Ship the Site 🚢
This month I went along to GlasgowJS’s Personal Websites Code Jam, and honestly… it was exactly what I needed.
The idea was dead simple: bring your laptop, bring your personal site (or the vague idea of one) and spend the evening actually doing something with it.
No talks. No slides. Just coders turning up and getting stuck in. 💪
The room 💙
25(ish) coders working on 25(ish) different websites, all at wildly different stages.
Different experience levels, different tech stacks, different ideas. Astro, Next.js, plain HTML, blogs, portfolios, “this started as a README and got out of hand” sites. Some coders shipping their first ever site, others refining something they’d been tweaking for years.
That mix was genuinely one of the best bits.
The chats between the code 💬
Between keyboard tapping and pizza slices - there were some cracking conversations.
A few people talked about how having a personal site or blog had genuinely changed their career. Not overnight success nonsense, just small compounding wins. Being visible. Showing how they think. Writing about problems they’ve solved.
It’s amazing how often “I wrote a post about that” turns into “oh, that’s interesting…” in the right conversation.
Personal sites and interviews 🗣️
One thing that came up a lot was interviews, especially for less senior or more frontend-leaning roles.
A personal site gives you something to talk about that isn’t just a CV.
It shows curiosity, taste, and how you approach problems. Even a scrappy site says more than another bullet point ever will.
You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to show you care enough to build something! 🔨
Why nights like this work 👍
There’s something powerful about sitting in a room with other devs doing the same thing you’re doing.
Questions get answered fast. Ideas bounce about. That “am I the only one struggling with this?” feeling disappears pretty quickly.
It’s community, but productive. 🤝
Big thanks 🙌
Huge shout-out to the organisers at GlasgowJS and the Scottish Technology Club for putting it together and keeping the vibe relaxed and welcoming.
And aye… the pub 🍺
Once laptops were shut, a bunch of us headed to the pub for a wee social.
Tech chat, side projects, career stories and zero mention of Jira. 😳
Exactly how it should be! 🍻
Fancy coming along next time? 🎉
If you’re anywhere near Glasgow or Edinburgh, it’s well worth keeping an eye on GlasgowJS or EdinburghJS. Talks, hands-on nights, and a genuinely sound tech community.
Check out GlasgowJS or EdinburghJS, and see what’s on next.
Worst case? You eat pizza, talk tech and go for a pint after. 🚀