Questions,
answered plainly.
What Jobak costs, what it does with your data, and where the jobs come from.
Is Jobak really free?
Yes. There is no plan to choose, no trial that expires and no card to enter. Nothing is held back behind an upgrade. The only cost involved is whatever your own AI provider charges you for the key you connect.
Why do I need my own Groq API key?
The ranking step runs a model over every listing it collects, and that costs money per request. Rather than charge you a subscription to cover it, Jobak runs on a key you supply, so you are billed directly by your provider at cost and never marked up. You can create a key for free at console.groq.com/keys.
What happens to my API key?
It is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is written to the database, and it is decrypted only when a search runs on your behalf. It is never shared with third parties and never used for anyone else's searches.
Where do the jobs come from?
Jobak searches job platforms for openings that match the profile you set during onboarding, and collects what it finds. Listings that turn up in more than one place are de-duplicated so you only read each opening once.
How often can I run a search?
As often as you like. There is no quota and no cooldown — re-run it whenever you want a fresh set of matches. Bear in mind each run uses your own API key for the ranking step.
What does the score actually mean?
Every listing is scored from 0 to 100 for how well it matches your profile — your skills, experience, location and salary range. It is a relevance score, not a quality judgement about the company, and it is what the list is sorted by.
Who can see my preferences and matches?
Your matches, scores and bookmarks are yours alone — every row is scoped to your account by Postgres row-level security, so the database itself enforces that one account cannot read another's. The one exception is opt-in: if you publish a profile to the talent directory, the specific things you tick there become public. Nothing is published unless you turn it on, and your email is never published at all.
What is the talent directory?
A public page of candidate cards linking to people's LinkedIn profiles, so employers can find them. It is off for every account until you switch it on from your dashboard, you choose individually whether the card shows your field, skills, experience and what you are open to, and turning it off removes your card straight away. Your email address is never shown on it under any setting.
Do I need an account to browse jobs?
No. The jobs page is public and every listing has its own shareable link, so you can read and apply without signing up. An account is what gets those listings scored against your own profile and collected for the roles you care about.
Can I run my own copy?
Yes — Jobak is MIT licensed and the source is public. You can read exactly how the scoring works, change the ranking, or host your own instance on your own infrastructure.