FAQ

Why should I do this?

First and foremost, if you're trying to get better at technical interviews, the best way to do that is to actually do it. Here, you can get a lens into the kinds of questions you'd encounter at top companies and get comfortable with answering them in a low-pressure, anonymous setting.

Beyond that, interviewing here can be a great way to get your foot in the door at top companies. When you do well in practice, you’ll start getting invitations to interview anonymously with great companies right on our platform. If you do well in those interviews, you can unmask, and they count as your technical phone screen. The next step is almost always an onsite.

In other words, you can get interviews at top companies without ever touching your resume, applying, haranguing your friends for referrals, or talking to recruiters.

How much experience should I have? Is it alright if I haven’t interviewed much before?

For now, you’ll probably get the most value out of interviewing.io if you’ve already done a number of technical interviews and know exactly what to expect. If you haven’t yet, you might want to work some problems on your own first to get comfortable with the format. If you need a place to start, we heartily recommend Interview Cake. There, you can work algorithmic problems at your own pace and get nice hints as you go.

What kind of questions can I expect?

Our interviews focus on CS fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, and systems design. Questions will be similar, both in subject matter and difficulty, to the kinds of questions you’d see in a real technical interview at a top company for a backend or full-stack role.

How anonymous is this really?

Interviews have voice but no video, and your interviewer will not have access to any of your info. In other words, how much you reveal is entirely up to you. Moreover, we will never share anything about you or your contact info with anyone without your permission.

Can I get interviewed by someone I work with? Because that'd be awkward.

Nope! We'll make sure you don’t get paired with your coworkers.

How much do premium interviews cost? What’s your refund policy?

Interviews start at $150, but the price varies depending on the subject matter and whether you want an interviewer from a specific company. If you’re unhappy with your interview(s), we’ll issue a full refund.

Who will my interviewer be? Can I request someone from a specific company, e.g. "I have a Google interview coming up and want to practice specifically with a Googler"?

Yes, absolutely. We have interviewers from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Stripe, Uber, Dropbox, Netflix, LinkedIn, Slack, and a bunch of other top-notch companies.

I want to be an interviewer. What do I need to do?

Awesome! Send an email to interviewers@interviewing.io with a few sentences about you, and we'll get back to you ASAP.

Who are you, and why are you working on this?

We’re a small team of engineers in San Francisco who want engineering hiring to not suck. Aline (one of our founders) first got the idea for interviewing.io after realizing that in an engineering resume, pedigree isn't a particularly valuable signal (whereas things like typos and grammatical errors are). To make sure she wasn’t crazy, she showed a bunch of anonymized resumes to recruiters and hiring managers, and it turned out that no one could agree on what a good candidate looked like. This seemed absurd, given how heavily companies generally rely on pedigree when deciding whom to let in the door.

Engineering is supposed to be meritocratic. And finding a job isn’t supposed to be a shitshow. We’re working on fixing both of these problems simultaneously.