Build a Remote Jobs Dashboard for One Niche—Expose It as a Single API Endpoint
Here's a side project that solves a real problem: remote job seekers waste hours scrolling generic boards. Recruiters posting niche roles get buried. Neither side finds what they need.
The opportunity isn't building another jobs board. It's building a focused jobs aggregator for one specific niche—then exposing it as an API that others can build on. Here's exactly how to build it.
The Stack (Total Cost: £0-25/month)
| Component | Tool | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Data scraping | Bright Data or Apify | Free tier |
| Data storage | Supabase or PlanetScale | Free |
| AI enrichment | Claude API or GPT-4o-mini | ~£5/month |
| API layer | FastAPI or Hono | Free |
| Hosting | Railway or Fly.io | Free tier |
Step 1: Pick Your Niche
The narrower, the better. Examples that work:
Remote DevOps/Platform Engineering roles (high-paying, specific skills)
Part-time executive positions (fractional CMO, CFO, CTO)
Climate tech roles (growing sector, passionate community)
AI/ML research positions (hot market, clear ICP)
Step 2: Build the Scraper
Use Apify or Bright Data to pull from multiple sources:
LinkedIn Jobs (via API or scraping)
RemoteOK, WeWorkRemotely, Otta
Company career pages (target 50-100 companies in your niche)
Set a daily cron job to refresh
Step 3: Enrich with AI
Pass each job through Claude/GPT to extract and standardise:
You are a job data analyst. Extract from this job posting:
- seniority_level: junior/mid/senior/lead/executive
- salary_range: extract or estimate based on role
- required_skills: array of specific technologies
- remote_type: fully_remote/hybrid/flexible
- company_stage: startup/scaleup/enterprise
Return as JSON.
Store enriched data in Supabase with full-text search enabled.
Step 4: Expose as API
Create a single endpoint:
GET /api/jobs?niche=devops&seniority=senior&salary_min=150000
Return clean JSON. Add rate limiting. Document with OpenAPI spec.
The Monetisation Angle
If you want to turn this into revenue:
Freemium API: 100 calls/day free, £29/month for unlimited
Recruiter tier: £99/month for posting + analytics
White-label: License the API to niche job boards or Slack communities
Why This Works
Generic job boards optimise for volume. Niche aggregators optimise for signal. A DevOps engineer doesn't want to see marketing roles. By going narrow and deep, you become the only source for a specific audience—and APIs are sticky infrastructure.
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