Lessons Learned from Running a Side Project as a Junior Developer
I've been steadily running a toy project since last March. It's a small service with about 3,000 cumulative users, and here's what I learned along the way.
1. Deploy first - If you only work on it locally, you won't get a feel for it. Deploy early and accept the embarrassment.
2. Keep thorough logs - If an error occurs and you don't know where, there's nothing you can do. At least set up the free Sentry plan.
3. Users respond faster than you think - I was surprised to see feedback within a few days of adding a feature.
4. Maintenance takes longer than development - You have to consider this when designing from the start.
Now it feels like the project has reached a level worth putting on my resume, so I plan to actively bring it up in my next job change. However, the maintenance burden keeps growing the longer I run it, so I'm thinking about how to handle that.
9 answers
Agreed, deployment is the most important.
The log is legit lol
I've had the same experience too.
Oh, I didn't know that.
I've been running a toy project for 2 years now, and the maintenance time is really huge. I regret building it without any test code in the beginning. I'm slowly refactoring it even now, but for the next project, I'll make sure to design it properly from the start.
I agree that users are quick to respond. But a lot of that feedback was bug reports, which shook my confidence at first. Still, it was fun to fix them one by one and watch the service get more solid.
Well, 3,000 cumulative users—isn't that a bit awkward to put on a resume? Of course, it'd be different if the service was really well made, but appealing purely based on user count could actually backfire. Instead, wouldn't it be better to write up specific examples of improvements you made during maintenance?
I agree that deploying quickly is a good thing. However, if you set up even a simple Docker or CI/CD pipeline during initial setup, it'll save you headaches later. I didn't do that and ended up building locally and uploading every time I deployed—what a huge waste of time.
What's the source? I heard that Sentry's free plan pricing has changed. Have you checked if there's still a free option?