Why Your Personal Project Might Not Get You Hired

And what to do instead if you’re serious about landing interviews

Over the years, I’ve seen dozens of career changers and aspiring engineers try to break into tech. Most of them understand that today’s market demands experience—real, verifiable experience. But getting that experience isn’t simple.

Some pursue certifications, hoping that a shiny badge will compensate for a thin resume. Others try to network their way into an opportunity. Many—and I see this often—choose to build a personal project instead.

On paper, this makes sense. It’s yours. You control the direction. You don’t have to beg someone to give you a chance. But here’s the problem: personal projects, as they’re usually done, don’t open doors, as they are pet projects.

Let me explain why—and what to do instead.

A Common Fork in the Road

Let’s say you’re learning to code and thinking about your next step.

You could apply for internships. But many early-stage startups or nonprofits only offer unpaid roles. That feels hard to justify, especially if you’re supporting yourself or your family. Worse, it often means asking strangers for a job—one you’ll do for free. And even if you get one, you don’t get to pick the tech stack or the project. You’re there to learn, not to lead.

So you build something on your own instead. You pick the tools. You ship faster. You feel more productive. You might even have something impressive to show in a demo.

I get it. I’ve seen it dozens of times. But for most people, that trade doesn’t work out the way they hope.

What Exactly Is a Pet Project?

Here’s what I mean when I say “pet project”:

• Built solo, start to finish

• No outside users, clients, or collaborators

• Focused on learning or experimentation

• Usually not maintained after the first version

Pet projects are often fun, and they absolutely help you learn new tools. That’s valuable in itself, and you should reference those learnings in interviews. But when it comes to landing interviews, the project itself won’t carry you.

And it’s not because recruiters or hiring managers are being unfair.

What Hiring Managers Are Actually Looking For

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of someone hiring an engineer.

They’re asking: Can this person contribute to a real product with other people, under constraints, with users who care?

They’re scanning for signals like:

• Collaboration: Have you worked in a team? Do you know how to take feedback and navigate code reviews?

• Production experience: Have you written code that went live? That got monitored? That broke—and had to be fixed?

• Code maturity: Can you work inside an existing codebase, with someone else’s choices and architecture?

• Consistency in focus: Are you deepening your expertise in a certain area or just jumping between frameworks?

Most pet projects, as they’re typically built, don’t offer evidence of these skills. They show curiosity and effort—which matter—but they don’t prove you can be handed a Jira ticket, navigate a legacy codebase, collaborate with others, and ship a fix to production. And that’s what most jobs require.

There’s a Better Way to Spend Those Hours

If you’re already willing to commit dozens of hours to build something for free, consider putting that energy somewhere more visible, collaborative, and valuable:

1. Internships at startups or nonprofits Even unpaid, these offer mentorship, collaboration, and real-world complexity. Often, you’ll get to work under a senior engineer who reviews your pull requests and explains architecture. That kind of feedback is gold. And once you ship something real, it’s legitimate experience you can put on your resume. It makes interviewers pay attention.

2. Freelance work for a small business Building a simple website or automating a process for a local company forces you to gather requirements, deal with bugs, and support a “client.” Even if you only make $200, the project now has real stakes—and real users.

3. Open-source contributions There are projects in nearly every domain looking for help. Your first PR might be a typo fix, but keep at it and you’ll gain experience navigating real codebases, participating in review cycles, and working with maintainers.

4. Turn your project into something real Still want to build something solo? Great—just don’t let it stop at “learning project.” Host it. Add logging and monitoring. Invite beta users. Publish a postmortem after something breaks. Write about what you learned. Even one real user changes the game.

Already Have a Pet Project? Make It Count.

You don’t have to abandon it. You just have to make it more visible and more real.

Here’s how:

• Put it on GitHub with clear commit history, documentation, and open issues. Let others browse the code.

• Write about it. Publish a blog post explaining what you built, how you approached problems, and what you’d do differently. Hiring managers love engineers who can reflect and communicate.

• Try to get a user. Post it in a subreddit, share it with a local group, or pitch it to a small business. Even one user will make you think differently about quality, usability, and bugs.

• Explore monetization. Many successful indie developers started with a pet project. If your tool solves a real problem, you might stumble into a business. At worst, you’ll learn a lot trying.

The Takeaway

Pet projects are not bad. In fact, they’re a powerful way to grow your skills and try new technologies. You should absolutely build things.

But if your goal is to get hired, you need to pair that curiosity with proof that you can contribute to a real engineering environment.

That means:

• Working with others

• Supporting real users

• Navigating real constraints

• Building things that don’t stop at “version one”

If you do that—even just once—it will show on your resume. And hiring managers will see it.

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