Founder of Pramp.com here. Coding and interviewing are orthogonal skills. Being good at the former doesn't mean you're good at the latter. My recommendation to you is to challenge your own assumptions about your interviewing skills. Do you know for sure that you can do a credible job at system design? Is the process you use when tackling a problem aligns with interviewers' expectations? How are your communication skills? The point is that practicing coding interviews with other engineers will allow you to get unbiased feedback about many of the aspects above.

As other commenters alluded, interviewing and coding are indeed two different skills. However, contrary to some of the comments, I don't think there is anything wrong with preparing for an interview or even taking an entire course for that matter. If it helps you shine and showcase your real skills to an employer then why not? I’ve seen many brilliant software engineers get rejected for positions cut out for them only because they were so nervous at interviews that they had trouble even understanding simple questions until right after the interview ended. I know that because I'm a co-founder at Pramp.com, a free p2p mock interviewing platform for software engineers. It's incredible to see the improvement in one's confidence even after a single practice interview.

Job search sucks for many reasons and for the most part it's the hiring companies to blame for. However, this is a given situation which will not change any time soon. Instead of ranting, candidates should put some time in researching what the companies they're applying to are looking for and act accordingly - e.g. personalize their resume to match job descriptions, anticipate interview questions and do mock interviews. Some resources that can help in the process:

[1] https://www.glassdor.com (to find out interview questions asked by companies)

[2] https://www.jobscan.co (to optimize your resume against job descriptions)

[3] https://www.pramp.com (a peer-to-peer mock interviewing platform for software engineers)

Pramp provides you the ability to schedule same-day mock interviews.

This is truly an inspiring story, Jen! Kudos on the journey and all the best with Zube.io

Thank you!

If you guys got an interview invite from YC and wish to practice beforehand, you can do so here: Pramp.com/YC/faq

If you happen to be one of those who received an interview invitation, you could actually practice for your upcoming YC interview here: Pramp.com/YC/faq

Thanks for the great feedback. Totally makes sense and I plan to add the "About" page very soon.

Hey there, I assure you that there is nothing fishy about Pramp.com. I'm one the guys who built it and the reason I did that is because as an engineer myself, I experienced first hand the pains in getting a good practice before important job interviews. Some of the folks you see here with fresh accounts are my friends who simply wanted to upvote my post.

They wanted to upvote their friend's post and ask their friend questions on the HN thread, sometimes several times from different accounts?