mock interviews with friends always turned into small talk. so i built something that wouldn't let that happen.

every time i asked a friend to run through interview questions with me, we'd get like 3 questions in before it turned into catching up or joking around. never got the hard feedback i actually needed.

i was prepping for a senior dev role last year and kept setting up mock sessions with people i trusted. same thing every time — we'd start strong, then someone would crack a joke about the question being dumb, or we'd go off on a tangent about their own job search, and suddenly 30 minutes were gone with zero real practice.

the problem wasn't them. it was that asking someone to grill you is awkward. nobody wants to be the person who tells you your answer was too vague or you're rambling. so they don't.

i needed something that wouldn't go easy on me. something that would actually push back if my answer sucked, and wouldn't let me off the hook just because we're friends.

so i built nxtinterview. it's a tool that runs mock interviews — asks you real questions, listens to your answers, and gives you honest feedback on what you missed or where you lost clarity. no small talk, no letting things slide. just straight practice.

i'm still solo on this, still tweaking things based on what i wish i had back then. it's not some polished SaaS with a huge team — it's just me trying to solve the thing that frustrated me most about prep.

if you've ever had a mock interview derail into a therapy session or a podcast episode, you know what i mean.

you can check it out at nxtinterview.com if you want something that'll actually hold you to it. happy to answer questions about how it works or why i built it this way.