SkillNode did not start as a startup idea. It started as a pattern we could not stop noticing: people around us who could clearly do the work were not getting the chance to prove it.
I kept getting passed over despite having the skills. So did my friends. We decided to fix it.
The problem we kept running into
If you are a student applying for internships, you learn quickly that the first screen is not really about ability. It rewards pedigree, brand names on a resume, and formatting tricks that survive whatever software is scanning it. The people who can actually do the job often never make it past that first filter.
So applying turns into a volume game. You send out dozens of nearly identical applications, employers drown in nearly identical resumes, and everyone loses signal. The absurd part is that the information both sides need — what can this person actually do? — exists. It just gets flattened out of the process.
Three students in Toronto
There are three of us: myself on strategy and product, Sriharish Eswarathas building the engineering and AI foundation, and Jaidon Randall on growth. We started SkillNode in 2025, self-funded, while still in school in Toronto.
Building it around classes is not glamorous, but it comes with one real advantage: we are living inside the exact problem we are solving. Every frustrating application, every ignored resume, every friend asking "can you look at my cover letter?" is product research.
What we decided to build
The bet behind SkillNode is simple: skills should be the primary signal in hiring, not a footnote under a school name. That means structured skill profiles instead of keyword-scanned PDFs, matching that reads what you can actually do, and tools that take the busywork out of tailoring each application.
None of that replaces effort. You still have to be good. But being good should be enough to get you into the conversation.
Where we are now
SkillNode is in live beta. It is early, and we are honest about that — some things are rough, and the product changes week to week based on what students using it tell us.
If you are a student tired of the volume game, or a team that wants to hire on ability, try it. And when something feels broken or confusing, tell us. That feedback is the reason the product gets better.
Read next
How SkillNode works — version 1
A plain walkthrough of what SkillNode actually does today: resume parsing, AI tailoring, and skill-based matching.