CareerBridge

A production-style full-stack platform built with Django REST, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, Docker, Stripe, and OpenAI, supporting mentor booking, resume analysis, payments, real-time chat, and governance-controlled feature rollout.

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Engineering Highlights

• Built a full-stack career platform with 13 backend service domains, covering authentication, mentor booking, payments, chat, resume analysis, peer mock interviews, and admin workflows.
• Containerized the system as an 8-service Docker deployment with Django, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx, Celery, Prometheus, and Grafana.
• Implemented async task processing with Celery + Redis for notifications, AI analysis, scheduled jobs, and background workflows.
• Integrated Stripe payment flows with strict appointment binding to prevent orphaned payment intents and preserve transaction consistency.
• Added governance middleware and role-based access control across student, mentor, staff, admin, and superadmin workflows.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Material UI, Redux Toolkit
Backend	Django 5.2, Django REST Framework, Celery
Database	PostgreSQL 15, Redis 7
Auth	JWT (SimpleJWT)
Payments	Stripe
AI	OpenAI GPT
Infrastructure	Docker, Nginx, AWS S3

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Architecture

React SPA (TypeScript)
       ↓ HTTP / WebSocket
     Nginx (reverse proxy)
       ↓
Django REST API (gateai/)     ←→   PostgreSQL
       ↓                      ←→   Redis (cache + Celery broker)
  Celery Workers
       ↓
External APIs: OpenAI · Stripe · JobCrawler · ResumeMatcher

User Roles: student · mentor · staff · admin · superadmin

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Screenshots

Landing Page	Sign In

Student Dashboard	Governance Console

Django Admin

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Features

• Mentor Discovery & Booking — Browse mentor profiles by expertise, book time slots, and manage appointments
• AI Resume Analysis — ATS compatibility scoring and keyword optimization via OpenAI
• Peer Mock Interviews — Practice sessions with real-time feedback
• Real-time Chat — WebSocket-based messaging between students and mentors
• Payments — Stripe checkout for paid mentor sessions
• Admin Dashboard — Staff and superadmin management with role-based access control
• Governance Engine — Feature flag system with bus-powered capability management

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Architecture Decisions

• Domain-separated Django backend — Organized the backend into clear modules for users, appointments, payments, chat, resume analysis, peer mock interviews, and governance.
• Async-first background processing — Used Celery + Redis for notifications, AI analysis, scheduled jobs, and long-running workflows.
• Payment consistency by design — Bound every Stripe payment intent to an appointment context to prevent orphaned transactions.
• Governance-controlled rollout — Added feature flags and role-based capability control for safer admin and superadmin operations.
• Production-oriented deployment — Containerized the platform with Docker, Nginx, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, Prometheus, and Grafana.

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop
• Git

Run Locally

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/iamjaygao/CareerBridge.git
cd CareerBridge

# 2. Create environment file
cp env.production.template .env
# Fill in required values (see Configuration below)

# 3. Build and start all services
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up --build

# 4. Open in browser
open http://localhost

Create a superuser (optional)

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml exec careerbridge python manage.py createsuperuser

Then access the admin panel at http://localhost/admin/.

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Configuration

Copy env.production.template to .env and fill in:

Variable	Required	Description
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	✅	PostgreSQL password
SECRET_KEY	✅	Django secret key (50+ chars)
OPENAI_API_KEY	✅	For AI resume analysis
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY	✅	For payment processing
STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY	✅	For frontend Stripe.js
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	Optional	For S3 file storage
USE_S3	Optional	Set True to enable S3

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Project Structure

CareerBridge/
├── gateai/               # Django backend
│   ├── users/            # Auth, registration, profiles
│   ├── human_loop/       # Mentor profiles & availability
│   ├── appointments/     # Booking system
│   ├── payments/         # Stripe integration
│   ├── chat/             # Real-time messaging
│   ├── ats_signals/      # Resume analysis engine
│   ├── peer_mock/        # Mock interview system
│   ├── kernel/           # Governance & feature flags
│   └── gateai/           # Django settings & URLs
├── frontend/             # React + TypeScript SPA
├── nginx/                # Reverse proxy config
├── monitoring/           # Prometheus + Grafana
└── docker-compose.prod.yml

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API Documentation

With DEBUG=True, Swagger UI is available at:

http://localhost/swagger/
http://localhost/redoc/

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License

MIT