Prolance

Tech career networking platform connecting students, professionals, and startups

Next.jsReactTypeScriptNode.jsMongoDBTailwind

The Problem

Student developers and early-career engineers struggle to reach the startups that would hire them, while small teams have no efficient way to surface genuinely matched talent. Both sides fall back on cold outreach that mostly goes unanswered.

The Solution

Prolance is an exclusive networking hub built around matching rather than broadcasting: profiles carry verified skills, startups post roles, and a skills analyzer scores fit so both sides see a short list of relevant matches instead of an endless feed.

Key Features

Skill-matched job discovery for student and early-career developers
Startup role posting with candidate fit scoring
Community feed, events, and curated learning resources
Profile skill analysis that surfaces match percentage
Direct messaging and notifications between members
Light and dark themes across the whole product

Architecture

Next.js App Router frontend in TypeScript with Tailwind and Shadcn UI, backed by an Express/Node.js API and MongoDB. Auth is JWT-based with role separation for members, recruiters, and admins; the frontend deploys to Vercel.

Results

Shipped as a working MVP with the full networking surface live — profiles, jobs, events, community, and resources — running publicly on Vercel.

Timeline

3 months — solo design, development, and deployment

Lessons Learned

· Matching quality beats feed volume — showing five relevant roles converted better than showing fifty.
· Scaffolding the whole information architecture before styling kept the product coherent as sections were added.

Future Improvements

· Recruiter analytics on candidate pipelines
· AI-assisted profile and pitch writing

Next project

VisaEnsure