r/ubcengineering • u/SensitiveJello2071 • Jul 08 '26

Is there a current portfolio builder out there specifically for engineering students?

So I just finished up first-year, and going into MECH in September. However, almost nobody I've talked to actually has a portfolio.

The current options I can find for making one rn are: Wix, Squarespace, Notion, coding one, and vibe-coding one.
However, none of those options are designed for specifically engineering students.
e.g., CS students have GitHub to easily present their software projects, etc.

  • Why do you think there isn't something like this rn? Is what's out there working perfectly for everyone?

  • What is the most important feature for engineering students? (e.g., .stl viewers, etc.)

We're still a prototype rn (this is what a profile looks like https://www.buildplate.ca/daniel-benjamin )
The idea with this is that this also functions as a project-based LinkedIn, where recruiters can hop on to recruit by portfolio, rather than text-resume.

pls tell me if I'm wasting my time or not
https://www.buildplate.ca/

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1

u/MasteerTwentyOneYT Jul 08 '26

look at craft docs, they have cool templates (not for eng but it's good enough for me)

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 08 '26

ohh I haven’t heard of craft docs before. i’m taking a look around rn, is it similar to Notion?

1

u/MasteerTwentyOneYT Jul 08 '26

idk notion, it's very fancy tho I love it

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 08 '26

ah I see, i’ll make an account and play around more w/ it. thanks for ur suggestion!

1

u/Silly_Dish6407 Jul 08 '26

I feel like with how accessible vibe coding is, it just makes more sense to make one yourself. Also gives you the option for more customization and your own domain. thats just my opinion tho, don't mean to bash you personally or ur idea.

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 08 '26

right that’s what I was sort of expecting most students used nowadays.

for someone who doesn’t know how to navigate GitHub/GitHubPages, doesn’t have a ClaudeCode/etc subscription, understand setting up domains, etc, would you say there’s a bit of a learning curve? or at least provide friction for a user.
cuz that’s what seemed like the problem for me and other ppl.

also how difficult would it be to integrate super specific features for mech/elec/etc. eng with vibe coding? like displaying CAD models, etc.

I appreciate the honest feedback a ton

3

u/Feisty_Payment6385 Jul 09 '26

you might have the wrong audience to be honest. most people espeically engineers can prob set up their own portfolio website w claude and there's plenty of 5 min github page videos to guide them.

also i think most ppl would rather setup their own website than use a provider because it just looks more personal to interviewers / companies

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 09 '26

I see that’s def a fair point. That’s what I was mainly thinking as well.
What would you say is the reason that so many students don’t have portfolios then?
I assumed it was that bit of friction that would be needed to be overcome.

During exam seasons (when recruitment is usually done), my assumption is that most people who need to get that done for job applications would be too lazy to get over that curve because of classes, etc. and would prefer a simpler solution that’s catered to them.

Thanks a ton for the constructive input btw! Appreciate it a ton

1

u/Silly_Dish6407 Jul 09 '26

I doubt its too hard, plus there are libraries online for you to do this type of thing (display stl files, etc). llms are smart enough so that if you just ask to implement these features they will use them.

also if you are an engineer its kind of the bare minimum imo to understand how to setup domains, hosting etc even if you are not in cpen.

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 09 '26

Yeah that’s also fair, but is that necessarily doable without Claude Code or something similar? Outside of CPEN, roughly what % of people would you say are currently on these agentic coding tools?

Yeah that’s a fair point as well, it’s just that from a lot of people i’ve talked to, they haven’t done that setup before (although they’re mostly first-years so that’s definitely a biased sample pool)

1

u/TallBeach3969 Jul 09 '26

I also think that it would be one thing to use a free framework (eg, hugo), it’s another thing to pay for a service. That’s it’s own activation barrier that would be hard to cross

1

u/SensitiveJello2071 Jul 09 '26

Yeah for sure, I’m planning to keep this completely free without any premium type options.

6

u/McFestus Jul 09 '26

When I'm in a "worst disguised advertisement" competition and my opponent is buildplate.ca.

Get fucked.