If You Want to Work at a Startup, Build a Side Project | EntryLevel Blog<br>Post a Job

← BlogI truly believe that this is the most valuable thing you can do with your time before, during, or while searching for a job at a startup.

Having a side project signals so many things. First, and most importantly in my opinion, it shows that you genuinely enjoy building things. That kind of curiosity and motivation is hard to fake, and it's often immediately visible when someone talks about a project they've chosen to work on in their own time.

Passion aside, there are many skills you show off by working on a side project. It proves that you can start working on something on your own and make progress. Even if the quality isn't great, it still shows a lot.

There's also value beyond the signal it sends. Building something yourself forces you to make decisions, solve problems, and work through challenges that don't exist in tutorials or coding exercises. Even if nobody ever sees the project, you'll almost certainly become a better engineer because of it.

I've worked at many startups and helped interview over two hundred candidates across them. I would never reject someone for not having a side project, but having one gives you so many extra points. My favorite part of interviews was always the first 10–30 minutes, when I would ask someone about their background and casually ask if they had any side projects or passion projects they were working on. If they did, I would always dive deeper. I also loved looking at the code, but as I said, even if the quality was low, it still told me so much about the candidate.

(Side note: I wouldn't care if a candidate used AI to build their side project. Using LLM based tools is part of the workflow these days, so seeing it in a side project is perfectly ok. It also gives you a window to the quality of the output they manage to get from the tools they're using and how they're using them which is great.)

Maybe I should take a step back here and talk about what most startups are actually looking for when interviewing...

What Startups Are Really Hiring For

The reason side projects matter so much is because of what startups are usually optimizing for when they hire.

Unlike large companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and so on, startups don't have huge budgets and, more importantly, they don't have time. Another important point is that many startups in their early days don't need to solve complex scaling problems or build sophisticated algorithms. Even if their technology is built around a new type of algorithm, they're probably not hiring you to reinvent it.

There is so much work to do at startups that doesn't require the classic computer science and algorithm knowledge you learn at university. What they often need isn't a cum laude student, but someone who can get sh*t done. Even better if they know that person can do it without being babysat or having their hand held every step of the way.

Those traits aren't very common, and they're pretty hard to identify in interviews. A side project is one of the clearest signals that someone can take ownership, learn independently, and make progress without constant direction. Having a side project you're working on, or have worked on in the past, is a pretty good indicator of exactly the qualities that many startups are looking for.

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