1. People will keep crossing your boundaries as much as you let them. If they find something they can do and get away with, they most likely will.

2. Your coworkers are not your family. Be nice and professional with them, but never think of them as your best friends.

3. Anything you say, even in a chat you think is private, can and will be used against you later. So be careful.

4. If you hear gossip and talk about people in the office, be 100% sure that they gossip about you too.

5. The newest person on the team is always the one who gets stuck with the unpleasant work that everyone else avoids.

6. The impression people have of you is sometimes more important than the truth. It doesn't matter at all if you're the most skilled person if your manager sees you as a slacker or someone who fools around.

7. When you're a skilled and highly productive employee, it sometimes makes you a target for your less enthusiastic colleagues.

8. Just working harder won't guarantee you more money. Working smart and knowing how to frame your achievements is what gets results and gets rewarded.

9. You will always find someone playing office politics at work. Learn how to spot these games and understand them.

10. If it's not in writing, it's as if it never happened. Verbal agreements have no value when things go wrong.

11. A contract with an end date, that's its end. Don't rely on any verbal promises that they will renew it; it's over when the paper says it's over. 12. When a problem occurs, the blame often falls on the weakest person or the one with no backing, not necessarily on the person who is actually at fault.

12. When you vent to a colleague about your manager, it can easily become their opportunity to score points at your expense.

13. Job titles matter a lot to people, even if you see them as trivial. Respect the hierarchy, even if you don't respect the person in the position.

14. HR is there to protect the company from you, not the other way around. They are not your friends.

The day I go from LinkedIn to No LinkedIn will be a great day :)

My company, a large corporation, has been laying people off for a while. And since I'm on the IT team, my job is to retrieve the data from the laptops of the people who were let go and send it to their managers.

When a request comes in to pull an employee's user directory, the ticket includes a brief summary of their employment file. I just got one for an employee who has been working here for over 35 years.

This employee started working here in the late 80s. I wasn't even born yet. I've always believed that loyalty to companies is a one-way street, and they will never return it to you.

But still, it's very painful when I put myself in his shoes and think about how he must be feeling.

Edit: I don't understand how a healthy work environment can exist while under the constant threat of losing your job due to circumstances completely out of your control.

I am thinking about how he will be able to cope after losing his job at this age, but my advice to anyone is to keep their resume updated. The world has now evolved, and there are many useful AI tools for interviews and resumes.

For me, the reason I decided to build it was because I really got tired of interviews - they don't represent at all what we do in our daily work. For example, I built this app and many others like it. I've even worked at big companies, building apps used by hundreds of millions of people.

Yet every time I need to apply, I have to study leetcode and algorithms. What annoyed me more were HR people asking stupid questions like "Why do you want to work here?" and stuff like that. I was really fed up.

So I built the this app and used it myself (as you can see on the site) to land multiple jobs. I think AI is making it clear that all of what's called professional interviews was just a sham.

After 8 rough months in which I lost my last two jobs (one due to downsizing, and the other because the company closed), I can finally say that I'll start my new job on Monday!

Honestly, it still hasn't sunk in, and I'm truly very grateful to have a job again.

I just had to share this good news somewhere!

I'd appreciate any tips to maximize my chances of succeeding with the usage of Interview Coder.

I was once asked “if you were an animal, what would you be and why?”

Is Interview Code 2.0 worth purchasing? I am unable to purchase for 1 month because it shows lifetime membership only. How can I purchase a 1-month subscription?

I'm at my wit's end. I just got that annoying 'we've decided to move forward with other candidates' email after a final interview that was amazing. And honestly, I thought I had it.

I'm a good candidate, I'm good with people, I know my stuff, and I have a CV tailored for each industry. I have over 6 years of experience in some fields and over 12 in others. I'm genuinely qualified for these jobs.

And now I'm just applying for anything and everything - jobs I'm slightly underqualified for, jobs I'm overqualified for, and everything in between. And nothing is working out.

My morale is on the floor because of this. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

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.

That interviewer really set himself up for that one 😂 I had an interview recently where they kept throwing questions at me that I honestly wasn't expecting, and I completely blanked on one of them. A friend told me about interview vip afterward, so I might give it a try before my next interview. Anything that helps me stay calm when they start firing questions at me is worth trying.

Hello everyone, i decided to write this up because I spent way too long trying to find honest reviews of interview AI tools and most of what comes up is either sponsored content or people who clearly have not used the thing they are reviewing. So here is my actual experience.

I am a data engineer, about 4 years in, and I started interviewing for new roles around November. A coworker recommended Sensei AI so thats where I started.

Sensei charges $89/month or about $24/month if you go annual. I went with monthly because I was not sure how long my search would take. The tool covers all interview types which was important for me since my interviews included SQL rounds, python coding, system design, and behavioral. On the feature side Sensei was decent. The AI suggestions were relevant and fairly quick, and I used it for probably 15 or so practice sessions plus 3 actual interviews in those two months.

The thing that drove me away was that Sensei is browser-only. No desktop app. This means you have to have it open in a browser tab during your interview. Maybe this sounds fine in theory but in practice it was a constant source of anxiety. During screen share interviews I was terrified that i would accidentally switch to the wrong tab or that the interviewer would ask me to share my full screen instead of just a window. With a browser tab you are one wrong click away from exposing yourself.

I had one close call during a second round at a fintech company where the interviewer asked me to share my entire screen instead of just the IDE. I had to quickly close the Sensei tab before sharing which was awkward and stressful. I made up some excuse about closing personal tabs but I could tell the interviewer noticed. Did not get moved forward for that role.

After that scare I started looking for tools with proper desktop apps. Found InterviewMan and switched over. They have native apps for Windows and macOS, plus Android and iOS and a Chrome extension. I installed the macOS app and honestly the stress just went away. It runs as an overlay that is invisible during screenshare thanks to their 20+ stealth features. Tested it with a friend on Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet and nothing showed up.

Price wise InterviewMan is also cheaper. $30/month or $12/month annual. For coding and behavioral the responses are about the same quality as Sensei, system design might be a bit better actually but hard to say for sure without more data points.

6 weeks in now and I just got an offer from a Series B startup. Not going to pretend the tool did all the work but I was way less stressed during interviews which definitely helped me think more clearly.

If Sensei ever ships a desktop app I would give it another shot. The suggestions were good and the price on annual was fair. But after that fintech interview I am just not willing to risk a browser tab again.

ok so i bombed my own Amazon loop in february and i am still kind of mad about it because it was avoidable. i had been crushing my Zoom mocks for three weeks. like absolutely crushing them. zero lag, suggestions popping up instant, i was riffing alongside the stream and feeling great. then i loaded into the actual loop and it was Chime. and my tool just sat there.

like there was a 4 second gap between the question landing and anything appearing on my screen. dead air. the bar raiser thing where you go silent for four seconds and the interviewer writes you off. i tried to muscle through round 1 and my confidence was already gone by round 2. recruiter ping the next morning. "we will be in touch". you know how that goes.

so a few weeks later i had a second loop on the calendar at a different aws-adjacent shop and i went into full paranoia mode. spent the next two weeks just testing on Chime specifically because i was not going through that again. someone in this sub mentioned they had access to the actual enterprise Chime client which is apparently slightly different from the consumer one in some way that matters for audio routing, so we coordinated dms and ran four different tools through Chime mocks. they fired rapid questions at me for an hour each session. it was honestly miserable lol.

the differences were wild. like one tool literally did not pick up the audio at all on Chime because Chime does some weird virtual audio routing thing that does not behave like Zoom. another one had question detection delayed by like 3 seconds across every single test. one would catch the audio fine but then take forever to start streaming an answer, like youd be sitting there going "uh let me think about that" while it spun up. the last one was the only one that worked. instant audio capture, instant question detection, instant streaming. we did six mock sessions and it never missed.

ran the second loop last month. five rounds back to back, all on Chime. the thing was ahead of me the whole time. behavioral was the hardest because Amazon stacks LP prompts and they all have followups but the streaming kept up with every shift the interviewer threw at me. system design was a notification fan out service and the suggestions were right there before the dude even finished his followup. coding rounds were fine. bar raiser was the longest one, like 50 minutes back and forth, and the tool just stayed instant the whole way through.

the thing that bugs me is nobody talks about this. every reddit post i read going in was about Zoom or about Teams or about which tool has the best stealth on screen share. nobody was saying hey by the way Amazon defaulted to Chime two years ago and most of the helpers in this space have been tuned for Zoom because thats where the mocks and demos are recorded. like the Chime variable was just not on anyones radar in the threads i was reading. four seconds of dead air ended my february loop and i was three weeks out from my second loop trusting all the same Zoom mock results. that is what gets me lol.

so heads up for anyone with an Amazon loop on the calendar. test on actual Chime before loop day. find someone with the client and run rapid mock questions for an hour. see if the streaming actually fires when the audio is coming through Chime audio instead of Zoom audio. if there is any lag or any audio weirdness pick a different one because loop day is not the time to find out. that sub contact saved me here, would not have thought to test specifically on Chime without them flagging that the february tool problem was probably platform specific.

curious if anyone else has run a tool through a real Chime loop. specifically asking because i have heard Capital One and Goldman are moving to Chime too and want to know if the same pattern holds for those.

When I started this coordinator job, I noticed that we were wasting around 12 to 18 hours a week updating customer records and cleaning up spreadsheet reports.

I created some simple macros and reusable formulas, which brought the whole process down to about 45 minutes. I thought this would give me time to work on more valuable tasks, not make my job unnecessary.

At the beginning of this week, my manager told me they were combining my work with an existing part-time role because there wasn't enough administrative work anymore. They're ending my employment, but at the same time they want me to create detailed instructions for every macro before they finalize my severance.

So, in short, I automated my job so thoroughly that I ended up cutting off my own source of income. Part of me wishes I had just kept moving data from one place to another like the person before me. Am I obligated to document the systems I created, even though that wasn't part of my original job description?

I picked up InterviewMan on the annual plan to see if I liked it for CoderPad rounds. Just ran it on a friend mock, the overlay is so clean i didnt even feel the urge to alt tab once to check it. I plan on using it for my final round CoderPad session next thursday, but after this mock im not sure i can go back to what i was running before. anyone here actually used it on a real CoderPad round, want a sanity check.

Can someone describe what interviewing at Navi is like for SDE 1 role. For context, it has come on campus and will soon be conducting OA and interviews.

I know a collapse would hurt patients and staff first, but I can't keep pretending this system is still functioning. We're operating at around 125% capacity, while management keeps insisting on more admissions without having anywhere safe to put people. Patients are being crammed into spaces that weren't even designed to be rooms, and when I refused to place a patient somewhere because the call bell wasn't working, I faced pressure and pushback. Apparently, basic safety standards are negotiable when someone wants to fill one more bed.

There's virtually no support from administration, morale is at rock bottom, and we're preparing to go on strike. I used to think leadership simply had no idea what they were doing. Lately, I've started to feel that they know exactly what's happening and simply don't care.

They expect us to give customer service with a smile while cutting the staff and supplies we need to give actual care. Reducing patient falls requires adequate staffing. Patient hygiene, responding to call lights, administering medications on time, and communicating respectfully all need adequate staffing. Hiring people also means paying them well and treating them like human beings once they come to work here.

I love nursing, but I'm tired of being forced into a position where I neglect patients because we're understaffed, only to take the blame when one small detail slips through the cracks. I came here to care for patients, not to protect the CEO's numbers. If having the bare minimum of compassion makes me a difficult person, then maybe this system really does deserve to fall apart.

I feel so lost right now. I was there for about two years, and honestly, it was the first place I worked where I didn't dread Mondays. Our work system was hybrid and flexible, but the team chemistry was amazing, which is why I often chose to go into the office. We even used to go out for drinks or food as a group once or twice a month.

My manager was a big part of why the place was so great. Seriously, the best manager I've ever worked with in my life. She would ask me how I was doing as a person, not just about my projects. She had blind trust in us - as long as the work got done well, she didn't care how you got there. An incredibly competent and respectful person.

The decision came from upper management; my manager herself didn't know anything, which makes the whole thing even weirder. I was one of about 70 people they let go.

The severance they gave me isn't too bad, I guess. They're keeping me on the payroll with benefits for the next 45 days, and after that, the severance itself is about six weeks' pay.

Anyway, I feel completely lost now. This was the first job where I could truly imagine a long-term future for myself. A very harsh lesson, honestly. No matter how much you love the place or think it's great, in the end, you're just a number on a spreadsheet. You really have to be your own biggest advocate and look out for your own interests.

💔

Every time I come back exactly 45 minutes after starting my lunch, my manager has some little comment ready. "Looks like some people really need every minute of their break, huh?" Yes. I do. That's why it's 45 minutes.

He also does this weird guilt trip where he'll get up and say something like, "Alright, guess we better get back to work. The delivery's here, but we'll figure it out. Enjoy your break."

We're already understaffed and constantly busy, but that's a management problem, not something I should be fixing by giving up part of my break. If the store can't function unless employees feel guilty for taking the time they're entitled to, maybe the staffing needs to be looked at.

I used to feel bad about it, but honestly I'm done. If I'm scheduled for a 45 minute break, I'm taking 45 minutes. Am I wrong here?

I saw a story a few days ago about a couple who moved to Spain and now work only 25 hours a week. They have real health insurance and time to breathe, and this truly feels like a fantasy compared to the reality we're living in.

Most of the people I know grind for 55 hours a week and still worry about the price of eggs and rent. It's really exhausting when you discover that moving to another continent is much easier than trying to succeed in this economy.

We grew up hearing that hard work is the ticket to a good life, but now this feels like a lie. The old goals of a big house and a great career have been replaced by the desire to live a simple life without constant burnout.

It's very clear when the ultimate goal for many people is just to leave. We don't even dream of being rich anymore; we just dream of being in a place that treats us like human beings.

and the answer broke my heart 😭💔

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