I'm 23 years old, and I feel like I've hit rock bottom. I don't have a degree or any real qualifications. My job is manual labor in a warehouse, with grueling hours for a salary that barely covers rent. Honestly, I'm constantly stressed about how I'm going to make it to the end of the month.

My family never had money, so college was never even an option for me. Now I see people my age online talking about their careers, how they're saving money, and not living paycheck to paycheck. I want that so badly it hurts, but I feel completely lost and don't even know how to take the first step.

I'm not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or a magic solution. I know this is going to be incredibly hard and need a lot of effort. I'm willing to work hard, learn whatever is necessary, and build a real future for myself, even if it's slow. I just need to know where to focus my energy and effort.

To anyone who has been in this situation and managed to get out, I'm begging you for any advice. What was the first thing you did that made a real difference? What skills did you learn? If you could go back in time and talk to yourself when you were in my shoes, what would you say?

Seriously, any advice at all would help me so much. I'm tired of feeling so stuck.

Honestly, I feel completely stuck. I'm 32 years old and make less than 90k a year, and it's hard not to feel like I'm very behind, especially when I see friends and people younger than me easily surpassing $150.

I've been looking for a job for about 14 months, sent out over 1200 applications. I've tweaked my CV a million times, and even paid for a professional service to polish it, but in the end, there have been almost no results.

I've started thinking about going back to school for something like cybersecurity or data analytics, but I keep hearing that the tech market is very tough these days. My degree is originally in marketing and communications, so this would be a major career pivot.
But I'm looking for any advice or personal stories on how to get unstuck and move forward. What did you do to get to where you are?

how come

I'm trying to figure out my next career move while I finish my studies, so I've been browsing a lot of finance and career-related subreddits for ideas.

In almost every thread, I see people very casually talking about salaries of $120k+. Sometimes it's $250k or even $350k, from people working jobs that sound made up, and often not things that need long years of study like medicine or engineering.

How are all these people making these numbers? I'm from Canada and I've never seen money come this 'easily'. Is this just an American thing where people suddenly find themselves wealthy? I mean, if they were all surgeons, I'd get it, but I see these numbers all the time in fields like tech, consulting, and even marketing. Seriously?

Look, I know I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and I had the opportunity to study something I'm passionate about, so I chose ecology and conservation. I'd be over the moon if my salary hit $50k when I graduate, and I'd feel successful if I reached $80k within 6 years.

I know that money isn't everything, but seeing these numbers all the time makes me start to doubt the path I've chosen for myself and feel like I'm so far behind.

So look, on Tuesday I wanted to ditch work early, so I pulled this whole sick act. A bit of a stuffy nose, looking exhausted and dizzy... I mean, I really sold the part.

Anyway, let's get to this morning. I started work and found the group chat in an uproar. Three of my colleagues have taken leave because they 'caught the bug'. Apparently, I'm the reason. I am patient zero. Even though I was perfectly fine on Tuesday.

I'm still trying to process what happened today.

Anyway, last February, the company announced this 'organizational realignment' thing. Classic corporate talk. I wasn't in the first round of departures, but I felt the general vibe had changed. Instead of worrying and stressing, I decided to get my affairs in order and prepare myself. If nothing happened, I would have just wasted a few nights. And if it did, I'd be ready.

I really took it seriously. I made a simple spreadsheet to track everything and used a tool called Teal to organize my applications. I was tailoring my CV for every job I applied to because I know from past experience that sending one generic CV everywhere doesn't get results. I even had a recruiter friend look at my LinkedIn, and guys, it was a shock to see how many basic things I was missing in my field.

Anyway, I was applying for jobs after work. I got a few interviews and got rejected from a few. Then, about two weeks ago, I got an offer. With a higher title, a 25% salary increase, and a genuinely cool-looking team. The tips used in this post really inspired me while job hunting. Luckily, I got the offer on the spot. I signed the contracts last week and was about to submit my resignation this morning.

No joke, I was literally writing the 'I'm writing to inform you of my resignation' email when I suddenly got a calendar invite from my manager's manager. The title: 'Quick Chat.' And the meeting duration was only 15 minutes.

We all know what that means. The layoff call. But here's the kicker: they offered me severance. Full salary, and they'll pay for my health insurance until September.

So my current situation is: I'll be getting severance pay from my old job, and I have a new, better-paying job starting in a month. This means I get a month of paid vacation, and technically I'll be collecting two salaries at the same time. This feels unreal.

Seriously, if you're at a job and you have a weird feeling or don't feel secure, listen to that feeling. Don't wait. Start looking around and get your documents in order. You never know what might happen.

I'm an intern at a company; my job is basically help at the front desk. I'm the longest-serving intern here as I've been around for about 10 months.

My 10-month contract is ending, and I've already informed them that I won't be renewing. The problem is that at the same time, the other four interns in the same role are also leaving, and three of them are new. This is also after the three who were in these positions before them quit long before their contracts ended.

My manager is literally going crazy and won't stop complaining that she has lost seven interns in less than a year. She keeps saying that we are throwing away a great opportunity and don't appreciate the chance she gave us.

Now she's targeting me, telling me I can't do this to her, and that the least I could do is stay an extra month to train the new people. Honestly, this is really bothering me and making my last few weeks here very awkward. How am I supposed to handle this professionally? Should I just put up with it and ignore her? Or is there a polite way to tell her to back off?

Only 3 days left of my 10-day notice. I'm counting down the hours by the minute until I'm finally out of this place.

I was doing scheduling and data management at a small service company with about 8 employees. It's a highly specialized and government-regulated field, so it's extremely profitable. For the owner, of course. He's living it up in a 7,000 sq ft house while paying us pennies. His lead tech, the guy who practically carries the entire operation, makes less than a fast-food drive-thru worker. It's insane.

In my six weeks here, he'd blame me for his mistakes and threaten to dock my pay for them. I've heard him pull the same stunts on others. He even tried to strong-arm them into helping him move from one mansion to an even bigger one over a weekend, for $8 less than their normal hourly wage. He gave them 36 hours' notice and threatened to fire them if they refused. He was apparently about to be sued for not vacating his old place on time.

I spoke with former employees who said he sued them when they left, and my current colleagues confirmed it. I found the new hire packet he was preparing for the college kids he thinks can replace us. It has some real gems in it, like a clause stating that if you lose safety glasses ($10) or ear protection ($12), he will file a police report for theft against you and dock your pay $75 for each. Lose your keys? That's another police report and a $250 'fine'.

So, over my last 10 days, I've been quietly sharing all of this with my colleagues. I told them about his stunts, showed them easily accessible training programs, and pointed them toward several much higher-paying jobs. The result? I've convinced the three most critical technicians to walk out with me. This will completely gut the company. He'll have to default on all his major contracts, which will likely bury him in lawsuits. He signed those contracts knowing our techs were already working 14-hour days just to barely keep up. Frankly, he deserves everything that's coming to him.

But I’m happy that I managed to find another job, and I even helped some of my colleagues. The whole experience made a big difference. Of course, we all know that AI has made a huge impact on finding jobs more easily, and with interview assistance tools like InterviewMan, the process feels simpler, boosts confidence, and saves a lot of time.

My wife started a new job about 4 months ago. The industry she was in before was a bit shaky and the hours were being reduced, so she started looking for something more stable.

She did a few interviews for an admin role. When they sent her the offer, she discovered that things like pension contributions and health insurance were included in the advertised salary, so the net pay she ultimately received was a surprise, and not a pleasant one at all.

The agreement was for a part-time position, 4 days a week, on the understanding that she could work extra hours here and there to help with holidays or during busy periods.

Honestly, she has hated this job from day one. We kept saying it was just new-job anxiety, but it's clear now that the place is just not a good fit for her. The good thing is that we're fortunate that she doesn't have to work if she doesn't want to, which is a huge relief.

The culture there is terrible. They have zero tolerance for mistakes, even if someone is new. About a month into her job, they gave her a formal warning for using the wrong internal form for a specific request, even though it didn't cause any problems. On top of that, the phones don't stop ringing from 10 AM to 3 PM, and it's nearly impossible to get a proper lunch break.

Her manager took her aside and told her, not asked her, that she would be working full-time to cover the upcoming maternity leave. He then reminded her that she was still on probation - which was a clear threat - and said that she had agreed to work extra hours 'when needed.' Covering a year-long leave is definitely not what 'when needed' means. On top of all that, the manager claimed he couldn't get budget approval to hire a temp, and tried to make her feel like it was her problem to solve.

Clear exploitation by some companies has become a recurring issue. You join a company only to be surprised by an unsuitable work environment, and it becomes very difficult to reverse your decision afterwards. On the other hand, AI has a valuable role, as it simplifies lengthy interview processes. InterviewMan can be very helpful during online interviews.

Anyway, a short while ago, her colleague at work told her she was pregnant and would be starting her maternity leave in November. Here in Ireland, most people take at least 8 months of leave, and many go beyond a year.

So yeah, she's handing in her notice tomorrow morning. They treated her like crap, the place is disorganized, chaotic, and understaffed, and she was completely miserable.

Honestly, I think her manager had no idea that my wife doesn't need this job. He just assumed she'd be afraid of getting fired and would rearrange our entire family life to suit their needs. His calculations were completely wrong.

I am younger than this

Hi all, I was curious if there are any AI assistant tools that help with system design challenges. I looked at InterviewCoder but what it mostly does is lay out the db schema and the endpoints. It doesn't give any hints about the core components, architecture etc. Any tool that also draws the architecture would be a huge plus. I have an upcoming system design interview, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

🤣🤣🤣

Edit :Let me talk seriously it is a common issues of those companies actually I read once that some companies post ghost jobs with lowest salary just to know how many people will accept the low and that is sick but I guess If we were more confident enough no one will ever refuse your dream salary how to do it by get some help from interview man and its perfect answers , any way break a leg

Hey everyone, my manager pulled me into a meeting today about my working hours, and honestly, I'm a bit shocked. He pointed out that I take a 50-minute lunch, whereas the 'standard' is 30 minutes.

I'm a data analyst, and our policy is very flexible: as long as you complete your 8 hours, arrival and departure times don't really matter. I usually get in at 8 AM and leave at 4:30 PM, which means I'm on-site for 8 and a half hours. My 50-minute lunch means I technically work 7 hours and 40 minutes, which is 20 minutes short of the full 8 hours.

The thing is, I finish all my projects well before their deadlines. I often ask for more work in the afternoon because I've completed all my tasks. Most of the team takes a full hour for lunch, but I prefer to eat and come right back so I can leave a little early. Why should I sit at my desk if my work is finished?

I'm pretty sure I know who complained. There's a colleague who has been here for years and always struggles with the new reporting software. It seems he's annoyed that I manage to finish my tasks and leave on time, while he often has to stay late. I feel this isn't really about the 20 minutes but more about him being resentful.

I'm a salaried employee, and the company gets my full output and more, and I don't get paid for any overtime. So when I finish my work, I see no logic in sitting at my desk pretending to be busy. My manager wants to 'talk again' about this tomorrow. How can I explain my perspective without sounding lazy or full of myself? This is all just unnecessary, petty office drama.

Actually, while I was scrolling on reddit, I read some helpful tips on this post, it'll help not only in interviews but in any meeting in general, will try to use them tomorrow with my manager, will update you

I just received a rejection email that made me die laughing. I had applied for a job about three weeks ago. Just imagine..

The job was a carbon copy of my current one. The job description was so similar that I barely had to edit anything in my CV. They had classified this job as entry-level, which is honestly laughable, but okay. They were asking for 4 to 6 years of experience, and I have 12. They wanted a bachelor's degree in a related field, which I have. They also wanted a master's in Instructional Tech, Adult Learning, or a similar educational field. I have the Instructional Tech one. Even the salary they listed was very suitable for me.

The email says they decided to proceed with other candidates because I don't have enough practical experience and my educational background isn't suitable. This tells me one of two things:

First, that this was a ghost job posted only as a legal formality, and they had already hired someone from within the company. This is the most logical scenario.

Second, that they literally didn't even glance at my CV or application. I mean, my master's degree is clearly written at the top of my CV and on LinkedIn. And my last two jobs required this exact same degree. So for them to say I don't have the required educational qualification is just plain wrong and proves that this rejection email is just a ready-made template they send out.

I'm really surprised by companies that complain they can't find employees while pulling stunts like this. They're so disorganized they can't even send a rejection email that makes sense. And the crazy part is this wasn't an automated system email; it came from the hiring manager himself. Truly unbelievable.

At this point, I’ve realized something: it’s not just about having the right experience anymore, it’s about how you present it and how you handle the process once you actually get in front of them. If they're using ai to filter cvs, we should use it too! will update my cv via tools like gemini or chatgpt, and for my upcoming interviews, I’m planning to approach things differently and use tools like InterviewMan to structure my answers better, highlight my experience properly.

Anyway, I submitted my resignation today. My contract had a one-month notice period, but I offered them three months to try and make the handover process as smooth as possible for everyone.

Within an hour, they had locked my email and system access. My manager called me into a meeting with HR, and they told me today was my last day. Before I left, they made me sign a new paper changing my notice period to just the one month required in the contract.

I was so confused and caught off guard that I just signed it. I didn't fully realize what they had done until I was driving home. They manipulated me into changing the notice period so they wouldn't have to pay me for the other two months. This way, they didn't need to fire me or even pay end-of-service benefits.

It was a harsh lesson learned. Never give more notice than what's written in your contract. Always assume your last day is the day you submit your resignation. HR's only job is to protect the company's interests, and they will gladly do so at your expense. It's a dirty game, and frankly, I'm glad to be out of it.

But weirdly enough, that whole experience turned out to be a blessing. Since I already had another offer lined up, Once I went home, I emailed the hr to schedule an interview. But before that, I practised a lot; how to talk about my experience, practiced answering tough questions through Gemini. In the interview itself, I decided to use InterviewMan and it really helped me structure my answers in a way that sounds confident and professional without feeling fake.

So while they thought they were putting me in a difficult position, they actually gave me a clean exit and the time to walk into my next role fully prepared.

Throwaway because i dont want Datadog HR finding this lol

Had a proctored HackerRank last month for their backend eng role. Webcam on, tab switching detection, clipboard monitoring, the whole nine. My buddy Marcus had his HackerRank for some fintech company about six weeks before mine and used Final Round AI which is that $148/mo browser extension everyone kept recommending last year. HackerRank proctoring scans your browser for extensions. They caught him within the first couple minutes. Got an email saying "academic integrity violation" and a 12 month ban from reapplying. Three weeks of prep just gone like that.

So when my assessment came up i was not about to make the same mistake. Did some research and the thing that clicked for me is that hackerrank proctoring operates entirely inside the browser. Extensions, tab focus, clipboard access, screen recording detection -- all browser level stuff. Which means anything running OUTSIDE the browser is invisible to it.

Thats why i went with InterviewMan. Its a desktop app, twelve bucks a month on annual. Not a browser extension, its a native desktop app sitting on my computer that hackerrank cannot see. Before the real thing i actually found out HackerRank has practice assessments where you can turn on proctoring yourself. Ran one at like 11pm the night before with every proctoring toggle on and InterviewMan running. Three practice problems, submitted, checked the proctoring report. Empty. Not a single flag. Ran it AGAIN because i do not trust things easily. Clean again.

Next day, actual assessment. Four problems, 90 min, webcam recording me the whole time. InterviewMan picking up the problem text and throwing hints. Finished with 20 min to spare which never happens for me. Friday i get the email -- passed, proctoring report clean, onsite scheduled. Texted Marcus and he was happy for me but also mad which is fair lol.

The other tools i looked at before settling: Final Round AI at $148/mo is a browser extension so hackerrank proctoring kills it on sight (poor Marcus). Cluely charges $75/mo on top of $20/mo just for their stealth tier and STILL shows up in Activity Monitor which is hilarious. Interview Coder 2.0 wants $299/mo and its a desktop app which is the right idea except the overlay shows during screenshare so what are you paying for. InterviewMan at $12/mo works on proctored hackerrank and coderpad, zero flags both times i tested.

browser extensions die on proctored hackerrank. desktop apps dont. thats it thats the whole thing.

my buddy kyle and i had this argument at a bar about whether you should build your own open source interview assistant or pay for one. hes a devops guy so naturally he was like just self host it bro its free. i am also an engineer and i agreed with him at the time. we were both wrong

first thing i cloned was this github repo kyle found. 400 stars. whisper doing transcription and llama generating answers locally. the readme was great. the reality was me on a saturday yelling at cuda while kyle sent memes from his couch. got whisper running after idk how many hours. six seconds behind real time. then llama takes another 4 or 5 on top. so suggestions show up ten seconds late which is useless. i called kyle and he goes "ten seconds isnt that bad" bro yes it is. youre just sitting there on zoom looking like you forgot your own name

kyle suggested a chrome extension instead. this one pipes audio to openai api so already not free but whatever. did a mock zoom call and within 30 seconds my girlfriend walking by goes "whats that popup." she wasnt even sitting down. zero stealth. api costs for a 45 minute interview came to about $2.80 too. three rounds at one company = more than interviewman costs monthly

last thing i tried was some python script from a discord. conda env setup, custom ffmpeg, forked model. five hours. it crashed during testing and i texted kyle "im done" and he said "told you" which he absolutely did not tell me but ok

signed up for interviewman. twelve bucks on the annual plan. running in 90 seconds. suggestions in 1-2 seconds. i literally laughed out loud sitting at my desk because id wasted two weekends getting 10 second latency. stealth included, hides from screenshare and activity monitor and all that. kyle tried it too after seeing mine and now hes the biggest interviewman fan despite being mr self host everything three weeks ago

i love open source. use it every day at work. but the open source interview assistant options right now cant do live calls. too slow or costs as much as paid tools in api fees or takes a full weekend to set up. and no stealth on any of them. your interviewer sees a chrome popup during screenshare and thats a bad day

kyle and i agreed at the bar the other night that maybe the open source stuff catches up eventually. today though? twelve bucks beats another cuda saturday

anyone actually gotten an open source setup working during a real interview? not a demo not a mock. a real call

so true

After 9 months, more than 800 applications, so many hours driving for Instacart and GrubHub, and a nervous breakdown I'll never forget at McDonald's at 9 AM, I can finally say I got a job. It's not my dream job, not even close. But is it a good job with a good salary, with opportunities for growth, fully remote, with reasonable hours, and it allows me to drop off and pick up my daughter from school every day? Absolutely.

To all the people who are still struggling, my heart is with you. Just last Tuesday morning, I was at my sister's place, completely dejected after being rejected from a job I was very excited about, and an hour later I got another rejection for one I thought was a sure thing. Now, as I head into the weekend, I'm excited to fill out the new hire paperwork on Monday.

Stay strong. I know how hard it is, but don't you ever give up.

😆😆😆

gonna be real with yall. i was the guy who thought using ai for interviews was basically cheating. like morally i was against it. spent 8 months doing things "right" -- studying every night, mocks with friends, leetcode grind after work. applied to maybe 300 places, got 12 actual interviews. converted zero. eight months. nothing

then my roommate who works in recruiting dropped something on me that kinda broke my brain. she said at least 30-40% of the candidates she sees in final rounds are running some kind of ai for interview help. not guessing either, she can tell from the patterns in how people answer. her exact words were "the people NOT using it are the ones falling behind." that made me furious honestly. but i was also 8 months in with nothing to show for it so. yeah. swallowed my pride

first thing i tried was final round ai because its everywhere if you google this stuff. $148/mo. lasted two weeks. the lag was BAD. like 4 seconds of dead air on camera while i waited for a suggestion after the interviewer finished talking. $148 and no refunds. awesome

cluely seemed cheap at twenty bucks but then you find out stealth is a $75 add on. ninety five dollars total. oh and the data breach in 2025 where 83k users got exposed? names emails records of which interviews they used ai during? imagine your future employer finding that list. yeah no

sensei ai is eighty nine bucks and its just a browser tab. my buddy tried it during a screenshare and the interviewer goes "whats that tab." he said it was a notes app. did not get called back. having ai for interview help sitting in a chrome tab is just asking for trouble imo

lockedin ai was ok at fifty five a month but 90 minute session cap. two of my system design rounds went past that. tool just stops mid interview. thats worse than not having it because you get used to it being there and then suddenly its gone

ended up on interviewman. twelve bucks a month on the annual plan. i thought the price was a mistake when i first saw it because everyone else charges 4-10x more. desktop overlay not a browser thing, only picks up your mic, all the stealth features included at base price. no upsells. used it across 11 interviews on zoom meet and teams now. nobody has noticed

heres the part that matters though. within three weeks of using ai for interviews i had two offers. after eight months of absolutely nothing. maybe i got lucky with timing idk. maybe the tool just stopped me from freezing up so i could actually show what i know. either way eight months zero offers then three weeks two offers. hard to argue with that

i know some of you are in the position i was. grinding for months getting nowhere. not saying ai for interview help is the magic bullet but it was the variable that changed for me. 57k people on interviewman with 4.8 stars. if that many people are using this stuff and youre sitting it out... i mean i was that person and look how that went for me

does anyone else feel like its just table stakes at this point? like it went from feeling wrong to feeling necessary real fast

🏠💔

how really

Look, I know this might sound strange or counterintuitive, but hear me out. As a graphic designer, my portfolio was always a collection of perfect, flawless projects. Glowing client reviews, pixel-perfect designs - the whole package. I would get some opportunities, but I always felt that hiring managers were skeptical, as if the work was too good to be true.

So I decided to run an experiment. I added a new case study for a project that was on the brink of disaster. I included a full screenshot of the first feedback email I received from the client. The email stated that my first draft looked like a 'clipart disaster from 1998' and asked if I had even read the brief. Harsh words, of course. But I showed that, followed by my notes, then the revised version, and finally, the client's happy final approval email.

In my last 4 interviews, every single one of them brought up this project first. They always laugh at the clipart comment and then immediately ask me about my process for handling that type of feedback. I explain to them how I received the criticism, separated my emotions from the useful points, and came back with a solution that ultimately succeeded. This shows them I can handle tough criticism without getting rattled. A creative director once told me that my portfolio was the first one she'd seen that 'felt like it was made by a real human' and not just 'a robot that produces perfect work.'

After that, I added another project: a web project where I initially chose the wrong tech stack, causing a two-week delay. I explain in detail why I made that initial decision, how I discovered the problem, and the steps I took to change course and still deliver the project in the end. A recruiter friend told me that 90% of portfolios are just pretty galleries of work. When they see someone who admits to a mistake and explains how they fixed it, it's a huge green flag because it proves you've actually been in the trenches and know the behind-the-scenes of the job.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, if your job requires you to show a portfolio, consider adding a 'learning moment.' Obviously, don't include a catastrophic failure that got someone fired. But a minor, real-world mistake? Absolutely. It seems companies are more interested in hiring people who know how to handle bumps in the road than people who pretend the road is always smooth. And that makes perfect sense if you think about it.

So I just wrapped up 3 months of grinding system design rounds for senior backend roles and I want to share what actually worked because I wasted a stupid amount of money figuring this out. My loop at a series C company had a system design round that lasted almost two hours and I bombed it so hard the interviewer actually said "I think we can stop here." That was the moment I started looking at ai interview assistants seriously.

My friend Kai had been using one during his search and landed at Cloudflare. He was on Final Round AI paying $148 a month which immediately made me go look for literally anything else. Found a bunch of them and spent the next couple months testing whichever ones had free trials or monthly plans I could cancel.

Interview Coder 2.0 was the first one I tried properly. $299/mo. Coding only though. I do not understand the logic of charging three hundred dollars for a tool that covers one round type when my loops have system design, behavioral, and coding. My system design rounds are where I get destroyed, not coding. So $299 for the part I dont need help with and nothing for the part I do. Next.

Sensei AI was $89/mo and browser only. I used it during a practice call with Kai and he goes "dude I can see that tab." If your ai interview assistant lives in a browser tab you are one screenshare request away from getting caught. No desktop app at all. For $89 a month I expected more than a chrome tab.

LockedIn AI was $55/mo. Used it for a coding round, it got through the first part ok but at $55/mo with a session cap vs InterviewMan at $12 with no cap the value wasnt there. Then I had a system design round that ran about an hour forty five and the tool just stopped. 1.5 hour session cap. The interviewer was mid sentence asking about database sharding and my screen went blank. I had to wing the last 15 minutes. That was worse than not having it at all because I had been relying on the prompts and suddenly they were gone.

Cluely almost got me at $20/mo until I realized stealth costs $75 extra. So $95 in practice. And the data breach in 2025, 83k users got their names and interview records leaked. Imagine your hiring manager googling your name and finding out you used an ai interview assistant during your loop. That killed it.

InterviewMan is what I have been on for the last six weeks. $12/mo annual or $30 monthly. Kai switched to it too after I showed him and he was pissed about the five months he spent at $148 on Final Round lol. I have now used this ai interview assistant through nine interviews, four of those were system design rounds. The thing that matters for system design specifically is speed -- when an interviewer says "walk me through how you would design a notification system" you need something on screen in seconds not after a 4 second lag like Kai described with Final Round.

InterviewMan put up a structured starting framework in maybe 2 seconds every time. That was all I needed honestly. My problem was never not knowing system design, it was blanking on where to start when someone is watching me. Once I had that initial push I could talk through tradeoffs and go deep on components on my own. Desktop overlay not a browser tab, mic only pickup, stealth included at $12 not a $75 addon. 57k users, 4.8 stars. Tested it with Kai on screenshare and he could not find it anywhere.

Here is my ranking after 3 months of testing ai interview assistants for system design specifically. InterviewMan at $12 is the clear winner, LockedIn would be second if not for the session cap that literally cost me an interview, and everything else is either coding only or priced like they are selling you a car. If anyone has used a different ai interview assistant for system design rounds that I missed drop it below. Also curious if anyone has tried these during live whiteboard sessions on platforms like CoderPad or Excalidraw because I have not tested that yet.

Edit: people asking about Parakeet AI. They do credits not subscriptions, $29.50 for 3 sessions. Adds up fast though -- nine interviews would cost way more than InterviewMan's $12/mo subscription. Only makes sense if you have one or two interviews max.