Job hunting in 2026 is a strange place. There are more tools than ever: AI writes your cover letters, browser extensions fill in forms, agents browse sites for you. At the same time, a single frontend opening gets a flood of applications, and recruiters drown in identical CVs produced by the same tools.
So this series is not about sending 500 applications in one evening. It is about spending less time on busywork and more on what actually gets you an offer: a CV that fits the specific job, real interview practice, and tidy tracking so nothing slips.
The layers of the stack
Every developer job search has the same layers. Each one gets its own part in this series.
| Layer | Job | Part |
|---|---|---|
| Job sources | Find relevant openings and catch new ones | Part 2: job boards and aggregators |
| Tracker | Remember where you applied, who you talked to, when to follow up | Part 3: application trackers and CRMs |
| CV and cover letters | Tailor documents to the job without inventing things | Part 4: CV, ATS and AI tailoring |
| Get found by recruiters and reach people directly | Part 5: LinkedIn tools | |
| AI assistants | Speed up job analysis, letters and prep | Part 6: AI assistants and agents |
| MCP connectors | Give AI access to your mail, calendar, sheets and browser | Part 7: MCP connectors |
| Interview prep | Practise answers, coding and system design | Part 8: interview prep tools |
A minimal stack that works
If you don't want to read the whole series, here is a set you can start with today. It is almost entirely free.
- Two job sources. For Ukraine, Djinni and DOU. For international roles, LinkedIn Jobs plus one remote board such as We Work Remotely or Wellfound.
- One spreadsheet. Google Sheets or Notion with columns for company, role, link, date applied, status, contact and next step. That is enough for your first 30 to 50 applications.
- One base CV in a plain single-column layout. We covered how to write it in the developer CV guide.
- One AI assistant of your choice (Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini) with a dedicated project holding your CV and notes about your experience.
- Regular interview practice. ShortLesson interview questions on JavaScript, React, SQL, Git and HTTP, plus answering out loud.
Everything else in the series is an amplifier. Add it when you feel a specific pain: you lost track of an application, your CV gets filtered out, you have no time for letters.
Picking a tool in half an hour
Before you pay for any service, ask four questions.
- What specific problem does it solve? "I want to be more productive" is not a problem. "I forgot to reply to a recruiter three times this month" is, and a tracker solves it.
- What will it cost for the whole search? Most paid tools charge 20 to 50 dollars a month. A search lasts anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Count the total, not the monthly price, and check for weekly or quarterly plans.
- What does it do with your data? A CV holds your name, phone and work history. Check that you can delete your account and that your text is not used to train models.
- Does it break platform rules? Tools that send LinkedIn invitations automatically or submit hundreds of applications without you can cost you the account. More in part 5 and part 7.
What we deliberately don't recommend
- Mass auto-apply. Services promising "100 applications a day" produce a lot of low-quality applications. Recruiters see identical letters and template answers to form questions. Your conversion drops, and your name already sits in the company's ATS marked "not a fit".
- Real-time AI hints during interviews. Some products listen to the interview and feed you answers. Companies are already reacting, and if it is noticed, the conversation is over. Details in part 8.
- Scraping LinkedIn. The LinkedIn User Agreement explicitly bans bots and scraping. The risk of a ban is real.
Where ShortLesson fits
ShortLesson covers the prep layer: short lessons, interview questions, cheat sheets, spoken answers graded by AI and spaced review. A vacancy mode is in development: you will paste a job post and get a prep plan for that exact job. More in part 4 and part 8.
Next
Start with part 2 on job boards. It shows how to set up alerts so new openings come to you and you don't have to scroll a feed every day.
