jobtrackingapp/docs/PRODUCT_EVOLUTION_PLAN.md

Jobbjakt Product Evolution Plan

Confirmed 2026-07-15. This document is the product decision record for the career-management evolution.

Product position

Jobbjakt is a job-tracking and career-management product. The application workflow remains the core loop:

Discover opportunity -> Track application -> Prepare application -> Follow up -> Learn and progress

Career profile, CV generation, cover letters, portfolio, interview preparation, and discovery support this loop. They must not displace it or turn Jobbjakt into a CV-builder-first product.

Confirmed decisions

Decision	Direction
Primary discovery market	Nordics and Europe; global later
Discovery sources	Permitted provider APIs and existing URL capture; no scraping or browser extension in the first release
Career workspace	Dedicated top-level navigation item
Add-job flow	Wizard; create the application after job review, then keep preparation steps optional and resumable
Portfolio	Lightweight links and project items connected to the master career profile
AI	Retain local and online capability behind a provider boundary and explicit user controls
SaaS priority	Hosted subscriptions and feature entitlements before organisations/teams
Brand	Keep the Jobbjakt name

Target information architecture

Area	Purpose	Initial destinations
Dashboard	Daily direction	priorities, follow-ups, recent activity
Applications	Core tracker	list, board, companies, application workspace
Career Workspace	Reusable career source of truth	master profile, CV builder, portfolio, interview preparation
Discover Jobs	Find then act	provider search, saved searches later, import into tracker
Settings	Product preferences	general, follow-ups, notifications, connected accounts, data
Account	Identity and security	personal details, password, providers, sessions, 2FA

Delivery roadmap

Phase 1 — Workflow clarity

1. Create the Career Workspace and move CV-facing functionality out of Account Profile.
2. Move Gmail, Outlook, and IMAP management to Settings > Connected Accounts.
3. Reorganise Settings: remove normal-user export/import controls, hide admin-only status controls, and improve follow-up explanations.
4. Simplify application workspace navigation into task-oriented sections.

Phase 2 — Application preparation

1. Replace the dense Add Job modal with a six-step wizard.
2. URL capture and extraction lead the flow; manual details remain an easy fallback.
3. Save the application after review; CV, cover letter, portfolio, and documents are explicitly optional.
4. Link job-specific CV copies and draft material to the application without mutating the master profile.

Phase 3 — Career workspace completion

1. Strengthen the structured master career profile: experience, education, skills, projects, certifications, languages, achievements, and portfolio links.
2. Turn the existing template system into a guided three-step CV builder: theme, preview/customise, save defaults.
3. Keep five professional templates and persisted visual preferences; add drag-and-drop ordering after the underlying configuration is durable.

Phase 4 — Nordic/European discovery

1. Introduce a provider-adapter contract and a normalized result model.
2. Implement approved public/provider APIs beginning with Nordic sources; add European sources only when their terms permit product use.
3. Provide search, filters, source attribution, map/distance enrichment where data permits, and one-click import to the wizard.
4. Add fuzzy role matching locally through a role/skill synonym catalog before any external AI ranking.

Phase 5 — Hosted SaaS foundations

1. Add account-level entitlement and usage records independent of a billing provider.
2. Gate premium themes, AI allowances, storage, and discovery quotas through policy checks.
3. Integrate a billing provider only after pricing, tax, trial, cancellation, and support policy decisions are recorded.
4. Move restart-sensitive CV processing to durable storage before multi-instance hosting.

Success measures

• A new user can create a tracked application from a URL in under two minutes.
• A user can find their master profile, create a CV, and manage email connections without visiting Account Profile.
• Optional preparation never blocks capture of an opportunity.
• Every AI-generated output visibly states its source profile/job context and requires user review before it is saved or sent.
• Discovery always preserves source attribution and sends users to the original job advert to apply.