Goal
Build a complete social platform for students, supporting posts, follows, discussions, and real-time chat, while simulating real-world team dynamics and production-style development workflows.
Stack
StudentScroll uses a React + TypeScript frontend and a Spring Boot backend exposing a REST API secured with JWT authentication. Real-time messaging is handled via WebSockets, with pagination and structured endpoints supporting feeds and user interactions.
Key Decisions
The backend was designed around a clear API contract early on, enabling frontend and backend development to proceed in parallel. Authentication, messaging, and core domain models were implemented first to stabilise the foundation before layering on UI features.
On the frontend, we focused on reusable components and responsive layouts to keep iteration fast across changing requirements.
CI/CD and deployment readiness were treated as first-class concerns throughout development, rather than an afterthought at the end.
Outcome
A working full-stack social application delivered as part of a group project during a semester abroad at AUT (Auckland University of Technology). The system supports user accounts, posting, following, and live chat, and reflects a complete end-to-end product cycle from planning to delivery.
Further Details
StudentScroll was developed in a five-person team environment with rotating Agile roles to mirror real-world workflows. I acted as technical lead for large parts of the project, driving backend architecture, implementing authentication and messaging, and coordinating integration between frontend and API.
Beyond core feature development, I worked on deployment setup, code quality, and CI/CD pipelines, while also contributing React components and helping align UX with backend capabilities.
The project provided hands-on experience building a production-style system under time pressure, balancing individual ownership with collaborative decision-making.
