How to Start a Technical Blog When You Feel Like You Have Nothing to Say
TL;DR - "I have nothing to say" is usually "I think I need to be an expert before I write." You don't. - The best technical posts come from someone one step ahead of a beginner, not an authority on a subject. - Where you publish matters less than whether you publish. Dev.to is a fine starting point. - Your first post does not have to be good. It has to exist. - Consistency means one post a month, not one post a week.
The "I have nothing to say" problem stops more developers from writing than any technical barrier. It is not a writing problem. It is a belief problem. Specifically, the belief that technical writing is for people who have achieved something worth writing about.
That belief is incorrect, and it is costing you visibility during your job search.
Why you think you have nothing to say
The mental model most developers have about technical writing is built from what they read. They read polished documentation, deep-dive conference talk summaries, and blog posts by engineers at large companies. The bar that content implicitly sets is high. Expert-level explanations from people who have been in the field for years.
So when a junior developer thinks about writing, they compare the post they might write to the posts they have been reading. The comparison is unfair and the conclusion is predictable: "I am not qualified to write anything worth reading."
But readers do not always want expert explanations. Readers who are stuck on a problem often want an explanation from someone who was stuck on the same problem last week. That explanation is more relatable, more likely to match the search terms they used, and more likely to address the exact confusion they have rather than the generalized overview an expert would write.
You do not need expertise. You need to be one step ahead of someone who has the same question you had recently. That is a bar you can meet right now.
The rubber duck post
The single most effective format for a first technical post is what some writers call the rubber duck post. The concept comes from rubber duck debugging: explaining your problem out loud to an inanimate object often helps you solve it, because articulating something forces you to understand it.
The rubber duck post works the same way. You pick one concept you just learned or one problem you just solved. You write an explanation of it as if you were talking to someone who is where you were before you understood it. You are not writing for an expert. You are writing for past-you.
This format works for several reasons. It matches how people search for help. Someone stuck on the same problem will search for the same terms you would have searched for. It is honest about level (you are not claiming to be an authority, just sharing what worked for you). And it is achievable. You do not have to know everything about a topic to explain one specific part of it clearly.
A rubber duck post is also useful for your job search specifically. It demonstrates exactly the kind of communication skill that hiring managers say they want: the ability to explain technical things clearly and without unnecessary jargon.
Where to publish
The platform question trips people up because it feels consequential. It is not. Here are the three real options.
Dev.to is free to use and your posts will get some organic traffic just from the platform's own audience. You do not need a custom domain, a hosting plan, or any configuration. You sign up and write. For someone whose goal is to start writing rather than to build infrastructure, Dev.to is the right starting point. The community skews junior-to-mid-level, which means your posts land with people who are likely to find them useful.
Hashnode is similar in terms of free access and built-in audience, but it adds one feature that matters: you can map your own domain to your blog. This means posts appear at blog.yourname.com even though Hashnode handles all the hosting and routing. For developers who want their writing to feel like part of their personal brand without running a server, this is a good option.
A page on your portfolio site is the most controlled option. Everything lives in one place. The tradeoff is no built-in audience. A post on your personal site will not get picked up by a platform's readers. The practical middle path many developers use is to write posts on Dev.to or Hashnode with the canonical URL set to their portfolio, which tells search engines that the authoritative version lives on their own site.
The choice between these matters far less than making a choice and starting. The developer who publishes three posts on Dev.to is in a better position than the developer who has been thinking about building a custom blog with the perfect setup for six months.
How long a post needs to be
Shorter than you think.
Most developers who are planning their first post have a target length in mind. Usually somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 words, because that is roughly the length of the posts they have read. This expectation creates paralysis before a single sentence is written.
A useful technical post can be 500 words. It can be 800 words. If a concept can be explained clearly in 400 words, a 1,200-word post is worse, not better. Length is not a proxy for quality. Clarity is.
The question to ask is: does the reader understand the thing by the end? If yes, the post is done. If you are adding sections to hit a word count, stop.
Shorter posts are also more likely to actually get written. The developer who publishes ten 600-word posts is more visible than the developer who has been working on one 3,000-word guide for two months.
How often to post
One post a month is a reasonable target during a job search. That is not a high bar. It is achievable without making writing your second job.
The instinct to write more frequently often leads to burnout or to publishing work that is not ready. Consistency is more important than frequency. One post a month for four months is twelve times more visible than twelve posts in one month and then nothing.
If you write more than once a month, great. But the commitment is one. Write it, publish it, move on. Do not let the gap between posts become evidence that you quit.
How to get your first readers
For early posts, the audience is small by default. That is fine. Here is what actually works.
Share in communities you are already part of. If you are in a developer Discord or Slack, share your post with a one-sentence description. Not as spam, but as a genuine "I wrote about this, might be useful." Most communities have a channel for sharing work.
Share on LinkedIn. A post that links to your article with a brief note about why you wrote it is a legitimate LinkedIn post. It is not self-promotion in the annoying sense. It is a developer sharing something they made. Posting on LinkedIn as a developer covers what makes those shares land well.
Tag the technology. If you wrote about React or Django or a specific library, there is usually a community around that technology. Those communities are often welcoming to beginner-friendly content because they remember needing it.
You do not need hundreds of readers. You need three to five. One of them might be a recruiter. One of them might be a developer who shares it in their team Slack. The goal is not a large audience. The goal is a findable record of your thinking.
What to write for your first post
Ignore everything you think a first post is supposed to be. It does not need to introduce yourself, explain your background, or justify why you are writing. Those openers are the most common reason readers stop reading.
Start with the thing.
Here is a reliable format for a first post: "I spent three hours figuring out why [specific problem] was happening. Here is what I found."
That is it. Document a problem you recently solved. Include what you thought the problem was, what it turned out to be, and how you figured it out. Add any code snippets that would have helped you. Write it in the same tone you would use to explain it to a colleague. Publish it.
That post is useful. It is honest about where you are. It demonstrates how you think. It is searchable because it uses real error messages or real terminology that others will search for. And it exists, which is more than most developers who are planning to start a blog can say.
After the first post
The second post is easier. Not a lot easier, but noticeably. The blank page problem is smaller when you have already done it once.
For ideas after the first post, the most reliable source is your own work. What to write about as a junior engineer goes through specific categories that produce reliable content without requiring you to come up with original topics from scratch.
Keep a running list of problems you solve, concepts that finally clicked, or tools you compared. That list is your editorial calendar. When you sit down to write, you are not starting from nothing.
The connection to your broader job search
A technical blog does not operate in isolation. It connects to writing online as a developer, which covers the ways that being findable online actually shifts how hiring managers encounter you. It connects to your portfolio and your GitHub. Each piece of your online presence reinforces the others.
For job seekers specifically, the blog serves one primary function: it gives hiring managers something to read that shows you can communicate technical ideas in writing. That is a distinct signal from a coding exercise or a resume. It is also one of the signals that is hardest to fake, which is exactly why it works.
The most common version of "I never started" is "I was waiting until I had something worth saying." You already have something worth saying. The problem you solved this week, the concept that clicked yesterday, the bug you fixed this morning. Write it down. Publish it somewhere. It is worth more than you think.
Related reading: what to write about as a junior engineer gives you a full list of content categories that work without requiring original expertise. For how writing fits into your broader visibility as a developer, personal branding for software engineers covers the bigger picture.
If you want structured support building the habits and visibility that get junior developers hired, here's how the Globally Scoped program works.
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