Algorithm sites test puzzle-solving on synthetic problems - useful for one interview round, not for the actual job. Side projects used to prove you could build, but AI builds one in seconds now - so it proves nothing. HeyDevJob drops you into a real production environment with real broken systems: a postgres replica that won't catch up, an nginx config returning 502s, a JWT secret leaking into logs. The operational work AI can't fake - with a portfolio at the end to show for it.

A live cloud sandbox with a real terminal, real services (postgres, redis, nginx, docker, kubernetes - whatever the project needs), and a real broken state set up for you. Edit code, restart services, tail logs, run kubectl get pods. It's the same environment a backend engineer at a startup would touch on day one - minus the on-call.

Junior projects assume you can read code and use a terminal - one thing to find, one thing to change. Mid projects are multi-step investigations. Senior projects are architecture-level. Start at Junior, move up when you're ready. Most users finish their first Junior project in under 30 minutes.

A public URL like heydevjob.com/u/yourname with every project you've completed: title, role, difficulty, tags, the date you passed the check. Look at the example portfolios in the section above - that's what a recruiter sees when they open the link in your resume.

Yes, and they're all free. Real AWS work spread across DevOps, Backend, and Security: locking down public S3 buckets, scoping IAM policies, draining stuck SQS queues, debugging broken Lambda triggers, authoring Terraform modules. The same work highly-paid AWS engineers do every day - and proof you can do it is added to your portfolio.

Free forever to start - 5 Junior projects a month across all seven roles, your portfolio, everything. Pro ($20/mo) unlocks Mid and Senior projects and unlimited monthly projects. No credit card to sign up.

Your first passing check writes to your portfolio immediately. Most people finish their first project in their first session. Three projects in is usually enough to put the URL in your resume and start linking it in cold outreach.