The Backstory

In August 2024, I was laid off from my Sr. Full Stack Developer position at The Real Deal. I was looking for a new role, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the process. Every listing had 1000 applicants within hours, and I felt that I needed a way to stand out from the crowd… so I created a resume that was fun and interactive!

This project began with Interactive Resume, which is a Next.js application that uses a Sanity backend CMS. This worked great at first for me to build and deploy a lightweight interactive resume.

However, I wanted to expand this idea to make it easy for other people to sign up and create their own, without needing to sign up for Sanity, or have any development experience to get it off the ground.

This was when I discovered my new passion for building SaaS products! I was able to apply the technical knowledge I had gained over my career and apply it to my very own project… it was enlightening and fun.

You can view my own resume on the Amp’d Resume platform.

The Tech Stack

Next.js (App Router)

I went with Next.js (App Router) because it was a quick way to get a project up and running. I’m also very familiar with the complexities and benefits or using the Next.js framework as well as hosting on Vercel. Having this understanding early on meant that I could focus on the business logic and features of the project, rather than the technical details.

TypeScript

I went with TypeScript because it’s a great way to catch errors at compile time. I can’t imagine building a complex project without having access to strong typing out of the box.

Material UI (MUI)

I had to make a choice on a style system. Material UI (MUI) was a good choice because it’s built on top of Google’s Material Design system, it’s easy to customize and extend, and it’s well-documented.

GraphQL

I used GraphQL for the query system because I enjoy working with the structure of GraphQL queries and mutations. It lets me define the data I need, and the data I want to update, in a way that’s easy to understand and reason about.

Tanstack Query

I used Tanstack Query for the query system because it’s a great way to manage the state of the application. It’s easy to use, it’s well-documented, and the caching mechanism is great for performance.

Prisma

I used Prisma for the database because it’s an efficient way to manage the database schema. I love being able to deploy changes to the schema without ever needing to manually run SQL queries.

PostgreSQL

I used PostgreSQL for the database because it’s a mature database that’s well-documented and well-supported, and it should have no problem scaling to the needs of the project.

Terraform

I used Terraform for the infrastructure as code because it’s a secure and strict way to manage the infrastructure of the project. Currently, Terraform is only used to manage some facets of the project in AWS, such as S3 and CloudFront. The rest of the hosting is handled by Vercel for the web app, and DigitalOcean for the PostgreSQL database.

NextAuth

I used NextAuth for the authentication system because it’s a secure way to manage authentication without needing to reinvent the wheel. Amp’d Resume uses email magic link authentication or OAuth via Google and LinkedIn.

OpenAI API

Some LLM features are included in the project, such as the ability to import a PDF resume to match the intended structure of the data in the system. Another feature in the works is the ability to update a resume based on a provided job description.

The Future

The future of Amp’d Resume is to continue to expand the features of the project. I’m currently working on the ability to update a resume based on a provided job description.

Open Source

While the backend and primary app for Amp’d Resume are closed source, the theme is open source and available on GitHub. This means that anyone can use the theme to create their own resume, or customize the theme to their liking. This has been an excellent adventure! We recently celebrated our very first public PR. You can find more information about the theme on the GitHub repository.

This theme is bundled up and served as an npm package. This means that anyone can use the theme to create their own resume and host it outside of the Amp’d Resume platform if they’d like! The components accept a specific data structure defined in TypeScript, and will render according to the data provided.

If you’d like to support this project, please consider sponsoring me on GitHub (or give my repos a star!), buy me a coffee, and/or follow the page on LinkedIn.