Portfolio Templates for 5 Roles: SWE, Data, PM, Designer, Marketing

Most people copy the wrong portfolio format. Your layout should match how your role is evaluated.

A software engineer is evaluated differently than a product manager, and a product manager is evaluated differently than a designer. Yet most portfolio advice treats all roles the same: "show your best work and tell a story." That is true but useless without specifics. The structure of your case studies, the type of evidence you prioritize, and the details you highlight all depend on what the hiring manager for your specific role actually cares about.

This guide gives you five role-specific portfolio templates. Each one is built around how that role is evaluated in real hiring processes. Pick the one that matches your target role, fill in your own work, and you will have a portfolio structure that speaks the right language.

Background: Why Role-Based Templates Matter

Hiring managers develop role-specific evaluation patterns. A frontend engineering manager looks for UI polish, performance awareness, and component architecture. A data science manager looks for analytical rigor, clear methodology, and communication of findings. A product manager hiring manager looks for structured thinking, prioritization reasoning, and user empathy.

When your portfolio uses the wrong format — say, a heavy process walkthrough when the role expects code and performance metrics — the evaluator has to work harder to extract the signal. Most will not bother. They will move to a candidate whose portfolio makes the relevant information obvious.

Columbia University's career education resources and UC Berkeley's career center both emphasize tailoring professional materials to the specific expectations of the target audience. For portfolios, this means structuring your case studies around what your target role's evaluators actually look for.

The NACE Career Readiness Competencies provide a cross-role framework, but the weight of each competency varies by role. Technology competency is critical for engineering. Communication and leadership matter more for PMs. Equity and inclusion awareness matters for design research. Your template should reflect these weights.

Template 1: Software Engineering (SWE)

What evaluators look for: Technical depth, system thinking, code quality, problem-solving under constraints.

Template structure for each project:

Problem

What was broken, slow, missing, or needed? One to two sentences. Include the user or business impact.

Example: "The internal admin tool took 12 seconds to load the customer list page, causing support agents to lose an average of 15 minutes per shift waiting for data."

Approach

What technical decisions did you make and why? This is where you show engineering judgment.

• Architecture or design pattern chosen (and what you rejected)
• Key libraries, frameworks, or tools used (and why)
• How you handled the hardest constraint (performance, scale, legacy code, timeline)

Example: "Replaced the monolithic SQL query with a paginated API endpoint using cursor-based pagination. Chose cursor-based over offset-based because the dataset was large (500K+ rows) and frequently updated, making offset pagination unreliable."

System

Describe the technical scope. What did the system look like? Include a brief architecture description or diagram.

• Frontend, backend, database, or infrastructure components you built
• Integrations with external services
• Testing strategy

Example: "React frontend with a Node/Express API layer. PostgreSQL database with Redis caching for the most-viewed customer segments. 87% test coverage with Jest and React Testing Library."

Results

Quantified outcomes. Performance numbers, adoption metrics, error rates, time saved.

Example: "Page load dropped from 12 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Support agent idle time decreased by 9 minutes per shift. Zero downtime during migration."

Links

GitHub repository, live demo, or technical blog post.

SWE portfolio tip: Include code quality signals. A clean README, meaningful commit history, and test coverage show professionalism that a polished UI alone cannot convey.

Template 2: Data Analyst / Data Scientist

What evaluators look for: Analytical rigor, clear methodology, ability to translate data into action, communication of findings.

Template structure for each project:

Question

What question were you trying to answer? Frame it in terms the business or user cares about.

Example: "Which customer segments have the highest 90-day churn risk, and what behavioral signals predict churn early enough to intervene?"

Dataset

Describe the data: source, size, quality, and any cleaning or preparation you performed.

Example: "18 months of transaction data from a SaaS platform (240K rows). Required deduplication of 3% duplicate entries and imputation of missing signup dates for legacy users."

Method

What analytical approach did you take and why? Include the alternatives you considered.

• Statistical methods, models, or algorithms used
• Why this approach was appropriate for the data and question
• Validation strategy (train/test split, cross-validation, back-testing)

Example: "Used logistic regression as the baseline and gradient-boosted trees as the primary model. Chose gradient boosting over deep learning because the feature set was tabular with 23 features and the dataset size did not justify neural network complexity. 5-fold cross-validation for model selection."

Insights

What did you find? Present findings clearly with the most actionable insight first.

Example: "Users who did not log in within 72 hours of a billing cycle change had a 4.2x higher churn rate. The top 3 predictive features were login frequency, support ticket volume, and feature adoption breadth."

Impact

What happened because of your analysis? If this was a personal or academic project, describe what a business could do with these findings.

Example: "Recommended a targeted re-engagement email triggered at the 48-hour mark. Projected 15% reduction in 90-day churn if adoption behavior was addressed early."

Links

Jupyter notebook, GitHub repo, published dashboard, or slide deck.

Data portfolio tip: Show your communication ability. Include a summary visualization and a plain-language executive summary. Hiring managers want analysts who can explain their findings to non-technical stakeholders.

Template 3: Product Manager (PM)

What evaluators look for: Structured thinking, user empathy, prioritization reasoning, stakeholder management, outcomes.

Template structure for each project:

Problem

What was the user or business problem? Include evidence that the problem was real (user research, support tickets, metrics).

Example: "Enterprise customers reported that onboarding new team members took an average of 3 weeks. Support tickets related to onboarding accounted for 28% of total volume."

Discovery

How did you validate the problem and understand user needs?

• User interviews, surveys, or data analysis performed
• Key insights that shaped the solution direction
• Stakeholder alignment: who you brought in and how you got buy-in

Example: "Conducted 8 user interviews with enterprise admins. Key finding: 70% of onboarding friction came from permissions setup, not feature learning. Aligned engineering and customer success teams on a phased approach."

Trade-offs

What options did you consider, and why did you choose the path you chose?

Example: "Option A: Rebuild permissions from scratch (12 weeks, high impact). Option B: Add a guided setup wizard on top of existing permissions (4 weeks, moderate impact). Chose Option B because it addressed 70% of the pain with 33% of the effort, and we could gather data for a full rebuild in Phase 2."

Roadmap

How did you scope and sequence the work?

Example: "Phase 1 (4 weeks): Guided setup wizard for new team members. Phase 2 (8 weeks): Role-based permission templates. Phase 3 (deferred): Full permissions redesign based on Phase 1-2 data."

Outcomes

Business or user outcomes after launch.

Example: "Onboarding time dropped from 3 weeks to 5 days. Onboarding-related support tickets decreased by 42%. Enterprise NPS increased from 38 to 51."

PM portfolio tip: Show the reasoning, not just the result. PMs are hired for how they think, not what they shipped. The trade-offs section is the most important part of your case study.

Template 4: Designer (UX/UI)

What evaluators look for: Design process, user-centered thinking, iteration based on feedback, visual quality.

Template structure for each project:

Process

How did you approach the design problem? Start with research and end with delivery.

Example: "Started with a competitive audit of 5 similar tools. Identified common usability issues through heuristic evaluation. Created a research plan to validate assumptions with real users."

Iterations

Show the design evolution. Include early concepts, mid-fidelity wireframes, and final designs.

• What changed between versions and why
• User feedback that drove specific changes
• Design decisions you made and the reasoning behind them

Example: "V1 used a sidebar navigation pattern. User testing with 6 participants revealed that 4 out of 6 could not find the settings page. V2 moved to a top navigation bar with clear labels. Task completion rate for settings improved from 33% to 100%."

Rationale

Explain your design decisions using principles, data, or user insights — not just personal preference.

Example: "Chose a single-column layout for the onboarding flow because research shows linear flows reduce cognitive load for first-time users. Used progressive disclosure to avoid overwhelming new users with advanced settings."

Visuals

Include high-quality screenshots, prototypes, or interaction demos. This is the section where visual quality matters most.

• Final UI screens (desktop and mobile)
• Key interaction patterns (micro-animations, transitions)
• Design system components you created or contributed to

Designer portfolio tip: Show the before and after. The contrast between the initial state and your final design is the most persuasive evidence of your impact. Include real user feedback if available.

Template 5: Marketing

What evaluators look for: Strategic thinking, creative execution, experimentation, data-driven decisions.

Template structure for each project:

Channel

What channel or platform was the campaign for? Context about the audience and goal.

Example: "Email reactivation campaign targeting 15,000 inactive users (no login in 60+ days) for a B2B SaaS product."

Creative

What was the campaign creative? Include examples: subject lines, ad copy, landing page designs, or content pieces.

Example: "Tested 3 subject line variants: direct ('We miss you — here is what is new'), value-led ('3 features released since your last login'), and urgency ('Your data export expires in 7 days'). Each variant linked to a personalized landing page showing features released during the user's inactive period."

Experiment

How did you structure the test? Sample sizes, timing, control groups, success metrics.

Example: "Split 15,000 users into 3 equal groups. Sent on Tuesday at 10am ET based on historical open rate data. Primary metric: 7-day reactivation (at least one login). Secondary metric: feature adoption within 14 days."

Metrics

What were the results? Include the numbers that matter for the business.

Example: "Urgency variant won with a 24% open rate and 8.3% reactivation rate vs. 6.1% for direct and 5.8% for value-led. Reactivated users showed 2.1x higher feature adoption than organically returning users. Estimated $18K in recovered ARR."

Marketing portfolio tip: Show the experiment structure, not just the creative. Marketing hiring managers want to see that you think in hypotheses and measure outcomes, not just that you can write good copy.

How to Choose Your Template

Pick the template that matches the role you are applying for, not the role you currently have. If you are switching from marketing to product management, use the PM template for your new projects and the marketing template for your past work (framed as transferable evidence).

If you target multiple roles, create separate portfolio versions. A portfolio that tries to serve both engineering and PM audiences serves neither well. One role, one template, one clear message per portfolio version.

If none of these roles match yours exactly, pick the closest one and adapt. A technical writer would use a structure similar to the data template (question, method, deliverable, impact). A solutions engineer would blend the SWE and PM templates (technical depth plus stakeholder communication).

Tie-In: Manage Versions

When you create role-specific portfolio versions, tracking which version you send to which employer becomes critical. Sending a PM-focused portfolio to a design role — or vice versa — undermines the entire point of tailoring.

Use MyJobTracker to tag each application with the portfolio version you used. Note which template structure you followed and which projects you highlighted. Over time, you will see which version generates the best callback rate and can optimize accordingly.

TLDR: Copy-Paste Blocks

SWE: Problem, Approach, System, Results, Links

Data: Question, Dataset, Method, Insights, Impact, Links

PM: Problem, Discovery, Trade-offs, Roadmap, Outcomes

Designer: Process, Iterations, Rationale, Visuals

Marketing: Channel, Creative, Experiment, Metrics

Pick one role template, publish it on LinkSpaghetti, and track which version you use per application in MyJobTracker.