MERNReact NativeB2B
Anchor (2026)
A B2B marketplace built on the MERN stack with a React Native companion app — recruiter-grade web dashboards plus messaging and payments on mobile.
Anchor — hero mockup
— The Challenge
What needed
solving.
Anchor needed a marketplace connecting companies with vetted talent: a data-heavy web dashboard for clients and a lightweight mobile app for candidates — sharing one backend and one source of truth.
The hard part was keeping a complex, multi-role product fast and consistent across web and mobile.
— The Approach
How I
built it.
I built a single MERN backend serving both a Next.js web dashboard and a React Native app, with shared types, role-based auth and real-time messaging over websockets.
Payments, notifications and search were designed to behave identically on both platforms, so the product feels like one thing.
— Key Decisions
The calls that shaped it.
01 — PRINCIPLE
"A shared backend beats two codebases"
How I applied it
One Node/Express + MongoDB API serves both web and mobile, so business logic lives in exactly one place.
02 — PRINCIPLE
"Real-time has to feel instant"
How I applied it
Websocket messaging and optimistic UI make chat and status updates feel immediate, even on a weak connection.
03 — PRINCIPLE
"Types are the contract between web and mobile"
How I applied it
Shared TypeScript types across the stack caught mismatches at compile time, not in production.
— Process
How the work got done.
System design
01
System & API design
Designing one MERN backend to serve web and mobile cleanly.
Dashboard build
02
Web dashboard
A recruiter-grade Next.js dashboard for client teams.
Realtime & payments
03
Real-time & payments
Websocket messaging, notifications and payment flows.
Mobile build
04
Mobile companion
A focused React Native app sharing the same backend.
— Selected Screens
A closer look.
Client dashboard
Candidate list
Candidate detail
Messaging
Payments
Admin
— Mobile Companion
The app, up close.
App — feed
App — chat
App — profile
— Outcomes
The work moved the numbers.
1 → 2
backend serving web + mobile
<100ms
message latency
99.9%
API uptime
100%
shared types across stack
Figures from launch and the first quarter of operation.
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