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Henry Ohanga
Henry Ohanga

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Building Career Architect: An AI-Powered Job Application Pipeline for Engineers

#ai #automation #career #productivity

Introduction

As a software engineer, the job application process can feel like an endless cycle of customization. Tailoring resumes for each role, crafting cover letters that highlight the right experiences, and optimizing for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) — it's all time-consuming and repetitive.

But what if your AI coding assistant could handle it all? That's the promise of Career Architect, an open-source project I built to automate job applications using AI. Paste a job description, and let AI generate tailored materials that make you stand out.

In this technical deep dive, I'll explore how Career Architect works under the hood, its key features, and the architecture that makes it possible.

The Problem with Traditional Job Applications

Job hunting is inefficient by design:

  • Manual Customization: Every resume needs tweaking to match the job's requirements.
  • ATS Optimization: Keywords must be woven in naturally to pass automated filters.
  • Time-Intensive Process: Cover letters, interview prep, and follow-ups add up.

Engineers deserve better tools. Career Architect treats job applications as a system to optimize.

How Career Architect Works

The workflow is simple:

  1. Paste Job Description: Provide the JD to your AI assistant.
  2. AI Generates Materials: Tailored resume, cover letter, interview questions.
  3. Build PDFs: Use LaTeX and Pandoc to create professional documents.

It's designed for AI assistants like Claude, GPT-4, or Copilot, making it an extension of your coding environment.

Key Features

Career Architect packs powerful features for modern engineers:

  • 🤖 AI-Native Workflow: Integrates seamlessly with AI assistants for natural interaction.
  • 📊 Metrics-Driven Resumes: Uses the SAR (Situation-Action-Result) framework for impactful achievements.
  • 🎯 Vertical Targeting: Adapts tone for startups (bold), scale-ups (collaborative), or big tech (methodical).
  • 📄 Multi-Format Export: Generate PDF, DOCX, TXT, and JSON from single Markdown sources.
  • 🔍 Gap Analysis: Identifies skill gaps and suggests improvements.
  • 🎤 Interview Prep: Generates likely questions with mock coaching.
  • 📈 ATS Scoring: Analyzes keyword matches to optimize for ATS.
  • 🌐 Web Dashboard: Streamlit-based UI for managing applications visually.
  • 🔗 Job Board Scraping: Import from LinkedIn, Indeed, etc.
  • 📦 Batch Processing: Handle multiple jobs at once.

Tech Stack

Built with Python at its core:

  • Python 3.8+: Core logic and scripting.
  • Streamlit: Web dashboard for visual management.
  • LaTeX + Pandoc: Document generation and conversion.
  • Rich & Click: Beautiful CLI with progress bars.
  • Requests + BeautifulSoup4: Job scraping.
  • Pytest + Flake8: Testing and linting.

External tools: Pandoc for format conversion, LaTeX for PDFs.

Architecture

The project follows a modular design:

  • Prompts (.prompts/): Markdown files guiding AI behavior for each task (e.g., resume tailoring, cover letters).
  • Scripts (scripts/): CLI tools for building, scraping, and analyzing.
  • Templates (templates/): LaTeX styles for different visual themes.
  • Source Materials (source_materials/): User's identity, resumes, projects.
  • Applications (applications/): Generated outputs per job.

The "Modern Builder" framework emphasizes metrics and high-agency language.

Code Examples

Setting Up Your Profile

In source_materials/identity.json:

{
  "full_name": "Your Name",
  "email": "your@email.com",
  "preferences": {
    "language": "en",
    "resume_style": "modern_builder",
    "template": "executive"
  }
}
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CLI Usage

Create a new application:

python scripts/career.py new --company "Acme" --role "Senior Engineer"
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Build documents:

python scripts/career.py build
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Launch dashboard:

streamlit run app.py
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Benefits

  • Time Savings: Automate hours of work.
  • Consistency: Standardized, professional outputs.
  • Optimization: ATS-friendly with gap analysis.
  • Scalability: Handle multiple applications effortlessly.

Conclusion

Career Architect empowers engineers to focus on coding, not paperwork. It's open-source, so contributions are welcome on GitHub.

Try it out: Clone the repo, paste a JD, and let AI architect your career moves.

If you're building AI tools for productivity, what challenges have you solved?

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