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Building in Public

5 min read

Frontend

Ship small. Post updates. Your next employer sees you ship.

Backend

RAG project? Post the architecture, the gotchas, the results. That's your portfolio.

Devrel

You live this. Others: it works. Start with one project, one thread.

Building in Public

TL;DR

  • Building in public = sharing your work as you go. Progress, failures, learnings.
  • Compounds: you get feedback, accountability, and a documented portfolio.
  • Doesn't require a big audience. Ten engaged people > a thousand passive followers.

"Building in public" got buzzwordy. Strip it down: you're working on something. You share updates. People see you work. That's it.

Why It Compounds

  1. Feedback. Post "hit this RAG pitfall" — someone says "we did X." You learn faster.
  2. Accountability. "I'm shipping this in 2 weeks" — you're more likely to ship.
  3. Portfolio. Your Twitter/LinkedIn/blog becomes a timeline of what you've built. Hiring managers see it.
  4. Network. People doing similar things find you. Collaborations, job leads, and friendships.

What to Share

  • Progress: "Week 2: got retrieval working. Chunking was the hard part."
  • Failures: "This approach didn't work. Here's why."
  • Learnings: "3 things I'd do differently with RAG."
  • Snippets: Architecture diagrams. Code samples. Metrics.

Not: "Working on something cool, stay tuned." Vague = forgettable.

Where

  • Twitter/X: Good for short updates. Dev community is active. Threads work.
  • LinkedIn: More professional. Good for "lesson learned" style posts. Reaches recruiters.
  • Blog: Long-form. "How I built X" posts. Evergreen.
  • Dev.to, Hashnode: Cross-post from blog. Reach.

Pick one primary. Repurpose to others if you have energy.

Cadence

  • Daily: Too much for most. Burnout risk.
  • Weekly: Sustainable. One update per project per week.
  • Per milestone: "Shipped," "hit a wall," "pivoted." Less frequent but meaningful.

The Fear: "My work isn't impressive"

It doesn't need to be. "I'm learning RAG by building a doc Q&A. Day 3: chunking is harder than I thought." — that's useful. People relate. Nobody expects you to be a genius. They want to see you try.

You build in private. Ship when it's perfect. Nobody sees the journey. Portfolio = one polished project. No feedback until it's done.

Click "Building in public" to see the difference →

Quick Check

What's the main benefit of building in public?

Do This Next

  1. Pick one project — Something you're building or learning. AI-related helps.
  2. Post one update — Wherever you're comfortable. "Started X. Goal: Y. Week 1: Z."
  3. Do it again in a week — Build the habit. One post. See what happens.