The challenge
A maritime news and e-book publisher already reached seafarers through its reader app. It saw two groups it could serve better: the seafarers themselves, and the small and mid-sized firms that hire them. It asked us to build crew management software that sits on both sides of that hiring relationship.
Seafarers carry a heavy paper trail. Certificates expire on different dates, sea-service records build up contract by contract, and availability changes between voyages. Indian seafarers also watch how many days they spend offshore, because that count can decide their non-resident (NRI) tax status.
Crew managers at smaller firms had their own gap. They lacked simple tools to post jobs, find candidates and keep track of the crew they had already hired. The publisher wanted one platform for both groups, built on the app its readers already used.
What we built
We added seafarer features to the publisher's mobile app, built a responsive web portal for seafarers, and created a separate web app for crew managers.
For seafarers:
E-resume and certificate vault. An e-resume with sea-service history, stored certificates and an alert 30 days before each one expires.
Job board with one-click apply. Filters for rank, vessel type, salary and contract length, with status tracked through to hire.
Availability calendar. Sailing and off-duty dates that recruiters can see.
Career tools. Salary comparison by rank and vessel type, a guide to what the next rank requires, and a running count of offshore days that warns when NRI status is at risk.
For crew managers: a company profile, job posts with a free tier and paid subscriptions, and candidate search that stays anonymous until a seafarer applies. A crew database holds active and inactive crew, filterable by availability, history, certificates and rank, with expiry alerts.
For the publisher: an admin dashboard with job statistics, crew data export to CSV or PDF, and subscription management. Push and email alerts cover certificate expiry, job responses and availability.
How it works day to day
Follow a crew manager at a small firm with a vessel that needs a second officer. They post the job from the web app, then search for candidates by rank and certificates. Profiles stay anonymous until a seafarer chooses to apply, so nobody's details are exposed just for being on the platform.
On the other side, a seafarer between contracts filters the job board by rank and vessel type and finds the new post. Their e-resume, certificates and availability are already in the app, so applying takes one click. Alerts tell them when the firm responds, and they follow the application's status as it moves toward a hire.
Once hired, the seafarer joins the firm's active crew. On sign-off they move to the inactive list, ready for the next contract, and the crew manager can find them again by availability and rank.
The result
Seafarers manage their resume, certificates, availability and offshore days in one place and apply for jobs in one click. Crew managers post jobs, find candidates and track active and inactive crew.
For the publisher, the platform turns an audience it already served with news into a place where that audience manages its careers. It extends the same publisher's maritime news and e-book reader app and sits beside the e-book royalty and payout engine we built for its paid titles.
What the research says
Few job clicks become applications. Appcast's 2025 benchmark, built on 379 million job ad clicks and more than 30 million applies from over 1,300 US employers, put the average apply rate at 6.1% at the end of 2024 (Appcast, 2025). A stored e-resume and certificate vault let seafarers apply in one click instead of filling in each form again.
Personal data is costly to lose. IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach report puts the global average cost of a breach at $4.99 million, a record high (IBM, 2026). Candidate search stays anonymous until a seafarer applies, so crew managers see personal details only when they are meant to.
Connectivity is spreading, but unevenly. The ITU's Facts and Figures 2025 reports that almost three-quarters of the world's population are online, yet 2.2 billion people remain offline (ITU, 2025). Certificate alerts go out 30 days before expiry by push and email, so the reminder is waiting when a seafarer next connects.
Where AI fits next
These ideas are not in the platform today. A model could read an uploaded certificate and fill in its type and expiry date for the seafarer to confirm. Job matching could rank open roles against each seafarer's rank, vessel history and availability, and give crew managers a shortlist with reasons they can check.
Planning crew management software?
Before you build a hiring platform for seafarers or crew, it helps to answer four questions:
Which certificates must each rank hold, and how far ahead should expiry alerts fire?
What can a recruiter see before a candidate applies, and what stays hidden?
Which features are free, and which sit behind a subscription?
Does the platform extend an app your audience already uses, or start fresh?
Our SaaS development page describes how we build two-sided platforms. For pricing and launch, read SaaS product development from MVP to paying customers, or explore our media and publishing software work.
