How to glitz up your GitHub profile and advance your career

Looking for your next opportunity (❤️) or tips for sprucing up your online presence (🌟)? This issue can help by providing tips and best practices for building out your GitHub profile. 

Not only can you use your GitHub profile as a digital portfolio, you can use it to advance your career by showcasing your curiosity, interests, and skills as a developer. 

One of our developer advocates, Kedasha Kerr, loves teaching other developers how to get the most out of GitHub. 💖 She explains how to create a GitHub profile that authentically reflects who you are and the work you love to do. Let’s dive in. 👇

How to make your GitHub profile stand out:

-Add a clear photo that shows your face. 💁🏽

-Write a concise bio that not only explains what you do but also what you can offer. 🫴

-Use your profile’s README to showcase your personality. 💅

-Pin quality repositories to your profile page. 📌 These can be your own projects, popular repositories, or ones you’ve significantly contributed to. What exactly do we mean by quality? Each repository should have:

• A deploy link, which allows you to see the function of that project without having to run it.

• A clear title that, at first glance, shows what the project is about.

• A completed README, which explains what the project does, how to install and run it, and how to contribute.

• Topic tags that make the project discoverable.

• A contribution graph that indicates a project’s activity level, contributor engagement, stability, and lifespan. You want to pin a project that is consistently progressing.

And don’t forget to share the basics on your profile, like your time zone. Here’s a checklist to get started. 

Take a look at a  few examples of stellar GitHub profiles:

Monica Powell, known on GitHub as @M0nica.

Thaiane Braga, known on GitHub as @Thaiane. 

And Waylon Walker, known on GitHub as, well, @WaylonWalker.

Let’s talk more about the README file. 📄

While a repository’s README explains the function behind the project, your README can showcase your work, personality, and skills.  

Because bios are limited to 160 characters, your README is where you can give a full introduction, share your hobbies, state your favorite part about being a developer, and declare your passions. You can have fun with the visuals, too, adding images and GIFs. 

Here are some resources to get you started:

• Use Kerr’s template to guarantee your README sparkles. ✨

• Follow tips for creating a GitHub profile README from GitHub’s Michelle Duke. ✅

• Get a head start by using a profile readme generator. 🏃🏻♀️

• Beautify your README profile. 🎨

Even better, once you’re done setting it up, you can convert your GitHub profile into a resume. 

Want to really take your career to the next level? Subscribe to The GitHub Insider to receive tips and tricks for GitHub products directly in your inbox. 👇

It’s not just your GitHub profile that can spruce up your professional presence. 

You can use your GitHub account to access a bunch of resources to learn and demonstrate your expertise:

• Build your familiarity with Git and GitHub if you’re a new developer. GitHub can provide hands-on learning for Git if you’re new to collaborative coding. Check out these free courses provided through GitHub Skills.

• Gain direct experience with AI by trying GitHub Copilot. GitHub Copilot is free to use for verified students, teachers, and maintainers of popular open source projects. If you don’t fall into these categories, you can try GitHub Copilot for free with a one-time 30-day trial. Here’s how to get started.

• Gamify your security training with the Secure Code Game, an in-repository educational  experience where you learn how to fix intentionally vulnerable code. Learn more about how the game works.

• Lend your skills to a project that needs your help. There are a number of digital public goods (DPGs) on GitHub. There are open source software, open data, open AI systems, and open content collections that support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. DPGs need your contribution, and you can use For Good First Issue to find one that aligns with your interest and skills. Pin a project to your GitHub Profile to encourage even more contributions!

• Demonstrate your GitHub know-how with GitHub Certifications. You can add earned badges to your social accounts like LinkedIn and X, and even embed them on your website or in your email signature. Follow these tips to pin them to your GitHub profile. 

Part of advancing your career is keeping a pulse on the latest trends in software engineering and the conversations surrounding them. 

Our experts have your back:

• Understand how developers really feel about AI and envision the new technology integrating into their workflows.

• Tune into discussions about flow state: what it is, how the concept originated, and why it’s critical to developer productivity. 

• Be mindful of how developer workflows are affected during the “shift left” movement, or when security processes are integrated earlier into software development lifecycle. Become privy to proven, tactical steps for building a bottom-up security culture. 

And, of course, as a developer on GitHub, you’re part of a global community comprising over one million software engineers. 

To keep you grounded in the hard and soft skills of coding, check out our free guides:

• Career skills for coding in the age of AI

• How to develop your AI coding skills

• Career tips for beginner developers

💻 And hey, want to use your sparkly GitHub skills at GitHub? Good news: we’re hiring. 🟢

More GitHub goodness: 

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✨ This newsletter was written by Nicole Choi and produced by Gwen Davis. ✨