How to build amazing

developer portfolio on Upwork

You might struggle creating a developer portfolio on Upwork. Let’s face it, it’s not like you can show beautiful logos or interfaces like in a design portfolio, right?

But having Upwork portfolio is still essential because:

Upwork might hinder your profile’s growth if you do not have a portfolio. Each portfolio case weighs 5% in your profile completeness (max 20% for all cases). This can become a game changer towards increasing your profile visibility or being left in the shadows.
clients will convert better from your profile if your portfolio is done right.

So, today we will share best practices and tips for developer portfolios.

Developer portfolio should show you capabilities & experiences.

It may be tempting to write about something easy where all went well and you did the project fast. But 1 case that shows challenges and how you managed them will work much better in portfolio than 10 easy boring cases.

So, when you choose a project for portfolio, pick those where you were able to implement your expertise best. Choose projects that had difficult problems and challenges that you were able to solve and describe how you solved them.

Choose the right skills and format for Upwork.

You can add up to 15 skills to each portfolio. Make sure to use this opportunity strategically because your Lead Reply Rate and Invitation Rate are heavily influenced by your skills! Add all 15 skills and focus on those skills, which jobs you want to get on Upwork. Experiment to see what works best.

Gallery format doesn’t usually work well for developer portfolios. We suggest Classic or Case study format where you can tell a complete story of the case.

Less text, more numbers and visuals.

Yes, the portfolio case study should be telling a story about project challenges and solutions (We highly recommend STAR format: Situation-Task-Actions-Result), so you will be using words and text, of course. But the more visuals, screenshots, testimonials and numbers you add, the easier it will be for the client to read and understand the case.

A few more small tips for developer portfolio on Upwork:

Upwork will show 3 portfolios by default and then the client needs to click to view the second page. Use these 3 slots to showcase your 3 main skills. For example, first case will be titled ‘General Web Development’, second case on ‘Landing Page Creation’, and 3rd case on ‘MVP Development’.
Add a new portfolio item every two months. This ensures your profile remains fresh and aligned with Upwork’s algorithms
If you are not a great writer (you are a developer after all), leverage AI. Write what you can and then ask ChatGPT to turn the information into an engaging and converting case study.
Make sure the thumbnail looks nice, it will decide if anyone ever even clicks on it or no. Use 795x595px dimensions, have title and visual snippet on the thumbnail. You can also add logos and icons for the skills you used.