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 get access to our jobs portal, and there you can get warm intros to hiring decision-makers.

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.

There are lots of interview sites out there, and many are cheaper. Why should I choose interviewing.io?

We have the best, most experienced interviewers on the market, full stop. We’ve spent 9 years honing both our selection process for interviewers and the metrics by which we evaluate interviewer performance. Here’s how it works.

Anyone who wants to be an interviewer on our platform has to pass an intense screening process based on a mix of experience, credentials, and performance. We require that all of our interviewers:

• Have worked at FAANG or FAANG-adjacent companies (a short list comprised of companies like Stripe, OpenAI, Uber, Dropbox, and some others).
• Have at least 4 years of experience (though our average interviewer has over 8 years)
• Have conducted at least 20 interviews on behalf of the FAANG or FAANG-adjacent company

Then:

• We ask them to do 2 trial interviews. Many interviewers, even if they have great credentials, don’t get past this stage because we are ruthless in our standards for great interviewee experience.
• Even if they do very well in their trial interviews, for the remainder of their time on our platform, we are tracking two metrics for every interviewer (we wrote in detail about these two metrics previously).

We have a very long waitlist of interviewers as a result. We are very, very picky because we are the best in the business at this, and we want it to stay that way.

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

Yes, it's absolutely alright! That said, if you haven't done any technical interviews before or if you just want to de-rust a bit before interviewing with a human, try out our AI Interviewer. It's free, it simulates a FAANG-style interview, and it can do both coding and system design.

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 $179, 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.