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lubujacksonMay 25, 2026, 9:36 PM

20+ year dev here, successful CTO, built many production systems, etc. I tend to bomb >50% of tech interviews.

I started doing better when I realized most tech interviews are not aligned with my brain, and that is ok. I have bad recall for syntax or even for things I've built in the past if I'm not currently engaged with them. This can come across like I am a bullshitter, or wholly incompetent. I also stumble through leetcodes - I remember enough to identify to right approach but fumble knocking out solutions in 15 minutes.

But this is fine! If everyone at a company has focused on powering through leetcodes to get the role, or the job demands photographic memory of HTTP codes ("what is code 428 used for?" An actual interview question I have seen...) I am probably not a good fit and won't enjoy the work or the culture.

Once you focus on the things you do well and find companies whose interview process emphasizes those aspects, things become much easier. Let go of the feeling that every interview is a minimal bar that any functioning SWE should be able to pass. If it was, they would be hiring every other applicant.

Some roles they give you a task and fail you quietly if you don't solve it using TDD, even if they don't mention that as a requirement. Or if you don't ask details about requirements, even for narrow toy problems. You are never going to guess all the gotchas that a company can throw up in front of you, so my advice is to confront each interview by working in the way you like to work. Show off your good attributes when you can. Listen to hints of course, but represent yourself honestly and assume at least half the companies will reject you no matter what you do, and that is fine.

Often that attitude will earn you more marks than trying to conform to what you guess the company wants to see.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 10:41 PM

Yeah, thank you for that response, I agree it’s more about how you and interviewer see some problems and solutions and if you match you can work together with great performance

recursivecaveatMay 25, 2026, 9:51 PM

How good do you think you are at verbalizing while interviewing? Even if you can't get question X actually finished/correct, you can get a lot of credit by having an easy-to-follow thought process that shows some directional correctness or creative problem solving.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 10:38 PM

Yeah, it’s a big problem, thinking and speaking for me 2 separate processes, and I can express this signals from brain as a code, but when I start verbalising it, it blocks ability to write

sn9May 26, 2026, 3:50 PM

You have to actually practice the skill of communicating while solving a problem.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 26, 2026, 5:32 PM

I become a programmer for decreasing communication, but unfortunately you are right

eddy-sekortiMay 25, 2026, 7:40 PM

claude and ChatGpt are your best friends, ask them to act like "the company and the position u r going to interview for" and take ur interview.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 8:17 PM

Thank you, I tried acting like this but I should do it in infinite loop, for being in a good shape, or I forget all this stuff in a week

taurathMay 26, 2026, 5:58 AM

Some people's brains don't work the way that people who set up interviews think. If they require memorizing, they don't end up hiring those people (except strangely in upper management, where utterly different signals are looked for).

DmitriyBuchilinMay 26, 2026, 5:34 PM

Yes, It’s very hard to recall something under pressure

k8s-1May 25, 2026, 7:23 PM

You're not a loser, you have 8 years of development experience across multiple companies. Nailing the technical interview does not guarantee you get the job. As you mentioned, luck does play a factor and being hard on yourself for not passing an interview is time better spent preparing for the next one.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 8:19 PM

Thank you for your support, but sometimes I think that working and pass interviews absolutely orthogonal skills

holden_nelsonMay 25, 2026, 7:05 PM

HelloInterview has helped me I think. Especially with system design

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 8:16 PM

Thank you system design a real pain in ass

VirusNewbieMay 25, 2026, 6:15 PM

Practice. Use pramp.com. Do super super simple ones. If you can't do two sum or fizzbuzz or tree traversals with someone watching you, you're not going to have a prayer for harder stuff. Just start SUPER simple. Pracitce a lot.

It should be muscle memory to do the easy stuff. And then it turns out, the 'hard' questions are often just a combination of easy things.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 7:59 PM

Thank you for your reply. I trained some easy stuff of course, but it’s like arms race, I repeat leetcode things, they ask me system design, I repeat that, they ask how v8 engine works under the hood, it’s absolutely insane

VirusNewbieMay 25, 2026, 9:00 PM

Yes but with pramp.com you can get real feedback. Sometimes it's not answering wrong, it's cause your communication sucks. Or maybe you're coming across pompous. or maybe too timid. Or maybe you have glaring bugs for certain things. I dunno. You need honest brutal feedback that is actionable.

DmitriyBuchilinMay 25, 2026, 9:02 PM

Yes, agree, brutal feedback it’s the best driver, I will try this app

dnnddidiejMay 26, 2026, 10:30 PM

Hate to say it because it is cliche but just a lot of practice. Find out the kind of interviews you are doing using levels.fyi, glassdoor.com, etc. or ask the recruiter. Then find online material to practice (or LLM - my last interview was pre good LLMs so didn't do much with AI but this time I would).

kantodtech1May 26, 2026, 7:44 AM

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toeflmax2026May 27, 2026, 3:36 AM

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yashnitroMay 26, 2026, 5:21 AM

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offerccMay 25, 2026, 10:08 PM

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Ask HN: How do you prepare to tech interview? Any tip and tricks?

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