Backend
PHP 8.4
Core language — no framework, hand-written procedural + functions
MySQL / MariaDB
Relational database, PDO with prepared statements throughout
PDO
PHP's native database abstraction layer
Frontend
Vanilla JavaScript
No React/Vue — plain JS for all interactivity
Hand-written CSS
Custom properties (CSS variables) for theming, no Bootstrap/Tailwind
Responsive design
Mobile-first breakpoints, flexbox & grid
Editor & Content
Quill.js
Open-source rich text editor — blog posts & admin content fields
Prism.js
Syntax highlighting for code blocks in blog posts
Email
PHPMailer
Industry-standard SMTP library — handles TLS/SSL with cPanel/Exim servers
AI Integration
Google Gemini API
AI-assisted email/cover-letter drafting (optional, admin-triggered)
OpenAI API
Alternative AI provider option
DeepSeek API
Alternative AI provider option
Infrastructure
cPanel / Exim
Shared hosting environment this site runs on
Custom SMTP
Self-configured mail delivery, no third-party email service
A note on how this was built: This entire site — homepage, blog, admin panel,
email system, and this page — was hand-written in PHP and vanilla JavaScript.
No page builders, no AI-generated templates were used for the final production code.
Third-party libraries listed above (Quill, Prism, PHPMailer) are open-source components
integrated manually, not auto-generated scaffolding.