About

We built the job tool we couldn’t find.

Job Lobster started as a two-month side build in the spring of 2026, after one too many job-search tools that flattered candidates instead of leveling with them. We wanted a workbench that tells the truth about fit, does the grunt work, and leaves the decisions to you.

The itch

Every job tool optimizes for engagement. We needed one that optimized for outcomes.

Existing tools score you 87/100 on roles you have no business applying to — then upsell you a “rewrite” service to get you over the line. That inflation costs time, not tools. A candidate doing a serious search spends months. Every inflated 9/10 is a week spent on a role that was always a 5.

The wager

If AI can run the grunt work, we can build something smaller, honest, and still beat the big players.

The product does the drafting, matching, research, and memory-backed assistance around one simple rule: the candidate stays in control. We don’t maintain a scraped database of jobs — we pull directly from applicant-tracking systems the moment a role posts. That means we can stay private, small, and obsessed with one user: the person running their own search.

The signature

Transparent by default, without a funnel.

We keep a public changelog, write in a plain voice, and explain what changed instead of burying the story in launch copy. No dark patterns, no growth loops, no “invite five friends to unlock features” nonsense. If the product is good, you stay. If it’s not, you leave with every byte of your data (export button, always on).

What we will and won’t do

Four principles we hold to, even when they cost us.

Honest over flattering.

A capped 5.0 with a missing must-have is more useful than an inflated 8.5 with a hidden catch. We show the cap, the rule that fired, and what would change it.

Your data stays yours.

Everything you put in is exportable as a single JSON blob. Delete-my-data wipes per-user tables, per-user files, and optionally your account record — gated behind a typed-confirmation guard. No training on your data, no reselling, no sharing.

Opinionated, not snarky.

We take a position on resume bullet structure, on gap-ceiling rules, on what “a good cover letter” looks like. We cite the reasoning and let you override.

Small team, one opinionated product.

No enterprise add-ons, no platform pivots, no sudden direction-change every two months. We ship small slices, write the reasoning into the commit log, and keep the changelog public.

Under the hood

What powers Job Lobster.

Direct ATS feeds — Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable, BambooHR, SmartRecruiters, JazzHR, Personio, Rippling, Recruitee, Workday. Direct, no scraping middleman.
One fit score + deterministic ceilings — we score once, then cap the result when a must-have, eligibility rule, or dealbreaker is missing.
Personal agent memory — persistent context, scoped tools, drafts, reminders, and interview prep around your search.
SQLite + Node/Express — a single-binary deploy on Fly.io, one region, one volume. Boring by choice.
Human approval gates — drafts can be reviewed and edited; nothing submits or sends without your explicit yes.

Ready to try something that tells the truth?

Early access is free. Sign in with a magic link, upload your resume, see your honest score in under a minute.

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