Toma Puljak

🚀 From Lovable to VSC Copilot (Claude 3.x - 4.x) to Production: How I built EvaluMate 6 months ago, I had an idea: build a math practice platform for Romanian students preparing for the National Maths exam. Plot twist: I'm not a web developer. Never have been. My background is in embedded, tools and other C/C++ and QML stuff. The furthest thing from React and REST APIs you can imagine. Here's how the journey went anyway 👇 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟬: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝘀 𝗱𝗼" 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 Beginning of this year I almost finished an Angular and .NET tutorial on Udemy. It was interesting stuff and the fact that I could create things easily gave me some ideas. 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟭: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗟𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀" 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 Started with Lovable to quickly prototype the UI and validate the concept. It was perfect for getting something visual in front of people fast. No backend, no auth — just vibes and React components. 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟮: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗢𝗸𝗮𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹" 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 Moved to VSC with Copilot (Claude 3.x - 4.x) as my AI pair-programmer. We rebuilt everything properly: • .NET 9 backend with Clean Architecture • React 18 + TypeScript frontend • Azure SQL + Blob Storage + App Service • JWT auth with roles Yes, VSC with Copilot and not Cursor - I liked the slower speed it provided. Claude became my rubber duck, architect, and code reviewer all in one. 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟯: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗟𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲" 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 Built a custom MCP (Model Context Protocol) server in Python that: • Extracts math problems from PDFs • Generates new problems using GPT-4 • Creates geometric figures with DALL-E • Indexes everything for semantic search This was a game-changer for content creation. Instead of manually typing 200+ problems, I can now extract them from existing materials or generate new ones on demand. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆: ✅ 200+ problems across 37 topics (and growing) ✅ Full teacher dashboard with test creation, problems & theory review & student analytics ✅ Gamification with achievements and progress tracking ✅ LaTeX rendering for proper math notation ✅ Got my first 50 users in 4 days. 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀: Frontend: React, TypeScript, Vite, TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui Backend: .NET 9, EF Core, ASP.NET Identity Cloud: Azure (App Service, SQL, Blob Storage, Communication Services) AI: OpenAI API, custom Python MCP server 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱: 1. AI tools aren't replacing developers — they're enabling people like me to build things we couldn't before 2. Start scrappy, refactor when you understand the problem better 3. Build tools that help you build faster (the MCP server was 🔥) 4. Your background doesn't define what you can create 5. Don't be afraid to break what you have and build even greater things Check it out: https://evalumate.info/ #BuildInPublic #EdTech #AI #Claude #React #DotNet #Azure #SoftwareEngineering #IndieHacker

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Tracing React Native internals has always been possible - but never this flexible. At React Universe Conf 2025, Callstack’s Artur Morys-Magiera and Dominik Dolny introduced Ottrelite, a unified and extensible tracing framework for React Native. Built on Nitro Modules, Ottrelite re-enables the Systrace JS API and adds a plugin system for any native backend - Tracy, Android ATrace, iOS os_signpost, or custom implementations. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/ds4ZwWba

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🎥 Behind the Scenes at the React Vienna Meetup We caught up with Leontina M., one of our organizers, and Adrian Bolonio, one of the speakers, for a quick recap of the evening, from remote components and real-time fingerspelling in React Native, to automating docs with GitHub Actions! 👨‍💻 Talks featured: • Adrián Bolonio – Automating JSDoc with GitHub Actions • Viktor Lázár – Remote Components with RSC • Elena Coazzoli & Niklas Machacek – Fingerspelling in React Native 🙌 Big thanks to kununu for supporting the dev community! #ReactVienna #Meetup #TechTalks #OpenSource #kununu

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🚀 How we automated Customer Support at Alasco and why we switched from make.com to n8n.io. We just automated one of our most repetitive workflows and unlocked 20+ hours/week for our Customer Support team. Alina Suffa and her support team handle about 90 tickets per week. And although 80% of them are quite similar, they still had to answer each one manually, leading to a lot of repetitive work and constant searching through past tickets and help center articles. So we decided to automate it by building a workflow using n8n + Cortex Search (RAG) that now: 🔍 Compares every new ticket to 11,500+ historical tickets 🧠 Retrieves the most relevant past answers & help center articles ✍️ Drafts a recommended reply 📩 Pushes it straight into Slack & adds it as an internal note in Zendesk 💡 The result: - ~85% of suggested responses can be used with little to no editing - 20+ hours saved every week - Faster, more consistent replies for our customers - The team can focus on more important tasks instead of repetitive work Why did we switch from make.com to n8n? Simple answer: costs. A high‑frequency 65‑step workflow gets expensive fast on make's operation‑based billing. On n8n it runs 6× cheaper, so the migration was an easy decision. I’ve attached a PDF with the full technical breakdown, from similarity scoring to ticket enrichment if you are interested in the more technical side. Huge thanks to Julia Bastian, Alina Suffa and Benedict Marzahn for refining this project together. If you’re thinking about automating your support workflows, happy to share more insights! 🚀

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🚀 New Git lessons are live! I just posted a quick explanation about Git Rebase and the difference between Merge vs Rebase. 📺 On YouTube-Shorts (in English)https://lnkd.in/dZxZQJxj 🎬 On TikTok (in Romanian)https://lnkd.in/dWVrQMqy Check them out and let me know which approach you prefer in your workflow! 🔄⚔️

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3 endpoints. 0 logic. Fullstack Developers: Your GitHub is a cemetery of "completed" tutorials that no one actually trusts. 🪦 I know the job search feels like a never-ending rollercoaster of technical take-homes and "we need someone who has managed a live production environment." I get it – it’s a marathon to prove you’re an architect and not just a "copy-paste" developer. Most profiles are technically "full" but strategically hollow. 🧊 You list: "Built a social media clone" or "Proficient in the MERN stack." But you miss the signal hiring managers hunt for in 2026: The Edge-Case Credibility Gap. 🧠 The industry has moved past "can you build a feature?" to "can you handle the failure of that feature?" ⚡ If you skip these metrics, you look like a "Tutorial Assembler." Recruiters assume your state management will leak memory and your database will lock up under the first 100 concurrent users. (Stop for a second: Does your resume show what happened when your code broke, or does it pretend everything is perfect?) Don’t wait! Act before your competition catches up and snaps up the high-paying Lead Product Engineer roles you’ve earned. 🛠️ The 3-Step "VIP" Fix: 📌 1. Quantify Performance. ↳ "Slashed hydration mismatch errors by 60% in Next.js by implementing custom error boundaries and server-side state validation." 📌 2. Prove Logic Depth. ↳ "Reduced database deadlock frequency by 40% through optimized transaction isolation levels and multi-index query tuning." ⚙️ 📌 3. Apply Business Impact. ↳ "Recovered 15% of abandoned carts by refactoring checkout logic to handle intermittent API failures with exponential backoff." 🔍 Recruiters scan in one breath. If your "scars" aren't visible, your skills aren't believable. 📉 Stop being a developer who just "finishes projects." Start being a Product Architect who survives the real world. 🚀 P.S. Follow @JobLanderz.VIP for more Fullstack career hacks. 📑 #FullstackDevelopment #ReactJS #NodeJS #SystemDesign #JobLanderzVIP Which is more vital: 100% Feature Coverage or 100% Error Recovery? ⚖️

Lately I found out my old open source WPF productivity app has surpassed 300 stars on GitHub. https://lnkd.in/dC3j7YUr Which is pretty cool. I made it almost a year ago mostly for myself, and decided to also make it open source in case others might find it useful too. And now I realize that it has been significantly more beneficial than I had anticipated. I'm currently busy with another project, a multiplayer action adventure game published on steam with over 1k wishlists https://lnkd.in/dqdngASJ But when I have some more free time I plan to come back to this project and add some features that some users recommended: • A new modern Ui, the actual one is looking kind of outdated. • An improved detection mode which would also able to detect browser pages. • The ability for users to add custom states like "Studying" "Gaming" instead of the default "working" "resting" "idle" states. • Better documentation for people who want to contribute to the project or just want to use it to study. • Better statistic analysis and data visualization using pie charts. The project is using C#, Xaml, SQL inside WPF, with MIT license. #ProductivityTools #TimeManagement #WorkSmart #DeepWork #PomodoroTechnique #FocusAtWork #StayProductive #WPFDevelopment #DotNetDevelopers #DesktopApps #SoftwareDevelopment #CSharpProgramming #ModularArchitecture #HealthyWorkLife #WorkplaceWellness #MindfulProductivity #EmployeeWellbeing #WorkEfficiency #TimeTracking #ProductivityAnalysis #DataDrivenWork #WorkAnalytics

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😑🙏 The Exact Moment a Front-End Developer Feels Everything at Once Deadline met. Project delivered. ✅ API integrations working. Design implemented perfectly. Animations smooth and satisfying. That quiet moment arrives… The moment where you think: “I survived this one.” Then the project goes to testing. And the feedback comes back: “Mobile and tablet responsiveness needs improvement.” 🙂 That smile you give… while your heart quietly breaks. Because you gave everything to this project. Late nights. Endless fixes. Tiny UI details no one notices — except you. On desktop, it was beautiful. You were proud. You felt like a real front-end developer. And suddenly… it’s not “done”. Back to questioning layouts. Back to adjusting breakpoints. Back to screens you forgot even existed. Frustration. Self-doubt. A deep breath. But also growth. Because front-end development teaches you one emotional lesson: Perfection is temporary — adaptability is permanent. You don’t quit. You fix it. You learn. You deliver again. And tomorrow… you’ll still open your editor and build something better. That’s the job. That’s the pressure. That’s the pride. Advice to fellow front-end developers: Never trust only desktop. Test early. Test often. And remember — feedback isn’t failure, it’s refinement.

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🎉 New Blog Post Alert! 🎉 We’ve just published “What Is Custom Software? A Complete Guide to Understanding and Implementing It”, where you’ll learn: 🔹 What exactly custom software is and how it differs from off-the-shelf solutions 🔹 Key benefits: efficiency, scalability, and competitive edge 🔹 Real-world use cases and practical examples 🔹 When you should opt for a tailored solution 🔹 A step-by-step breakdown of the development process 🚀 Unlock the power of software designed just for you! 📖 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dsiQWVmP #CustomSoftware #DigitalTransformation #TechInnovation #AgileDevelopment #BusinessGrowth

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