Building My New Portfolio: A Developer's Journey

September 16, 2025

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Welcome to my new website! As a software engineering student, I wanted my portfolio to be more than just a resume. It needed to show my skills and my love for building interesting, interactive things for the web.

This post is about the technology I used to create this site. It’s also about a personal challenge: what happens when a developer who usually works on logic and algorithms tries to build something visual?

Leaving My Comfort Zone

To be honest, I’m not mainly a frontend developer. I am most comfortable with C++ and solving complex problems with code. In that area, speed is the most important thing, and the “user interface” is usually just a simple command line.

Frontend development felt like a totally different world. It’s where code meets design, and where the user’s experience is the most important goal. So, this project was a big challenge for me. I wanted to see if I could use my engineering mindset to build something creative for the browser.

The Tools I Chose

I needed the right tools to build a site that was both very fast and very interactive.

Here is what I chose:

  • Astro: I used Astro as the main framework because it builds extremely fast websites. It makes pages load almost instantly. It also has a great system for managing this blog, which makes writing new posts easy.

  • Svelte: For the interactive parts of the site, I used Svelte. It’s simple and doesn’t have a lot of confusing code, which was great for me. It turns into very efficient JavaScript, which fits my way of thinking.

  • Tailwind CSS: To design the site, I used Tailwind. It let me create a custom look and feel quickly without writing a lot of separate CSS files.

  • GSAP & Matter.js: These were for the fun parts! I used GSAP to create all the smooth animations, like the one on the homepage. To make the projects page more interesting than a simple grid, I used Matter.js to add physics. This was a perfect mix of my two worlds: using logic and physics to create a fun, visual experience.

What I Learned

This project was a great learning experience. I spent a lot of time working on animations and CSS to make sure the site works well on both phones and computers. It taught me that frontend is a deep and challenging area of engineering that needs both technical skill and an eye for design.

The best part was seeing my code turn into a real, interactive experience that people can use. This portfolio is not just a list of my other projects; it is a project itself. It shows that no matter what you specialize in, the best part of engineering is learning new things and building something new.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy looking around!