The results are in! We are thrilled to announce the winners of the New Year, New You Portfolio Challenge Presented by Google AI.
It was incredibly difficult for our judges to make final selections for this challenge. There was so much interactivity, creativity, and personal touches across all the portfolios we reviewed. A few common themes that surfaced were OS-inspired portfolios, game-based portfolios, and 3D portfolios. Overall, we were super impressed by all the participants - we received over 300 submissions!
We hope everyone who participated is proud of what they built and found the experience valuable. Hopefully, this was worth your time and you are actually using your submission as your portfolio!
Without further ado, our winners.
Congratulations To…
"I Built an Accessible Retro Gamified Portfolio (With Pixel Art, Games & OS System Vibes)"
@mewmewdevart asked a simple question while building her portfolio: where did the fun go? Instead of a traditional portfolio, she built an interactive 2D top-down game with handcrafted pixel art and a lot of CSS.
What makes this submission especially remarkable is the layer of care underneath: it meets WCAG 2.1 AA/AAA accessibility standards, supports full keyboard navigation and screen readers, and is available in English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.
"Stop Reading Resumes, Start Doomscrolling - a TikTok-style Portfolio with an AI Architect"
@cammanhhoang didn't want recruiters to read a PDF. They wanted to hijack the dopamine loop. The result is DevReels, a TikTok-style portfolio that presents project showcases as a cinematic, video feed.
What elevates this portfolio beyond a clever UI concept is "Ask The Architect": a context-aware AI agent powered by Gemini 1.5 Flash that can answer questions about specific projects.
"I Built a Windows 98–Style Desktop Portfolio with AI 💾"
There's something deeply personal about @uribejr's submission that sets it apart. Rather than simply reaching for a retro aesthetic, Enrique built an entire Windows 98-style desktop experience rooted in genuine nostalgia.
The result is a fully interactive OS-in-the-browser, complete with a centralized window manager, draggable overlapping windows, a SoundCloud-powered media player, a Pong mini-game, a persistent Notepad Messenger, and a Pixel Avatar Maker that lets visitors create and export their own retro character.
Runner-Ups
We also want to recognize our five runner-ups, who will each receive personalized feedback from the Google AI team. Give their submissions a look!
Portfolio Feedback
Our winners and runner-up participants will all receive direct feedback on their portfolio from Priya or Sara on the Google AI Team. Here is a little more information about each of them:
- Priya Pandey is a Developer Relations Engineering Manager at Google focusing on Serverless and Security. Prior to this she worked as a Senior Security Architect at Manulife, where she led architectural security initiatives. Before that, she spent over seven years at Deloitte in multiple countries , where she partnered with large-scale enterprises to tackle their most complex cloud security challenges and build robust managed products.
- Sara Ford is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at Google focusing on Cloud Run. Previously she worked at GitHub and Microsoft and taught software engineering at Cal Poly. She's a Distinguished Engineering Fellow at Mississippi State University and has a Masters degree in Human Factors (UX) from San Jose State University because she wants to make developer tools usable.
Prizes
In addition to portfolio feedback, our Winners (3) will each receive:
- $1,000 USD
- Exclusive DEV Badge
- A completion badge on their DEV profile
Our Runner-Ups (5) will receive:
- Personalized feedback on their portfolio
- Exclusive DEV Badge
- A completion badge on their DEV profile
All Participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge on their DEV profile.
A Note of Thanks to Our Sponsor
This challenge was made possible by Google AI. Participants built their portfolios using Google AI's powerful ecosystem — including AI Studio, Gemini, Antigravity, and Google Cloud Run. If you want to start building, Google AI Studio is the fastest way to get started.
What's next?
Stay tuned for more exciting challenges! Keep an eye on our challenges page and follow our challenge tags to be the first to know about new opportunities to build, create, and win.
#googleaichallenge
#devchallenge
We hope you had fun, felt challenged, and get to use the new portfolio you built.
See you next time!
Interested in being a volunteer judge for future challenges? Learn more here!