This is a submission for the New Year, New You Portfolio Challenge Presented by Google AI
About Me
I’m Archit, a frontend developer who loves building clean, scalable interfaces and turning complex ideas into intuitive user experiences. Over the past year, I’ve worked deeply with React, component libraries, and real-world product systems, and I wanted my portfolio to reflect more than just what I’ve built. I wanted it to show how I think, how I solve problems, and how I design experiences. This project became my way of treating my portfolio like a real product instead of a static resume, and using it to showcase both my technical skills and design mindset in a way that actually feels useful to the people viewing it.
🛠️ How I Built It
Designing for real users, not just layouts
I built my portfolio using React and React Router, but the real focus wasn’t the stack, it was the experience. Instead of another long scrolling page, I designed the site like a product journey where users can choose how they want to explore my work. Some people want a fast overview, others want deeper context, and some want to understand the technical decisions behind projects. React Router made it easy to structure these different paths cleanly while keeping the architecture scalable, maintainable, and closer to how real-world frontend applications are built.
Using Gemini CLI as a development partner
Throughout development, I used Gemini CLI as a thinking partner rather than a code generator. I leaned on it to refine UX copy, validate component boundaries, reason through routing flows, and debug deployment issues. Having AI available directly in the terminal made iteration faster and more enjoyable, especially when working through Docker setup and Cloud Run configuration problems. Instead of replacing my thinking, Gemini sharpened it, acting like a second brain I could bounce ideas off while building.
Shipping to production with Cloud Run
For deployment, I containerized the application and shipped it to Google Cloud Run. I deliberately avoided traditional static hosting because I wanted this portfolio to run in a real production environment. Cloud Run forced me to think about environment-based port binding, health checks, serving optimized builds, and debugging cold starts. That extra friction turned out to be a gift because it made the project feel like real engineering work rather than just another side project deployment.
What I’m Most Proud Of
A portfolio that feels like a product
What I’m most proud of is how this portfolio feels like a product instead of a personal website. The multiple exploration paths, clean routing structure, and intentional UX decisions make it easy for different users to get what they want quickly, whether that’s a recruiter scanning for experience or a developer diving into technical details. It reflects how I actually build software in real teams, where clarity, intent, and usability matter more than flashy visuals.
Using AI thoughtfully, not as a shortcut
I’m also proud of how intentionally I used AI in this project. Instead of treating Gemini as a shortcut, I used it as a collaborator to improve decisions, speed up iteration, and strengthen the final result. Combined with deploying on Cloud Run, this project helped sharpen both my frontend and production engineering skills. More than just a portfolio refresh, this became a product exercise, a UX experiment, and a real-world deployment challenge rolled into one.