Building Jobby

After being laid off during the post-COVID correction, I decided to give myself time for self-directed learning. I'd been coding pretty much non-stop for over a decade and needed time to slow down, step back, and upskill in areas I hadn't had time to explore.

That time away ended up changing how I learn and how I build. I stopped trying to force outcomes and instead focused on the process, shipping, testing, refining, and understanding why things worked the way they did.

From WonderBook to Jobby

After getting WonderBook to a production-ready point, I wanted to create something more grounded, something that solved a clear problem people actually had. That turned into Jobby, an AI-powered CV builder and job tracking workspace.

The idea came from my own frustration with the process. I was spending hours in other CV tools, tweaking layouts and adjusting phrasing for every application. Most tools gave you templates but no real help with tailoring your story to different roles. Just fifty versions of the same blue and grey layout with your name in slightly different fonts.

I knew if I wanted to apply for jobs in time, I had to be able to customise my CV insanely fast, but in a way where it still told my story well and looked professional. So I built a system that could handle the tailoring automatically, clean formatting, improved tone, and structure that adapted to the job description.

It didn't take long before I learnt how expensive even a small SaaS can get. API costs, hosting, and tooling all pile up fast. Turns out "just use AI" translates to "watch your AWS bill climb while you sleep." And I realised how little I actually knew about the business side of things, pricing, user value, retention, and marketing (which is a whole other beast of its own). Getting people to sign up, building trust, and getting it out there in the first place, all the stuff you usually only think about once it's too late.

Jobby became my crash course in product economics and how product and business decisions connect.

What Jobby Does (and The Stack)

Jobby brings together a CV builder, AI tailoring, and job tracker in one place.

• Guided CV Builder - a step-based interface for entering experience, skills, and personal details
• AI Tailoring - analyses a job description and adjusts your summary, keywords, and tone automatically
• PDF Export - built with @react-pdf/renderer, accurate right down to layout and spacing
• Billing & Limits - handled with Stripe and Supabase to separate free and pro tiers

The stack runs on Next.js 15, React 19, Supabase, and Vercel AI SDK. I used TanStack Query for caching, React Hook Form with Zod for validation, and Tailwind with Framer Motion for animations.

Everything is modular with clear separation between logic and presentation, which keeps it easy to scale and reason about later.

Useful Over Clever

I built Jobby partly for myself, so that when I was ready to start looking for work again, I'd have a tool that made the process faster and less repetitive. It needed to be practical, fast, and genuinely useful, not just another project sitting in a repo.

Building it that way made me think harder about real-world trade-offs, things like what to automate, where to keep human input, and how to balance features against cost.

What I Learnt

Jobby pushed me to think more like a system designer than a coder.

• Sustainability vs Feature Scope - every API call costs something, so I kept AI features focused on the areas that delivered the most value
• Simplicity vs Flexibility - clear, predictable UX flows always win over clever ones, and modular design gives flexibility without chaos
• Business literacy - if you can't explain how it makes money, it's not ready (and "maybe ads later?" is not a business model)

Having full control over the project made me see every inefficiency I used to ignore in full-time roles. It wasn't about taking time off, it was about learning deliberately.

Jobby taught me how to link engineering with reasoning and how to build with both the product and the system in mind.

That time wasn't a gap, it was a rebuild. Though I'm sure some recruiters would still call it "unexplained time off" on my CV. It gave me the space to align code, design, and business thinking into one rhythm. It reminded me why I build, not just to make something work, but to make something useful.