Tutorials teach syntax. Projects teach engineering. Here are six beginner-friendly project ideas that build skills you’ll actually use on day one of your first job.
The six projects
Each of these is small enough to finish in a week and meaty enough to talk about in an interview.
- Job board with filtering — practices state + URL state
- Personal finance tracker — practices auth + persistence
- Live polling app — practices realtime + websockets
- URL shortener — practices databases + redirects
- Note-taking app — practices CRUD + offline-friendly UX
- Recipe explorer with search — practices APIs + caching
The bottom line
Pick two. Ship both. Don’t skip the README. That alone puts you ahead of most junior applicants.
