hey guys. I am trying to build a strong developer portfolio to stand out. any suggestions for websites I can go to to offer free web development services to add projects to my portfolio?
I believe most freelance sites (I only checked upwork right now) allow you to work for free. However they don’t suggest it for similar reasons I wouldn’t suggest it. Your time is valuable. More importantly though, there’s better ways to work on stuff for free.
non-profits and organizations might be a better target, as they are built around not just taking advantage of people working for free. Something like freeCodeCamp is free due to volunteer work. Open-source is usually unpaid for similar reasonings. Skim around github and you’ll find plenty of open-source projects to contribute to.
This is where I’d focus on.
“a strong developer portfolio” is relative to the jobs you are aiming for. If your aiming for web development jobs, and want to stand out. Then building stuff that meets job requirements should be the target. However finding work and doing this all by yourself can be a mixed bag. Most job requirements look for a set of skills that don’t generally align to freelance work, or if they do it usually comes with caveats, such as working on a pre-existing codebase, or on specific technology.
As such if you just build projects yourself, built around what skills you need for a given job you have vastly less pressure, more focus, and better use of your time than if you try to work for free for some random client who could ask you to do anything/everything that may or may not be related to what you need.