Show HN: Had nowhere to practice coding interviews, so we built Pramp | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Had nowhere to practice coding interviews, so we built Pramp

pramp.com

29 pointsdavidglauber8 comments

Nice idea. Coding interviews are a true pain for so many hackers. I like the approach of connecting similar people to help each other improve. That makes a lot of sense, especially for geeks.

But that also seems somewhat troubling... especially because I'd normally inexperienced or first time job seekers using the site. Would that be like the blind leading the blind in a sense? There is a lot to learn to turn into a good interviewer.

Even if you don't test someone's ability, having them declare if they are interested in conducting interviews or being mock interviewed would likely get a good separation and better experience for all.

Peer practice isn't professional coaching, but we think you don't really need a pro to prep well. You just need the right practice buddy and good prep materials.

We pair you up against someone similar to you and provide full prep material (problems, solutions and specific tips and guidance) ahead of time. Both you and your peer with interview the other after you know how a right solution should look like and how to judge other solutions. You can also access the problems & solutions after your interview and learn about it.

Hey HN, one of the co-founders of Pramp here. We're a free peer-2-peer practice platform for coding interviews. It's like online dating for technical interviews.

After a few years of coding interviews, my friend and I noticed we always have a hard time finding good practice buddies. The web is full or great interview prep resources for self-learning: books, blogs, coding challenges and Q&A sites. Yet, there's no free place to practice live interviews. Interviewing is not something you can learn from a book or from coding by yourself. This is because interviewing and coding are 2 different skills.

Pramp pairs you to other hackers at your level to practice interviews together. On each interview both your and your peer will interview the other. We take care of everything you need to prep well: scheduling, interview problems & solutions, video chat, collaborative code editor and peer written feedback.

Would love to hear your feedback and thoughts.

Hey - I really like the idea! Can you explain how the interview process will actually work? Do you oversee the interview process or is it a nominated "interviewer"? I'm also interested to know - can anyone sign up to be an an interviewer or do you select a pool of interviewers who then conduct the interviews for users? How do you incentivise people to act as interviewers? Finally (as i'm not too techy) will there by a way for beginners / less developed coders to practice too?

Thanks!

Practice interviews on Pramp are bi-directional. Every user is both an interviewee and an interviewer on each interview. We oversee the process by matching between likeminded peers with similar skills, background and abilities and by providing prep material before interviews.

We're not a fit for beginners yet, as our interview questions take solid understanding of CS & coding just like real technical interview at tech companies. However, we plan to add this later.

Fair enough- looking forward to the beginner mode :)

So over time is it that a user get ranked for being a better or less good interviewer and the better you are, the higher level of interview partner you get?

Yes. We consider that when pairing you to your peers to make sure that you are both a fit for each other.

Thanks David. This is pretty good.

I'll start recommending this service to students in our interview prep bootcamp (http://interviewkickstart.com), who want more practice. We also do intense practice and mock interviews, but they are with seasoned interviewers working at Google etc, and hence there is a cost to it.

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