Role: Full-Stack Developer Industry: Automotive Tech / SaaS Platform: Web (Next.js + Django) Engagement: End-to-End Product Development

Local car dealerships were losing ground — not because of bad inventory, but because of broken processes. Swerv Automotive came to me with a clear mission: build a production-grade SaaS platform that gives dealerships a real competitive edge using Open Car Data (OCD).

Before the platform existed, dealerships were operating blind:

Vehicle data was fragmented and impossible to act on quickly

Acquisition workflows were entirely manual, eating time and budget

There was no centralized way to spot market trends or understand buyer behavior

Staff had no collaborative tools — everything lived in spreadsheets and inboxes

I was brought on as the full-stack developer responsible for architecting and shipping the core platform — from the data layer to the user-facing dashboard.

Frontend (Next.js + Tailwind CSS) A fast, responsive dealership dashboard with role-based views for platform admins, dealership managers, and sales staff. Key surfaces included a vehicle inventory manager, a Sales Records panel for nationwide data, a Sales Prospects workspace with credit-gated customer intelligence, and a Chart.js analytics dashboard with real-time market trends.

Backend (Django + PostgreSQL) Engineered the REST API powering JWT-based authentication with token refresh, multi-step dealership onboarding, role and approval management, cursor-based pagination on large vehicle datasets, and a credit system controlling access to ownership records.

Cloud Infrastructure (AWS) Deployed on EC2 and RDS, with Lambda functions handling automated data syncing and Selenium-powered scraping pipelines. S3 managed secure document and photo storage for vehicle listings.

GoHighLevel — CRM and high-converting outreach campaign automation

SendGrid / Postmark — Transactional email for onboarding, verification, and staff invitations

Open Car Data pipelines — Ingestion, transformation, and continuous syncing of nationwide vehicle sales records

The platform launched and immediately moved the needle for dealerships on the Swerv network:

333% increase in private-party vehicle acquisitions

47% growth in new customer traffic

12% boost in total vehicle sales

By replacing manual guesswork with automated, data-backed workflows, Swerv dealerships could source smarter, act faster, and close more deals — without adding headcount.

Frontend: Next.js 15, React 18, Tailwind CSS, Sass Backend: Django, PostgreSQL Cloud: AWS (EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3) Integrations: GoHighLevel, SendGrid, Postmark, Selenium Deployment: Vercel / Netlify Design: Figma