Talentro
A full-stack professional networking platform built like LinkedIn from scratch — social graph, algorithmic feed, job board, and XSS-proof auth, all engineered solo on the MERN stack
What is it?
Talentro is a full-stack professional networking platform I built from the ground up — designed to help professionals connect, share skills, discover jobs, and grow their network in one cohesive place. Think LinkedIn's core loop: a live algorithmic feed, connection requests, job listings, and application tracking — but engineered entirely solo, on the MERN stack, with serious attention paid to performance, security, and scalability. It's the most architecturally complex project in my portfolio.
What I Did
I was the sole architect, developer, and deployer of Talentro. I designed the entire social graph data model from scratch, built the backend API powering the feed, connections, jobs, and auth systems, and crafted the full React frontend. I didn't just build features — I identified and fixed real performance bottlenecks including N+1 query problems and CLS issues that you only encounter when building at social-platform scale.
Social Graph Architecture & Data Modelling
Designed MongoDB schemas for a full social graph — users, posts, reactions, nested comments, connections, and job applications — with referential integrity maintained at the application layer. The connection state matrix (pending, accepted, mutual) required careful modelling to prevent inconsistencies.
Algorithmic Feed System
Built a dynamic feed that surfaces posts from a user's network, ranked algorithmically. Implemented horizontal pagination limits on feed fetching to cap memory usage server-side — a critical stability decision when dealing with large connection graphs and high-volume post data.
Solving the N+1 Query Problem
Discovered severe N+1 query bottlenecks in the search and feed pipelines where each result triggered additional individual database calls. Refactored using MongoDB aggregation pipelines to collapse dozens of round-trips into single efficient queries — drastically improving response times.
Professional Networking Engine
Engineered the full connection lifecycle — send invitation, accept/reject, withdraw, remove. Built a smart mutual connection suggestion system that traverses second-degree relationships in the social graph to surface relevant people to connect with.
Job Board & Application Tracking
Developed a dedicated jobs portal with algorithmic job recommendations based on user skills, location-based filtering, and keyword search. Users can apply directly on-platform and track all application statuses in a personal dashboard.
Frontend Performance — Eliminating CLS
Eliminated Cumulative Layout Shifts across the feed and profile pages by implementing React skeleton loaders matched to the exact dimensions of loaded content — preventing jarring reflows that kill perceived performance on social feeds.
XSS-Proof Auth with HTTP-Only Cookies
Built authentication using JWTs stored in HTTP-only cookies — not localStorage — making tokens completely inaccessible to JavaScript and protecting against XSS attacks. Added email verification on signup and a secure password reset flow with short-lived tokens.
- Query Bottleneck Resolved
- N+1
- Collapsed serial database round-trips into single MongoDB aggregation pipelines
- Layout Shift Eliminated
- Zero CLS
- React skeleton loaders dimensionally matched to real content across all feed views
- XSS-Proof Authentication
- HTTP-Only
- JWTs in HTTP-only cookies — completely inaccessible to client-side JavaScript
- Social Platform Built Solo
- Full
- Feed, social graph, mutual suggestions, reactions, nested comments, job board — from scratch
- Algorithmic post feed with network-aware ranking
- Media posts with image and video upload via Cloudinary
- Custom reaction system on posts
- Nested comment threads
- Full connection lifecycle — invite, accept, withdraw, remove
- Mutual connection suggestions via second-degree graph traversal
- Job board with skill-based algorithmic recommendations
- Job filtering by location and required skills
- In-platform job application status tracking
- JWT auth via HTTP-only cookies (XSS-proof)
- Email verification on signup
- Secure password reset with short-lived tokens
- React skeleton loaders for zero Cumulative Layout Shift
- Fully responsive across all devices
Resolved N+1 query bottleneck — serial DB calls collapsed into single MongoDB aggregation pipelines
JWT stored in HTTP-only cookies — not localStorage — blocking XSS token theft entirely
Horizontal feed pagination limits to cap memory usage on large social graphs server-side
Skeleton loaders dimensionally matched to real content — eliminating Cumulative Layout Shift
Second-degree social graph traversal for mutual connection suggestions
Full social platform architecture built solo — feed, graph, jobs, auth, media — no shortcuts
Ready to build something amazing?
Interested in learning more about this project or starting a new full-stack development journey? Let's talk.