Cloud Run — Portfolio Projects
Build these projects to demonstrate real skills to employers. Each project is designed to be interview-worthy — something you can walk through in detail.
Project 1: Container-to-URL Deployment Pipeline
Level: Beginner | Time: 2 days
Take a small existing app (any language), containerize it, and deploy it to Cloud Run with a real CI/CD pipeline — every push to main produces a new revision automatically.
Steps
Dockerfile for your app (or use --source and let Buildpacks handle it)
gcloud run deploy and confirm the public URL works
main
--set-secrets)
--no-allow-unauthenticated and grant access via roles/run.invoker to a specific caller identity
Skills Demonstrated
GitHub Repo Name
cloud-run-deploy-pipeline
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Project 2: Canary-Deployed API with Rollback
Level: Intermediate | Time: 3 days
Build a REST API on Cloud Run and practice a real canary release: ship a breaking change to 10% of traffic, detect it's broken, and roll back — all without redeploying old code.
Steps
--no-traffic and a --tag, then shift 10% of traffic to it with update-traffic --to-tags
update-traffic --to-revisions
Skills Demonstrated
GitHub Repo Name
cloud-run-canary-api
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Project 3: Cost- and Latency-Tuned Production Service
Level: Advanced | Time: 5 days
Take a realistic workload (CPU-bound vs I/O-bound — pick one) and tune Cloud Run's concurrency, CPU allocation, and min-instances settings to hit a latency target at the lowest sustainable cost.
Steps
hey or k6) against your service
min-instances=0 vs min-instances>0 on cold-start-driven tail latency and the resulting cost difference
Skills Demonstrated
GitHub Repo Name
cloud-run-tuned-service
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Tips for Great Projects
Make it real. Solve an actual problem, even a small one. "Deployed a real webhook handler I actually use, on Cloud Run, with a real rollback story" is more impressive than a tutorial clone.
Document everything. A repo with a great README beats one with better code but no explanation. Include: what it does, why you built it, how to run it, what you learned.
Show your thinking. In interviews, you'll be asked: "Why did you choose X over Y?" Have a reason. Architecture decisions matter.
Iterate publicly. Make commits regularly. Employers look at commit history. 10 commits over a week shows real work; 1 commit with everything shows you copied it.