Portfolio Club: Build an App with xState

Are you...

Trying to understand state management in order to level up and find a job?
Having trouble showing potential employers what you're capable of?
Need some accountability to stay motivated to finish projects?

What's this club thing?

We are going to get together as a group for 6 weeks and build projects for our developer portfolios. The projects are going to be focused on building an application that features xState.

Each week we will meet for one hour to discuss the work, review learning resources, and participate in activities related to our projects.

As part of the project club, we will all be using a similar technology stack, but ultimately what you build and how you build it is up to you.

The most important thing is that you commit to doing the work with us and show up every week to participate.

Portfolio Project

The portfolio club is focused on building a business-oriented application that features xState.

As part of the process, there will be prompts and activities that will contribute to your development journal. Showcasing the things you learned and the process you followed while creating your project will help you to stand out to prospective employers (and help you remember how you solved a problem when it arises again!)

At the end of the portfolio club, you will have a working application as well as a case study that you can publish to "show your work".

The case study is an in-depth article or blog post that carries just as much (if not more) weight as your actual code when it comes to proving your knowledge and skills.

State Management

The portfolio project will feature xState, but we'll also explore the biggest questions and challenges when managing state throughout the club.

Why does state need to be managed?
Why is state management such a big issue in React?
Why is state management such a big issue when building UI's?

Managing state in a UI is challenging.

It's genuinely difficult, and the solutions require a depth of knowledge and experience to understand. Everything is a balance of tradeoffs in complexity, performance, and user experience.

Managing State is an art form.

If you understand State Management, you understand building UI's at its most profound levels.

Portfolio Club Milestones

Week 1 — Setting the appetite & Readme Driven Development

During this stage, participants will reduce the scope, manage expectations, and understand business requirements. As an in-class group exercise, we'll write a collaborative README for the project.

Week 2 — Breadboarding & Fat marker sketches

At this stage, work has to be reduced to written specifications that participants can start implementing.

Week 3 — Build & Integrate one slice

The challenge here is to be concrete enough to make progress on a specific solution without getting dragged down into fine details.

Week 4 — Build & Integrate one slice

The challenge here is the same as last week, make progress on a specific solution without getting dragged down into fine details.

Week 5 — Build nice-to-haves & Document

The challenge here is to document and create a technical case study to showcase work using in-progress-developer journal entries and implement any nice-to-haves.

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of building websites (HTML, CSS, JS). You do not need years of experience, but you should feel comfortable building web applications.

At a minimum basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and you've probably completed tutorial-based projects in React.

Someplace to publish your case study (your own, dev.to, etc) and development journal.

Portfolio Club Logistics

6 weeks of one-hour sessions, with around 10 members

Each session will consist of sharing the work accomplished since the last meeting, and discussion about the readings and resources to prepare for the next.

Application Timeline

Interview Window: April 26, 2021 - May 7, 2021
Decisions: May 10, 2021
Club Start Date: Second Week of May
Club End Date: Third Week of June

Club Commitment

Missing 1 session is fine, more than that and we might ask you to leave the club (don't worry, you'll be able to join future clubs).

The same is true for showing up unprepared 😅

This Developer Portfolio Club will follow the egghead Community Code of Conduct. Please be sure to read the Code of Conduct, and be prepared to hold others to it as well.

We will be actively reviewing applications. If you are not selected for this round, don't worry! There will be future clubs you can participate in.

Ready to apply?

Please fill out this application →