Building the Career Companion App: Monday Standup

Date: May 05, 2025

The Vision

The concept behind Career Companion is simple but powerful. Imagine having a digital coach that can take your resume, analyze it with advanced language processing, and return actionable insights. This means identifying the skills you already have, suggesting ones you need to develop, matching you with job opportunities, and even helping you prepare for salary negotiations. It’s all about making career growth more accessible, strategic, and personalized.

The Reality: Learning Through Challenges

But as with any ambitious project, the journey hasn't been without its hurdles. Right from the start, the project has presented a series of technical and strategic challenges that have pushed my problem-solving skills to the limit.

Cloud Configuration and Amplify Struggles: Setting up AWS Amplify for the project seemed straightforward at first. But soon, I ran into issues with environment configuration, with Amplify refusing to create the correct backend resources or showing errors related to existing stacks. This meant hours of troubleshooting CloudFormation stacks, manually cleaning up resources, and understanding the intricate dance of AWS permissions.

S3 Storage and Missing Buckets: Despite setting up S3 storage for resume uploads, the storage bucket was either missing or not properly linked. This caused a constant struggle where the app couldn’t find uploaded files, leading to repeated errors and confusion.

Lambda Function Errors: The core of the app’s intelligence comes from a Lambda function that uses Amazon Comprehend to analyze resumes. But getting this function to work properly has been an uphill battle. From permission errors to unexpected timeouts, almost every test has revealed a new issue to solve.

Database Connectivity Challenges: The app uses an Amazon RDS PostgreSQL database to store processed resume data. But establishing a reliable connection to this database has been far from simple. Timeout errors, misconfigured security settings, and SSL issues have all slowed down progress, each requiring deep dives into PostgreSQL and AWS settings.

Constant Debugging and Code Refinement: Even when one problem is solved, another seems to pop up. Whether it’s a missing environment variable, a misconfigured database, or a bug in the Lambda function code, the process has been a constant cycle of testing, error messages, and debugging.

Why This is Still Worth It

Despite these challenges, the project has been an incredible learning experience. Every problem solved is a new skill gained. Every error message is a reminder that perseverance is a developer’s greatest tool. The Career Companion app is becoming stronger with every fix, and I’m becoming a better developer in the process. The journey isn’t over, and I’m excited to see this app fully come to life. Stay tuned for more updates, where I’ll share both the victories and the setbacks that define this journey.