mock interviews with friends kept turning into catch-up sessions so i built something that actually drills you

every time i tried doing mock interviews with a friend before a real one, we'd start strong then drift into talking about their weekend or some random work story. i'd walk away feeling less prepared than before.

happened three times in a row last year when i was interviewing. i'd ask someone to grill me on system design or behavioral questions, and within 10 minutes we'd be talking about their new project or some recruiter drama. no one wanted to be the bad guy and actually push back on weak answers.

so i ended up building nxtinterview — basically a way to practice interviews where the ai doesn't let you off the hook. you upload your resume, pick the role you're targeting, and it generates questions that actually matter for that job. if your answer is vague or you're rambling, it'll call it out and ask follow-ups. no polite nodding.

the part that surprised me most while building it was how much the resume context mattered. generic "tell me about a time you led a project" is useless compared to "you mentioned migrating a legacy system at your last job — walk me through how you handled pushback from the team." way harder to BS your way through that.

i'm still the only person working on it and honestly just trying to make something i wish existed when i was grinding leetcode and behavioral prep at the same time. not trying to replace real human feedback, but for the 10pm practice session when no one's available, it's been solid.

full disclosure: i'm vamshi, i built this thing. launched it a few months ago and still tweaking based on what people actually use vs what i thought they'd use.

if you've ever had a friend bail on mock interview plans or just felt awkward asking someone to be harsh with feedback, might be worth trying. it's at nxtinterview.com — no signup walls for the first few practices.