Skill Bridge

Inspiration

WIOA case workers do incredible work helping people get back into the workforce — but the tools available to them weren't built with their clients in mind. Most job boards require users to know job titles and industry jargon just to get started. We wanted to build something that meets clients where they are: starting with what they can do, not what they used to be called.

What it does

Skill Bridge is a job search tool built specifically for WIOA programs. Case workers enter the skills a client already has, and Skill Bridge surfaces local job openings that match those skills — no job title required.

How we built it

We built Skill Bridge using Tauri v2 with a Rust backend and TypeScript frontend, giving us a lightweight desktop app that can easily expand to mobile down the road. We deployed with Cloudflare to keep scaling simple. For job data, the current version pulls from the USAJobs API, matching user-entered skills against real federal job listings in their local area.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was getting Tailwind configured correctly so the frontend could communicate with the Rust backend. What should have been a setup step turned into a battle that consumed nearly our entire hackathon time, leaving us with less runway than we'd hoped for features.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite the Tailwind battle, we're proud of shipping a full stack monorepo setup from scratch during a hackathon. On top of that, we achieved near-perfectly reflected UI between the web and Tauri desktop versions — meaning the same codebase looks and behaves consistently across both platforms, which sets us up well for mobile expansion down the road.

What we learned

On the technical side, we got hands-on experience deploying a full web application end-to-end — something none of us had done at this scale before. From configuring Cloudflare to wiring up a live API, it was a crash course in what it actually takes to ship software.

What's next for Skill Bridge

The current version is just the beginning. Our roadmap includes:

WIOA Integration — hooking directly into the WIOA ecosystem so case workers never have to leave their existing tools
Resume Drag & Drop — automatically extracting skills from an uploaded resume, eliminating manual input entirely
Google Account Syncing — letting users save progress, job matches, and history across sessions
Employer Job Postings — allowing employers to post directly to Skill Bridge, with priority placement in search results to incentivize participation
Anti-Scam System — cross-referencing multiple job databases to flag suspicious listings and protect vulnerable job seekers from fraudulent postings