HT·
Back to projects

Gradtopia Live Chat ·

A live chat system for Gradtopia, an education platform connecting mentors and mentees. Built to keep conversations on-platform and increase retention. Engineered for maximum uptime with a polling fallback when WebSocket transport degrades.

Role
Freelance Full-Stack Developer
Duration
2025
GitHub
—

Real-time mentor/mentee chat with WebSocket transport and a polling fallback for uptime.

Node.jsSocket.ioTypeScriptMongoDB

Technologies used

Node.jsNode.jsSocket.ioSocket.ioTypeScriptTypeScriptMongoDBMongoDB

Key features

  • Real-time messaging via Socket.io
  • Automatic polling fallback when websockets fail
  • Mentor / mentee thread routing and history
  • Built to keep communications on-platform for retention

What I learned

Real-time isn't only about getting the happy path working — it's about graceful degradation. Designing the polling fallback up-front made the system feel reliable even on flaky networks.