Building an AI SaaS for resumes/job applications, would love honest feedback from founders & engineers
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how software engineering hiring works today, especially for people early in their careers or even experienced engineers trying to switch roles.
It feels like modern hiring has slowly become a game of:
- ATS optimization,
- keyword matching,
- resume branding,
- and presenting experience in the “right” way.
Meanwhile, I’ve met incredibly smart engineers with strong fundamentals who struggle to even get interviews, while others who are simply better at positioning themselves get much more visibility.
That idea pushed me into building a side project over the last few months: https://rolliocv.com
Not trying to promote it here honestly I’m more interested in the engineering/product side of the problem and hearing perspectives from other developers.
The project started as an experiment around questions like:
- Can resumes be personalized better for each role automatically?
- Can ATS optimization be made less painful?
- Can the application process feel less repetitive?
- Can AI actually help candidates meaningfully instead of just generating generic text?
So far I’ve built:
- a full resume + cover letter editor,
- an application tracker,
- AI workflows for tailoring resumes to job descriptions,
- and currently a browser extension for faster applications.
Everything has been built solo from scratch so far, which has honestly been one of the most challenging and rewarding engineering experiences I’ve had.
But what I’m really curious about is this:
Do you think tools like this are becoming genuinely necessary because of how hiring works now, or do you think the entire hiring process itself is the real problem?
Would love to hear honest opinions from engineers especially people involved in hiring, recruiting, startups, or anyone who’s been applying recently.