u/Medical_Break1385

Hey everyone, solo dev here. Just launched StudySprout after a few months of building.

The problem I kept running into: I'd have a folder full of PDFs and scattered notes with no real system for actually retaining what was in them. Note apps are good at storage, bad at retrieval. Anki's good at flashcards, bad at organizing source material. So I built something that tries to close that gap.

What it does:

• Upload a PDF → it gets auto-parsed into structured, topic-scoped pages (custom parser, not just raw text dumping)
• Or write notes directly in a block-based editor (Notion-style)
• Either way, it builds a concept graph across your files, detects prerequisite relationships (e.g. "learn Linear Algebra before Quantum Mechanics"), and generates AI flashcards with spaced repetition
• Real-time collaboration — multiple people can be in the same file, live-editing together (built on Yjs CRDTs + Socket.io)
• Shared workspaces so a study group can work off the same folders and flashcard sets

Tech stack: Next.js, TypeScript, MongoDB, Redis/BullMQ for background jobs, a separate Java rate-limiter service in front of the Gemini API, deployed across Vercel + Railway + Render.

Live demo: https://studysprouts.in/

Would genuinely love feedback — especially from anyone who's tried combining note-taking + spaced repetition before and hit walls with existing tools. What's broken, what's confusing, what's missing?

https://reddit.com/link/1vco7w0/video/lesryy0usrgh1/player

Background: full-stack engineer, 5 years building and shipping my own projects independently — no formal employer on the resume in that time. Core stack: React/Next.js, Node.js, TypeScript, Python, and more recently Java.

Projects, all deployed and live (not just repos):

• A real-time collaborative learning platform — Notion-style workspace, block-based editor, users write notes or upload PDFs. Custom Python pipeline (pdfplumber, PyMuPDF, pikepdf) parses PDF structure and splits documents into topic-scoped files. Auto-generates concept graphs and detects prerequisite relationships between documents without calling an LLM. AI-generated flashcards (Gemini API) with spaced repetition scheduling, configurable formats (Q&A, cloze, MCQ). Real-time multi-user editing via Yjs CRDTs over Socket.io — multiple people can edit the same document simultaneously with no conflicts, plus live presence and concurrency locks (title-editing locks, generation locks with auto-release). Runs across 4 independently deployed services (Vercel + Render) sharing one MongoDB/Redis data layer. Deployed on a custom domain.
• A standalone Java rate-limiting service — token bucket algorithm, Redis-backed, atomic via a Redis Lua script (EVALSHA), verified correctness under real concurrent load. Deployed independently, integrated into the above project to guard against API abuse.
• Earlier projects: a YouTube-style video backend (Node/Express, JWT auth, Cloudinary), a full-stack e-commerce site with a working payment gateway, a blogging platform, and an Android app for real-time translation.

The pattern I keep running into: I tailor my resume closely to each job description, keyword-match looks strong on paper, but I keep getting rejected at the resume-screen stage.

Specific questions:

1. Does a 5-year gap with only independent/self-employed work read as a red flag to ATS systems or recruiters, regardless of project quality or deployment?
2. Is there a better way to frame "Independent Software Developer, 2020–Present" on a resume so it reads better to a human screener?
3. Is it more effective to target smaller/mid-size companies right now, and if so, how do I find ones that actually value independent project work?
4. Has anyone been in a similar spot and actually broken through — what specifically worked?

Honestly, I've been stuck in this exact loop for 5 years now — apply, get rejected, lose motivation, stop applying for a while, come back, repeat. I don't really know who to reach out to for guidance at this point, which is part of why I'm asking here. Not looking for generic "just keep applying" advice if possible — trying to figure out what's actually different about my situation and what I can do differently.