I didn't plan to build a job search tool. I planned to find a new job.
For most of my career, I worked in banking and finance — the kind of work that trains you to be precise, analytical, and relentlessly focused on outcomes. I was good at it. And then, like a lot of people, I found myself in a position I hadn't expected: between roles, staring at a job market that had fundamentally changed, and realizing that the process of actually finding work was broken in ways I'd never noticed from the inside.
The Year I Became My Own Test Subject
When I started my search, I did what everyone does. I opened LinkedIn. I opened Indeed. I updated my resume. I started applying.
Weeks went by. Then a month. Then two.
I was qualified. My background was solid. I was applying to real jobs with real relevance to my experience. But the process felt like shouting into a void — I'd send an application and hear nothing, no rejection, no acknowledgment, just silence. When I did get calls, they were often for roles I barely remembered applying to, with job descriptions that didn't match what I was good at.
I started tracking everything obsessively — the way you do when you come from a finance background and metrics are how you understand the world. I tracked where I was finding jobs, how many I was applying to, which ones led to calls, what my response rates were.
What I found was demoralizing and clarifying at the same time: most of the job boards were showing me the same listings. My resume wasn't being tailored — not really. And I was spending more than 11 hours a week on search-related tasks, the majority of which was just finding and filtering through postings I'd already seen or didn't fit.
Eleven hours a week. For what? For a handful of applications that probably weren't landing because my resume wasn't right for the specific role anyway.
The Problem Nobody Was Solving
I looked at the tools that existed. Resume builders that gave me templates. ATS scanners that told me my keyword match was 62% without telling me what to do about it. LinkedIn's job board. Indeed. Glassdoor.
What I couldn't find was a tool that would do the searching for me — not just aggregate listings, but genuinely understand my background, score jobs for fit, and generate a tailored resume for the roles worth applying to. The kind of tool that would take the 11 hours a week and turn it into 30 minutes of decision-making.
That tool didn't exist. So I started building it.
What I Learned Building Vela
I'm a builder by instinct, but I'll be honest: building Vela was harder than I expected. Not technically (though that was hard too). Emotionally.
Because the job search is personal. Your resume is your professional identity. When you're between roles and every dollar counts, the stakes aren't abstract. I knew that because I'd lived it. And that meant every decision in building Vela had to answer the question: would this actually help someone who's in the position I was in?
That's why I made some choices that might seem counterintuitive:
Vela never auto-applies. I thought about it. The data on auto-apply tools is pretty clear: high volume with low fit damages your reputation with recruiters. I'd seen it happen to people I knew. Vela finds you good jobs and preps your materials — but you decide what to apply to. Always.
Vela is priced at $20/month. When you're between jobs, $49/month feels different than it does when you're employed. I've been in the position where that $49 matters. So has almost everyone who's been unemployed for more than a few months. Vela is priced for the people who need it most, not for the people who can expense it.
Vela focuses on quality over quantity. I didn't want to build a tool that helped people send 500 applications. I wanted to build one that helped people send 10 great ones.
Where Vela Is Going
Vela is still early. There are features I want to add, integrations I want to build, and improvements to make to the AI coaching. But the core product does exactly what it says: it searches, scores, and prepares you — three times a week, while you focus on your life.
The people who've told me Vela changed their job search are the ones I think about when I'm building new features. The person who told me they got three interviews in their first two weeks. The person who said the mock interview helped them land a role they'd have otherwise bombed. The person who said they didn't realize their resume was generic until Vela tailored one for them.
I built Vela because I needed it. I'm building it every day because other people need it too.
Vela is a job search automation platform that searches multiple job boards three times a week, scores every listing for fit, and generates tailored resumes and cover letters — so you can spend 30 minutes a week on job search instead of 11 hours. Start your free 7-day trial.