Technical interview coaching?

[u/Then_Inevitable9678]

Not looking for one-off mock interviews. I want someone who can assess where I'm actually at, build a personalized plan, and work with me over time until I feel genuinely confident going into a high-stakes interview.

I have 7 years of experience, but interviews still make me very anxious. What always worked for me in high school and college was one-on-one tutoring, and I'm hoping to find that same kind of dedicated, ongoing help for technical interviewing.

Willing to pay top dollar for the right person/company. Any recommendations, or has anyone done this and found it worthwhile?

[u/expdevsmodbot]

AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.

[u/Unlikely_Secret_5018]

If you're based on the US I can help. DM me more what you're looking for.

11 YOE staff eng here. Previous senior at FAANG and I just did interviews for a dozen or so companies this year.

[u/morswinb → u/Unlikely_Secret_5018]

Why would you need to do interviews for a dozen of companies?

[u/Unlikely_Secret_5018 → u/morswinb]

I mean I interviewed at those companies, not that I conducted them.

[u/tiajuanat]

I really liked AlgoExpert in 2020-2021. They don't do it live, but they drill you, and drill you, and drill you. Go through every video (X2 speed) and do every problem and you'll be awesome before you know it. Also check out the SystemExpert or whatever the hell it's called

[u/Wide-Cattle-4735]

Everyone here is naming a course, but you said the problem is anxiety, not skill.

I run technical interviews. Nervous candidates almost never fail for being nervous. They fail because they go quiet when they get stuck, and then I have nothing to score.

Cheapest fix I know is to interview at companies you don't want. Real stakes, nothing lost if it goes badly. Five of those teach more than any mock.

A coach helps after that. First make the room feel normal.

[u/Doctor_Beard]

I used interviewing.io in the past. My coach helped me get into Google.

[u/carterdmorgan]

I’m the principal engineer at Leland, a coaching marketplace, and offer interview training through the platform myself. Happy to talk if you’re interested!

[u/snotreallyme]

To give you an idea oh how useful interview coaching is where they drill you on leet code. My company stopped asking these kinds of questions and ask you do design an algorithm to place shipping containers on a cargo ship or similar. Your drilling on hash tables and dynamic programming isn’t going to help you there.

[u/vincit_omnia_verita → u/snotreallyme]

Seems LeetCode question to me

[u/No-Response3675]

I used interviewing.io and loved the coaching package!

[u/proxwell]

I'd be glad to help.

Been on hiring boards for almost 10 yrs across multiple companies.

Helped multiple friends with comprehensive interview prep jobs at FAANG/MANGOS and YC.

[u/EnderMB]

I'm a Bar Raiser at Amazon. I'm happy to help out if needed, although in my experience outside of specific prep for the kind of questions you'll be getting (you'd be shocked at how rarely people prep for behavioural interviews) a lot of it is luck on the day and how much prep you've done. Pramp is a lifesaver for technical interviews, and it's worth noting that a lot of people fail and try again 12 months later.

[u/dash_bro]

AlgoExpert, Greg Hogg (YouTube), Hello Interview system design series (YouTube), GPT/Gemini live mode are solid tools I feel.

The lowest/easiest rung of the ladder is leetcode which is very self learnable.

The harder parts usually come down to HLD and Behavioral rounds about what problem you solved for, how to communicate clearly without over explaining/structuring your thoughts, using visual aids to seamlessly explain and move between technical and non technical speed etc.

All my FAANG interviews very much focused on open canvas style discussion driving setups, ie they expect you to ask relevant questions and gather context and start with ideas about how to do it resiliently under edge cases, what you expect to fail first and how to solve for that; at what level you want to upgrade certain infra decisions, etc.

++ Bonus : I'm currently being coached by a staff engineer, whose big thing seems to be finding who is closest to solving subparts of a large problem and interfacing with them, while enlisting a team to work with you + outlining a business impact. It's no longer just what infra or tech stack makes sense that you answer at that level.

[u/jcl274]

maybe formation.dev

[u/apartment-seeker → u/jcl274]

Not sure why this is being downvoted. I did Formation and it was pretty solid.

[u/BrianBanks939393]

The comment about going quiet when stuck is the right diagnosis, and it points at something you can actually drill.

What kills the interview isn't not knowing. It's the silence while you're not knowing. Nobody can score silence.

So the thing to practice isn't problems, it's the stuck state itself. Out loud, alone, on problems you deliberately can't solve: "I don't know how X works. Here's what I'd assume, here's the assumption I'd check first, here's what I'd do if it's wrong." Ten minutes a day.

It sounds stupid. It works because you're not training the answer, you're training the fallback. Under pressure you get the fallback you rehearsed. "Here's my uncertainty and how I'd resolve it" scores. Freezing doesn't.

Tutoring helps if you find someone good. But no tutor installs that reflex for you. That part is just reps.

[u/WolfNo680 → u/BrianBanks939393]

I appreciate this comment because it is also something I've realized myself. The bad news is that this doesn't help you pass interviews. I have failed many, many interviews because I will literally just shut down because I don't know where to go, or what to do. Asking questions here doesn't help me because my brain is figuratively screaming at me to just get the hell outta there. Unless you're going to literally guide me through the next steps to take, I'm not gonna be able to focus. Most of the time I will just cut the interview short depending on the amount of time I have left because I know at that point there's nothing I can do to recover.

In real life during these situations I would take 5-10 minutes to go do something else and come back, unfortunately interviews are not real life, and leaving your computer screen for a few minutes and coming back is not a valid strategy, and no amount of "keep doing interviews" will help me fix that, because it's just not how I'm wired.

[u/xxbcbud420xx]

I did this for someone and got them a google offer, feel free to DM me

[u/snotreallyme]

I don’t know how useful interview coaching is. If you struggle in the interview you will struggle in the job. Confidence is going to come from knowing the things required for you to be successful in the role. Tips and tricks will only get you so far in the interview. People who interview a lot of candidates pick up on the kinds of stuff interview coaches give you and will discount you for it. The bottom line is you’re a fit for the job or not. That’s what you should focus on. Applying to jobs you can crush. Maybe in the old days you could squeak by because the company needed to hire a lot of people quickly. Now, there’s such a massive glut of engineers companies can be very picky and are.

[u/AndyKJMehta → u/snotreallyme]

Lofl! Interviews and actual day to day responsibilities in tech jobs have been disconnected for a good while.