Here are some of the changes made:

1. Faster server: I have upgraded the server to be more powerful. The speed of query is faster but still pretty slow. I do not want to increase the cost too much yet.
2. Company Logos: I have added 5 popular companies as a quick search link along with their logos! Hopefully, this increases the user engagement by making search easier. Also, it was fun creating those logos by using simple html text, not images.

3. Theme color: A subtle change, but I changed the overall color from light to white. Thanks for the expert designer who gave me this advice.

Until next time!

Update Release: Version 1.2 was originally published in Salary Ninja on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ugh! I randomly checked my website today and found out it is showing the image below. I think this is a result of a hack. I do not have an immediate solution but hopefully I can fix it soon. If you have any tips, please let me know!

Update 2020–02–19

Long story short, my website is back to normal!

Uhh I got hacked! was originally published in Salary Ninja on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

BEFORE

AFTER

Quite a few changes right? I will highlight a few below.

Main Page

I added the insights section as you can see by Top Salary, Top Job Category, and Top State by Average Salary. Before the site was pretty bare-bone, so I wanted to add a bit more interesting information to the visitors. For example, not surprisingly top job categories were related to doctors and pharmaceutical companies showed up often in the top salary category. Also, I found out that WV (West Virginia) had the top average salary thanks to surgeons. In the future, I want a dedicated INSIGHTS tab where people can search for information like that.

Oh, those information cards you see are clickable!

Advanced Filter

Before you could only search by using a company name or a job title, but now you can search by more categories.

What’s Coming Next

I got sidetracked recently working on AlphaBlitz (I will link it below), but there are numerous things I want to work on.

1. Updating the database with 2019 data (this is now added as of 2019–11–26).
2. Adding Insights tab as I mentioned above.
3. Consider improving the speed of ninja search. I really want to do this, but if it costs too much, it is not practical. If I have enough users and ad revenue, maybe I will one day.

Thank you and hope you have a good one.

Update 2019–11–26

The database is now updated with 2019 data! This process added about 500k new rows of data. Please go check it out.

Links

• Check my AlphaBlitz video blow.

Update Release: Version 1.1 was originally published in Salary Ninja on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

INCEPTION

Hi. Welcome to Salary Ninja, a search tool for salary insights.

Salary Ninja was created by a simple desire of mine to create a web application from start to finish. The idea of salary searching tool was in the back of my mind for some time because I have benefited using similar tools in the past. However, I wanted to add my own taste and try building it my own. I’m really glad I finally started working on it. Today, I am excited to announce that Salary.Ninja is live and running!

My focus on this first release was to create something that works since this was my first time building a web application. In the coming iterations, I plan to add more features and improve website performance.

FUNCTION

Think of Salary Ninja as a Google search of a salary database. You simply type Company Name and/or Job Title, then you will get the results. For now, that is about it! The unique thing about this data is that these are actually real, collected by the U.S. Department of Labor. These aren’t speculations or mysteriously reported data.

This data, despite being limited to a base salary, still provide guaranteed insight during your job search. Moreover, it is a fun tool for you to play with. Try searching “CEO” maybe.

Future Plan

First, add more features and insights. Since current version just provides search results and quick info, I want to add more insights in a separate tab.

Second, add more data. Current database includes data from department of labor. But I have ideas for other sources!

Third, improve performance. My website is being run on a low performance server to cut costs. I want to upgrade and hopefully you will get searches faster.

I know that this website is far from perfect, but I hope you can join me in my journey in learning to build a good web application. Thank you for reading and enjoy.

Demo GIF

Welcome To Salary Ninja! was originally published in Salary Ninja on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.