Why did I use a template?

In the past I have created my own portfolios to prove that I knew what I was doing. As I have grown in experience, I stopped reinventing the wheel and decided to be more efficient with my time. Ultimately that's often what software engineering is about - being efficient with time. Being efficient with customer's time, my employer's time and my time. We build upon the work of others. No modern software company wants to spend the time, money and other resources to build the very basics again and again.

As I remade my portfolio over the years, I started to ask myself why I was reinventing the wheel. I have enough examples and projects to show that I can build modern software. As I thought about efficiency, I decided a template really was the best. I decided to build upon the work of others. This template contains quite a bit of customization as well as new components, but I was able to do it comfortably within a weekend.