Reference checks

The problem

After an old script-and-forms setup was switched off, the ops team started every reference check by hand. They emailed every former manager, read every reply and raised every follow-up by hand.

What I built

• Checks that start themselves, with a follow-up every 24 hours until someone answers.
• An in-product form for managers, replacing Google Forms and email tables.
• A threaded inbox inside the product over AWS SES, so ops could retire a shared mailbox that kept locking them out.
• Automatic handling of no reply, wrong contact and opt-out.
• An LLM on AWS Bedrock that reads each reply, picks one of 8 labels and routes it. Unsure replies still go to a person.
• The backend and two frontends.

Stack: Node.js, BullMQ, Redis, AWS SES, AWS Bedrock, React.

What changed

116 to 14

manual initiation tasks a day

86%

of checks now start automatically (2,838 auto vs 818 manual)

22.4 to 15.4 days

average turnaround, down 31%

10% to 63%

share of tasks closed by the system

6.3 to 4.4

manual actions per completed check

85%

of manager responses arrive through the new form

16,818

outreach emails sent by the system

Source: Production data, manual baseline 1-9 Sep vs 8-16 Oct 2026.