Next Step Guide
AI-powered career guidance platform built with Python and Flask
Overview
Next Step Guide is an AI-powered career guidance platform built using Python and Flask. It provides intelligent, personalized career advice to users by leveraging AI, deployed on Google Cloud Run for serverless scalability, and using Cloud SQL for persistent data storage.
Problem Statement
Students and early-career professionals often lack access to affordable, personalized career guidance. Generic resources fail to account for individual backgrounds, skills, and goals — making it difficult to identify the right career path.
Key Features
- AI-powered career recommendations tailored to user input
- RESTful API backend built with Python and Flask
- Serverless deployment on Google Cloud Run for cost-efficient scaling
- Persistent user data and session management via Cloud SQL
- Clean, minimal user interface for career exploration
Architecture
Challenges & Solutions
Deploying a Flask application on Cloud Run with proper environment variable management and container configuration.
Used a Dockerfile to containerize the Flask app, configured Cloud Run environment variables via the GCP Console, and used Secret Manager for sensitive credentials.
Connecting Cloud Run to Cloud SQL securely without exposing the database to the public internet.
Used the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy approach with a private IP connection via VPC connector, ensuring all traffic between Cloud Run and Cloud SQL remained internal.
What I Learned
- Containerizing Python Flask applications for cloud deployment
- Deploying serverless workloads with Google Cloud Run
- Integrating Cloud SQL with Cloud Run using secure connection methods
- Designing clean REST API contracts for AI-powered backend services