🔦 Community Spotlight - Building Thumbuptech, a Job and Content Network🔦
Published: 2023-01-11 13:44:28

**_Highlighting projects from the Appwrite community_**

## Introduction

With Appwrite’s developer community growing significantly, we want to take the time to appreciate and showcase some amazing applications built by our community. Maybe you’ll be inspired by these projects to build something amazing with Appwrite, too!

This month, we’d like to give the spotlight to Sebastein, who built a successful app called Thumbuptech. Let’s get started by interviewing them to learn more about their project and journey. 

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## Tell us more about who you are

Hi I am Sebastien Pastor, the founder of Thumbup.tech.                                                                  I've been working in IT for some time now. Originally I am more of a "System guy", I worked first as system administrator on Windows systems , then fell in Love with Linux and in all things open source.                                                       
I then moved to positions where I designed and implemented architectures in private and public clouds, but not  without starting the next project I have in mind every chance I got because the entrepreneurial spirit is deeply rooted in me.

Socials:

[Thumup.tech](https://thumbup.tech/profile/sebastien_pastor)
[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienpastor)
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/elsuperseby)

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## What is the name of the project you built?

My project is called :  thumbup.tech    

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## Why did you decide to build this? What inspired you?

Thumbup.tech is a tech job & tech content network. It first started as an add-on of another project I had, named "afreelancersworld.com" which was an ecosystem for freelancers in Tech. 
I wanted to add a way to find gigs but in a more innovative way. So I designed Thumbup.tech to do just that.
                                                                                                                        
The main objective is to save time for everyone, candidates and recruiters alike (plus in a fun way).                 
                                                                                                                        
The way it works is super simple:                                                                                       
                                                                                                                        
- Candidates receive offers they will most likely be interested in by email                                             
- If they are interested, all they need to do is `👍` it.
Doing so, will make their profile available to recruiters who can `👍` back to book a video call directly in the candidate's calendar. 

At the end of the day, candidates avoid the dubious practices of some recruiters by being the one who contacts them and recruiters are delighted because they can secure in one click profiles that they know are  interested in their offers and available!
                                                                                                                        
Once the job board part was done, I quickly added the "Content network" part aka "Community". Because, to me, jobs & content go together : everything goes very fast in Tech, and we need to
keep an eye on both aspects so as not to miss any good opportunities : Thumbup.tech is now the place to find it all : quality job and quality content.     
                                                                                                                        
I did not want to create "yet another social network" : in Community the focus is "the content" :                   
                                                                                                                        
- Articles need to be longer than most simple posts on other networks                                                   
- We can start a discussion on every article and even specify our mood (loved it! I have a question etc.)                
- Every article are tagged to make sure you find the subjects you are interested in                                    
- Micro-communities are available as well. They are called Circles and allow people who share similar interests to communicate easily.

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## What is the Thumbuptech?

Thumbup.tech is the place to go to keep an eye on the tech job market and get recruited in a zen way. It's also the network to get your tech dose and exchange with passionate professionals on tech topics.

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## What technologies did you use to create it and how did you use each technology?

The front-end is written in Sveltekit. The backend is obviously Appwrite!                                              
The front-end is using Appwrite SDK for Node.js which makes it super easy to communicate with Appwrite.
In the backend, we are using functions a lot to manage our "logic" for the job part but also for the content part : sending emails, reaction to thumb up/thumb downs etc. are some of the logic handled by functions. 

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## Who is your target audience and how will it help them to learn more about your project?

Our target audience is  "Everyone in Tech" : developers, product owners, project managers, system administrators, architects, employees and freelancers. Everyone in tech, who is looking for curated tech content and tech jobs and obviously any company wishing to talk about their tech to tech enthusiasts and recruit among them!

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## What issues did you run into while building this project and how did you solve them?

Main problem was the fact that Apprwrite was in an early stage when we started using it. We have had many break changes + bugs which cost us some time. But thanks to the amazing support of the community we always managed to overcome those issues quickly.                

The logic was different as well compared to traditional databases and backend : it led us sometimes to design things differently to make it work with Appwrite.

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## How did Appwrite help your project?


I chose Appwrite because it really is a backend with battery included : from logic to databases and authentication to storage. All you need to develop a web application is available. When it is not, you can most of the time add it using functions.


That was a huge time saver. I specifically remember selecting Appwrite vs Supabase for instance because we had a fine-grained data control system which usually takes a lot of time and effort when developing a backend.

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## What are a couple of things you wish you knew before starting the project? 

When we started the project, Appwrite had the ability to use "sub-document" that would make relations between collections possible. It has been removed quickly and that's when we realized a simple SQL JOIN was not that easy to implement with Appwrite. We managed to overcome this limitation by changing our way of thinking and by using functions to aggregate data in different collections. We hope the Query system will improve to allow the selection of different collections.

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## Where can others find your app?

Link to the website - https://thumbup.tech/

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## Please share screenshots of your project

Screen displaying a job offer. With Thumbs-up and down:


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7r6dwbrlzfyy30ctaroj.png)


Pictures of the homepage:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qptjuv852rpaja3x9oil.png)


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dxsexu0f2pe64y6ockro.png)