Nexus
Nexus is a personal productivity platform I designed and built end-to-end, unifying job search tools, cross-platform communication and live market intelligence into one workspace.
Overview
Nexus is a private career operating system. One PIN-locked dashboard that pulls a designer's whole working life into a single place: email, Slack, and WhatsApp in one inbox, a job search that runs end to end, and AI woven through the parts that usually eat a day. It runs in two modes, Work and Job Search, and reshapes itself around whichever one you're in. Built by Saurabh Pandey for his own daily use, front end to back. It started life as CareerOS and became Nexus once the scope grew past job hunting.
The Challenge
A working designer's day is scattered across a dozen tabs. Gmail here, Slack there, WhatsApp on the phone, a resume in one doc, job listings in another, LinkedIn drafts in a third. Every tool is a context switch, and nothing shares state, so the same profile details get retyped over and over.
Job hunting makes it worse. Tailoring a resume, prepping for interviews, writing outreach, tracking applications: each one lives in a different app, none of them know your history, and the busywork buries the actual thinking.
The goal was a single, private hub a professional could open first thing and run the whole day from. Communication, job search, and growth on one surface, with the repetitive writing handled, and one profile that feeds everything.
Research & Insight
The product came out of living the problem, plus a close read of the tools that already own a slice of it: the inboxes, the resume builders, the job trackers. A few things stood out.
Context switching is the tax. The cost isn't any single app, it's the jump between them. The value is in collapsing them into one view.
One profile should feed everything. People retype the same experience into resumes, forms, and posts. A single source of truth erases a whole category of busywork.
Work and job hunting are different headspaces. Bolting a job search onto a work dashboard clutters both. They deserve separate modes, not separate apps.
AI earns its place on the boring parts. Not novelty. The wins are drafting a cover letter, rehearsing an interview, turning a rough thought into a post.
A personal hub has to feel private and instant. It holds your mail and your career, so it needs to open behind a lock and respond like native software, not a web page.
Product Strategy
One inbox, three channels. Gmail and Slack merge into a single Inbox, with WhatsApp threads built in, so messages get handled in one place instead of three apps.
Two modes, one app. A Work / Job Search switch reshapes the sidebar, giving each headspace a focused toolset without shipping a second product.
Profile as the source of truth. Experience, education, certifications, and projects live once, compute total experience automatically, and feed the resume and everything downstream.
AI on the busywork. Claude powers the resume builder, interview coach, LinkedIn studio, and daily briefing, aimed squarely at the writing that slows a day down.
Private by default. A PIN lock screen guards the whole app, and integrations connect through proper OAuth instead of stored passwords.
Native feel over web feel. A system font stack, an app shell, and instant page swaps so it reads like software you install, not a site you visit.
Experience Architecture
Nexus is an app shell: a persistent sidebar, a topbar with a live clock, and a content area that swaps between pages without a reload.
The way in. A PIN lock screen opens the app, with animated entry and a shake on a wrong code. It stays out of the way day to day and only returns on logout.
Two modes. A toggle at the top of the sidebar switches between Work and Job Search. Work surfaces Inbox, LinkedIn Studio, Daily Briefing, Learning Hub, and Notes. Job Search surfaces the Job Board, Resume Builder, and Interview Coach. Dashboard, Profile, and Settings stay constant across both.
Eleven surfaces, one loop.
Dashboard: a greeting, quick actions, an inbox preview, and a calendar to frame the day.
Inbox: Gmail with drafts, labels, starred, filters, real HTML email rendered in a sandboxed frame, sender avatars, and rich-signature sending, alongside Slack channels and direct messages, with WhatsApp threads wired in and currently paused.
Job Board, Resume Builder, Interview Coach: the hunt, from listings to a tailored resume to rehearsed answers.
LinkedIn Studio, Daily Briefing, Learning Hub, Notes & Database: the growth and knowledge side of the week.
Profile and Settings: the single source of truth, and where integrations, theme, and security are managed.
One profile underneath. The same experience, education, certifications, and projects drive the resume and populate the rest, with per-field copy so any detail is one tap from the clipboard.
Interface System
Nexus runs on a considered, dual-theme system tuned to feel like native software.
Foundation. A deep indigo-black canvas (
#07070f) with layered surfaces, driven entirely by CSS custom properties so dark and light stay in lockstep. A one-tap toggle carries the whole palette between themes.Accent and signal. A single violet accent (
#7c6fff) carries identity and action. Semantic colors stay separate: teal for success, amber for warning, red for danger, so state reads at a glance without diluting the brand.Type. A native system font stack (SF Pro, Segoe UI, and their kin) with monospace reserved for data and times, so text renders instantly and the app feels installed rather than loaded.
App shell. A collapsible sidebar, a live-clock topbar, and card-based pages give every feature the same frame. Interactive things look interactive, and empty states are designed, not blank.
Motion with restraint. Page transitions, the PIN entry animation, and small feedback touches give the app life without noise.
Outcome
Nexus shipped as a working personal product, taken end to end by one designer across product, interface, and full-stack engineering. It does what it set out to do: open behind a PIN and run an entire working day from one screen, with email and Slack in a single inbox, a job search that goes from listing to tailored resume to interview prep, and AI carrying the repetitive writing.
Under the surface it's a deliberate piece of engineering. A self-contained front end of roughly 6,500 lines rides on a Next.js backend (Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript) that speaks to Gmail over OAuth, Slack, WhatsApp through Twilio, a news feed, and Claude, all behind one private lock. The result is less a set of features than a daily driver: the place the work starts, and the profile that feeds the rest of it.
