The story of shibulijack.in
Hello there! First of all, thank you for visiting my new portfolio website. Are you wondering why there are links similar to the ones at linkedin.com? Let me give you some background story.
EPISODE #1
The one with the late-night realizations 💡
(just another weekday, clock reads 11 PM)
I was glued to the endless scrolling content on my mobile, after all, I'm from this millennial generation where social media is a part & parcel of our lives. LinkedIn is my go-to social app, not Facebook (is it still relevant these days?), not even Twitter. Just as I was closing my eyes, I suddenly realized that LinkedIn lacks in one area.
UI. It looks a little outdated.
The profile page is a run-of-the-mill layout. There's a lot of white space on either side of the main section, which could be put into good use. And, being a fan of dark themes, I've always wanted LinkedIn to provide the users with an option to switch to dark mode.
"What if I redesigned LinkedIn in 2020?", I thought to myself.
EPISODE #2
The one with the new year resolutions 🌟
(flashback to Jan 1, 2020)
New year resolutions are meant to be broken, right? But not this time, I told myself.
"I am going to write at least one blog post per month"
My previous blog was powered by wordpress.org. WordPress is one of the best blogging platforms on the market and add to the fact that I've been a WordPress plugin author since my college days, it made sense to start with WP back then. But now, 8 years later, I wanted something new. I wanted a JAMstack setup for my new blog.
JAMstack = Javascript APIs Markup. It is not about specific technologies. It’s a new way of building websites and apps that delivers better performance, higher security, lower cost of scaling, and better developer experience.
EPISODE #3
The one where it all started 🚀
(Friday, March 20, 2020)
I woke up early in the morning, I couldn't sleep. I was pacing up and down the hall, while constantly unlocking my mobile to check for new messages/calls. I had just interviewed at LinkedIn a couple of days ago and was waiting for the result. Being an Ember.js fan, it was my dream to work at a company like LinkedIn, and so I was nervous that day.
"Congratulations! You have been selected for the role of Software Engineer at LinkedIn." - the HR.
That one phone call made my day! I was extremely happy and I couldn't sleep that night too, but this time due to the excitement. Due to the COVID situation, I had only virtual interviews and I hadn't been to the LinkedIn office yet. So I started googling about life at LinkedIn, checked out countless photos of the office, and read almost every engineering blog article. I saw a post quoting,
"LinkedIn apps are now on the latest Octane edition"
Although I've been using Ember.js for almost 3 years, the Ember team had just launched the "Octane" edition a few months back and I haven't had the opportunity to dive deep into it. That's when it hit me.
What if I revamped my portfolio website with the design language of my reimagined version of LinkedIn, using the latest and greatest of Ember.js with JAMstack approach!
I started making notes on my mind,
⚡️ The layout has to be fluid & responsive.
⚡️ Profile page should have tabs for "about", "experience", "education" & "project" sections for easy navigation and visual segregation.
⚡️ The app should bundle a separate blog engine which renders posts from Markdown files. To resonate with LinkedIn jargon, let's call it Pulse.
⚡️ The build output should be a pre-rendered website with all the goodness of JAMstack - better performance, higher security, cheaper & easier scaling, and better developer experience.
⚡️ Use this as an opportunity to explore the depths of Ember framework by working with Glimmer components, ember-engines, ember-fastboot, prember etc…
⚡️ And of course, the dark mode 🤷♂️
I woke up the next morning, bubbling with ideas and prototypes. I started working on it right away and after a couple of hackathon-like weekend coding sprints, shibulijack.in was live! Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below.
The End.
P.S: Season 2, coming soon!