AI Ready" myth , explaining why conflating it with "BI Ready" is holding companies back and why your data is likely "good enough" to start right now.

In this episode of Hub & Spoken, Jason Foster, CEO and Founder of Cynozure, speaks with Shachar Meir, a data advisor who has worked with organisations from startups to the likes of Meta and Paypal. Together, they explore why so many companies, even those with skilled data teams, solid platforms and plenty of data, still struggle to deliver real business value. Shachar's take is clear: the problem isn't technology - it's people, process, and culture. Too often, data teams focus on building sophisticated platforms instead of understanding the business problems they're meant to solve. His summary: why guess when you can know? This episode is a practical conversation for anyone looking to move their organisation from data chaos to data clarity. 🎧 Listen now to discover how clarity beats complexity in data strategy. Cynozure is a leading data, analytics and AI company that helps organisations to reach their data potential. It works with clients on data and AI strategy, data management, data architecture and engineering, analytics and AI, data culture and literacy, and data leadership. The company was named one of The Sunday Times' fastest-growing private companies in both 2022 and 2023 and recognised as The Best Place to Work in Data by DataIQ in 2023 and 2024. Cynozure is a certified B Corporation. 

Closing remarks by Angelica Malin

IBM keynote

Workshop: TCS + Partners

Workshop: Solace