🎇 Inspiration
As a self-taught developer without a degree, network, or financial privilege, I often felt invisible in the tech world. Many hiring systems naturally prioritize traditional signals like degrees or referrals — which work well for some people, but can unintentionally overlook others like me.
I wanted to build something that adds to the ecosystem, not compete with it — a place where developers who learned in non-traditional ways can showcase their real skills alongside their projects.
Ghost Hire was created to highlight ability, not replace résumés. It simply makes room for people like me who don't fit the standard path yet still work hard to build real, meaningful projects.
👻 What It Does
Ghost Hire is a skill-first developer showcase platform wrapped in a spooky Halloween theme. Developers create "Ghost Profiles" where their real code, projects, and skill analysis shine — helping companies find talent based on ability.
Key Features
👻 Ghost-Themed Profiles
Spooky, fun portfolios with ghost avatars and haunted UI — designed to highlight real projects and strengths.
🪦 Kiro-Powered Portfolio Analysis
Sign up with Google, upload a profile photo, and tell Kiro about your experience (e.g., "Computer Vision specialist who knows object detection and SGAN"). Connect your GitHub, and Kiro automatically analyzes:
- Primary expertise area and specific skills
- AI vs human code usage (how much you rely on AI tools vs writing code yourself)
- Where AI was used (e.g., Streamlit apps, documentation)
- Languages and frameworks (PyTorch, HTML, etc.)
- Unique projects
- Job readiness score
- Personalized career recommendations
🧪 Photo Verification
A custom Siamese Network verifies unique users by comparing face photos to prevent duplicate accounts and fraud — without requiring government IDs. (Runs locally — too heavy for free-tier deployment.)
🎯 Company Opportunities
Companies browse Ghost Profiles, filter by skills, and send invitations for:
- Paid Trials - Short contract work
- Internships - Learning opportunities
- Skill Challenges - Project-based assessments
Developers review opportunities, submit their work on the platform, and receive ratings from companies. Email notifications keep everyone updated.
👥 Ghost Hunt & Ghost Crew
Search for other developers, send invites, and form private crew rooms where you can:
- Collaborate on projects
- Get feedback
- Build hackathon teams
- Make connections as a self-learner without a traditional network
Developers accept or ignore invites and can chat freely in their crews.
🏢 Company Dashboard
Employers filter talent by specific skills, view profiles, send opportunities, review submitted work, rate developers, and manage their hiring pipeline all in one place.
🕸️ Challenges
- Designing verification that blocks spam without revealing identity
- Deploying ML models on free-tier (PyTorch too heavy for Railway)
- WorkOS OAuth repeatedly breaking during deployment
- Creating a spooky theme that stays functional, not gimmicky
🏆 Accomplishments
- Fully functional skill-first showcase platform
- Working verification system that preserves privacy
- Kiro-powered skill analysis detecting AI vs human code usage
- Complete opportunity workflow (invite → submit → rate)
- Ghost Crew supporting devs who lack a network
- Company dashboard with skill-based filtering
- A spooky UI that's fun but still professional
🛠️ Built With Kiro
Ghost Hire was developed using Kiro's spec-driven development and vibe coding. Kiro generated the Django backend, REST API, GitHub analysis system, opportunity workflows, Ghost Crew features, and spooky UI.
Six feature specs in the .kiro/specs/ directory (ghost-hire-platform, ai-usage-breakdown-visualization, ghost-hire-community, ghost-hunt-feature, ghost-trials-system, haunted-portfolio-enhancement) guided development from architecture to implementation.
What would have taken months to build manually was completed in weeks with Kiro's AI-powered code generation, allowing me to focus on solving the core problem: giving overlooked developers a voice in tech hiring.
🧪 What We Learned
- Building complex systems using Kiro specs + vibe coding
- Balancing features with deployment limitations
- How skill-first discovery reduces bias
- How photo verification can prevent fraud while preserving privacy
- How to empower overlooked developers with transparent opportunity workflows
🔮 What's Next
- Deploy Siamese Network verification on cloud infrastructure
- AI-powered skill matching between devs and companies
- Optional resume sharing where developers choose which companies can view their traditional résumé or visualize it within their Ghost Profile
- More comprehensive skill profiles (soft skills, hackathon stats, teamwork)
- Live coding practice inside Ghost Crew
- Integrations with LinkedIn, Devpost, hackathon platforms
- Analytics for companies to track hiring pipeline performance
Ghost Hire helps developers showcase real skills — and helps companies discover talent they would have otherwise missed — all wrapped in a spooky, fun, Kiroween experience.
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