I was tired of pasting LeetCode problems into ChatGPT — so I built a Chrome extension

Ranjeet Singh — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:07:13 +0000

I kept copy-pasting coding problems into ChatGPT during my job hunt. So I built CodeSage Pro — a Chrome extension that reads the problem already open on the page and helps you reason through it, one keystroke away. Free tier: 25 AI calls/month, no card. I'd genuinely love your feedback. 🙏

The dumb loop I did 50 times a day

A few months ago I was job hunting and grinding LeetCode, and I caught myself doing the same thing over and over:

Open a problem
Copy the prompt
Paste it into ChatGPT
Ask "how should I approach this?"
Tab back, lose my train of thought, repeat

The answers were useful — but the context switching wrecked my focus every time. The AI never knew what I was actually looking at, so I kept re-explaining the problem and the code I'd already written.

There had to be something better than babysitting two tabs.

So I built CodeSage Pro

It's a Chrome extension (and a macOS app) that sits on top of the page. Press Ctrl + Shift + Space and an overlay appears that has already read the problem and the code on your screen — no copy-paste, no re-explaining.

There are 13 actions, all one keystroke away:

Coach — walks you through the approach step by step (my favorite; it nudges instead of dumping the answer)
Explain — turns a confusing problem or snippet into plain English
Find Issues — bugs, off-by-ones, edge cases, with line references
Security Review — SQL injection, exposed secrets, unsafe calls
Refactor / Generate Tests / System Design — and more

It detects Monaco/CodeMirror editors, so it works on LeetCode, HackerRank, GitHub, Replit, CodeSignal and 20+ more with zero setup.

Why I'm posting here (the honest part)

Two reasons:

1. It might actually help some of you. The free tier is 25 AI calls/month with no credit card — enough to feel whether the "coach the approach" flow clicks for you.

2. I want real feedback. I built this to scratch my own itch and I'm at the stage where I need devs sharper than me to tell me what's missing.

A few things I'd love your take on:

Is approach-first coaching genuinely more useful than just getting the answer, or am I overthinking it?
What action would you add to the 13?
Onboarding is account → license key → first answer. Where would you drop off?

Pricing (because someone always asks)

Free: 25 AI calls/month, no card
$29/mo unlimited · $199/yr · $399 lifetime
One license covers both the Chrome extension and the macOS app

I deliberately priced it at a fraction of the $200–300/month some interview-prep tools charge — it started as a tool for my own job hunt, and I wanted it to actually be affordable for people in the same spot.

Try it / break it

🧩 Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/codesage-pro-%E2%80%94-universal/cbkkghdedpjamcicmnfpihehmgjemmhi
💻 macOS app + details: https://buildpilotlabs.com/chrome

If you try it, please tell me what sucks — drop a comment here or use the thumbs in the extension. I read everything.

Thanks for reading. Back to shipping. 🚀

I Built a Reddit-Style Community for Stock Market Traders While Job Hunting — Here's What I Learned

Ranjeet Singh — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:18:37 +0000

Six months ago, I was deep in a job search — sending applications, doing LeetCode, going through interview loops — and during all that downtime, I was also obsessively reading about the stock market.

I'm not a finance bro. I'm a developer. But I got really into trading communities online and noticed something frustrating: every platform for stock market discussion was either too noisy (Twitter/X), too gatekept (paid Discord groups), or dominated by memes with zero substance (Reddit's WSB).

So I did what any developer with too much free time does: I built something.

What I Built

MarketChacha is a Reddit-style community platform built specifically for stock market traders and investors. Think of it as a clean, focused forum where you can:

Share trade ideas with context and reasoning
Discuss earnings reports, IPOs, and macro events
Follow other traders and learn from their analysis
Post watchlists and get community feedback

The name "MarketChacha" — "Chacha" means uncle in Hindi — is a nod to that wise older relative who always seems to know what's happening in the market.

The Tech Stack

Since this is Dev.to, here's what's under the hood:

Frontend: Next.js with Tailwind CSS
Backend: Node.js + Express REST API
Database: PostgreSQL with Prisma ORM
Auth: JWT-based with Google OAuth
Hosting: Deployed on cloud infrastructure for reliability

One of the interesting challenges was building the voting/ranking algorithm for posts. I wanted something that surfaced timely content — a hot earnings post should rank higher today and drop off tomorrow. I ended up adapting a decay-based algorithm similar to what Reddit uses, tuned for financial content cycles.

What I Learned Building This While Job Hunting

1. Side projects are interview gold. Every single interview where I mentioned I was actively building and shipping something resulted in a much better conversation. Interviewers love to see that you don't just code for work — you code because you love it.

2. Community building is harder than the tech. Getting the first 100 users to a new platform is genuinely difficult. I've found that showing up consistently in financial Twitter and forums, adding real value in discussions, and organically mentioning the platform when relevant works better than any paid ad campaign.

3. Constraints force creativity. I had zero budget. Everything — hosting, tooling, infrastructure — had to either be free tier or open source. This actually made the architecture cleaner because I couldn't afford to over-engineer it.

4. Ship early, iterate fast. I launched with a very basic version — just post, comment, and upvote functionality. No fancy features. Real users gave me feedback I never would have thought of on my own.

Current Status

The platform is live and growing. We have traders sharing daily watchlists, discussing options strategies, and breaking down chart patterns. The community is still early but the engagement is genuine — people actually read and respond to each other rather than just broadcasting.

If you trade stocks, crypto, or just follow markets, come check it out: https://marketchacha.com

For Fellow Developers: Building in Public While Job Hunting

If you're currently in a job search and feeling stuck, I'd genuinely recommend picking a problem you care about and building something — even if it's small. It keeps your skills sharp, gives you something real to talk about in interviews, and honestly? The process of building for real users teaches you things no tutorial ever will.

The job search eventually worked out. But MarketChacha? That's the project I'm most excited about right now.

Have you built anything on the side during a job search? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

DEV Community: Ranjeet Singh