Project Ideas
Projects prove you can build things. Pick a few, finish them, deploy them and document them well.
Beginner
| Project | Skills | Features |
|---|---|---|
| To-do app | HTML, CSS, JavaScript, local storage | Add, edit, filter, persist |
| Weather dashboard | Fetch API, JSON, UI | City search, 5-day forecast, error states |
| Quiz app | DOM, state, arrays | Timer, score, categories |
| Personal portfolio | HTML/CSS, responsive design | Projects, contact form, dark mode |
Intermediate
| Project | Stack | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Expense tracker | React + Node + SQL | Auth, categories, charts, CSV export |
| URL shortener | Backend + cache | Key generation, redirect, analytics (see case study) |
| Blog platform | Full stack, Markdown | Posts, comments, tags, search |
| Chat application | WebSockets | Rooms, presence, message history |
| Job-application tracker | CRUD, filters | Kanban board, reminders |
Advanced
| Project | Skills | Stretch goals |
|---|---|---|
| Distributed rate limiter | Redis, algorithms | Token bucket, sliding window, benchmarks |
| Mini database or key-value store | Data structures, file I/O | WAL, compaction, simple SQL parser |
| Recommendation engine | ML, data pipelines | Offline evaluation, API, monitoring |
| Code-judge / online compiler | Sandboxing, queues | Time/memory limits, multiple languages |
| Realtime collaborative editor | CRDT/OT, WebSockets | Conflict resolution, presence cursors |
Machine learning and data
| Project | Notes |
|---|---|
| House-price or churn prediction | End-to-end: cleaning, features, evaluation, README |
| Image classifier | Transfer learning, small web demo |
| Text classifier / sentiment | TF-IDF baseline, then a transformer |
| Analytics dashboard | Public data set, interactive charts |
Choosing a project
- Solve a real problem for yourself or a small group.
- Keep the first version small; ship, then iterate.
- Include one hard part you can explain in an interview (data model, caching, concurrency).
- Deploy it and write a README (see Portfolio and README guide).
TIP
Two finished, deployed projects with clear READMEs beat ten unfinished repositories.
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