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Prolay Panda
Prolay Panda

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New Year, New Me: Building an AI-Ready Developer Portfolio for the Google AI Challenge 2026

#devchallenge #googlecloud #googlecloudrun #antigravity

This is a submission for the New Year, New You Portfolio Challenge Presented by Google AI

About Me

Hi 👋, I’m Prolay Kumar Panda, a full-stack developer with strong experience in backend systems, SaaS platforms, and API-driven applications. Over the years, I’ve worked extensively with PHP (Laravel, CodeIgniter), Python, FastAPI, MySQL/PostgreSQL, NodeJs, NextJs, NestJs, and AI integration with modern frontend tools, building scalable applications for real-world use cases.

With this portfolio, my goal was to clearly showcase:

  • My technical skill set
  • The kinds of problems I enjoy solving
  • My ability to design, build, and deploy production-ready applications

This project is also part of my effort to start the new year with a strong, modern, and cloud-native developer presence.

Portfolio

Below is my live portfolio, deployed on Google Cloud Run and embedded directly into this post 👇

Deployment reference (DEV community friendly):

gcloud run deploy my-portfolio-app \
  --source . \
  --region europe-west1 \
  --no-allow-unauthenticated \
  --labels dev-tutorial=blog-devcommunity2026
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How I Built It

🧰 Tech Stack

  • Backend / App Framework: Python (FastAPI)
  • Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (clean, minimal UI)
  • Deployment: Google Cloud Run
  • Containerization: Docker
  • Cloud Platform: Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

🧠 Design & Development Decisions

  • Kept the UI simple, clean, and recruiter-friendly
  • Focused on performance, fast load time, and clarity
  • Designed sections to highlight skills, experience, and projects without clutter
  • Used Cloud Run for serverless scalability and easy deployments

🤖 Google AI & Cloud Tools

While this project is lightweight by design, Google Cloud tools played a major role:

  • Google Cloud Run for seamless container deployment
  • Google Cloud Build for automated builds
  • Leveraged AI-assisted development workflows for code optimization, content refinement, and UI clarity

This setup allows me to easily extend the portfolio later with AI-powered features like chatbots, project explainers, or resume analyzers.

What I'm Most Proud Of

✨ Live, serverless deployment – My portfolio isn’t just static; it’s a real cloud-hosted application.
✨ Clean architecture – Easy to maintain, extend, and scale.
✨ Professional presentation – Optimized for recruiters, hiring managers, and collaborators.
✨ Cloud-native mindset – Built with modern deployment practices, not just local hosting.

Most importantly, this project represents my commitment to continuously learning, adapting, and building with modern technologies as I move into 2025.

Thanks to DEV and Google AI for hosting this challenge and encouraging developers to showcase their growth and creativity.
Happy coding, and happy new year! 🎉👨‍💻

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