The interview prep market was saturated, yet deeply broken for a specific cohort: senior software engineers preparing for system design rounds, architecture walkthroughs, and capacity estimation interviews. LeetCode, HackerRank, and their peers had optimised entirely for algorithmic coding challenges. They had millions of users — but almost none of the friction, context, or depth that a Staff-level interview actually demands.

The instinctive response would have been to add more content — more system design prompts, more example solutions, more reading material. That's what most new entrants tried. But more content doesn't replicate pressure. And without pressure, there's no real preparation. Engineers who spent hours on these platforms still froze in the room, because they'd practised answering questions — not performing under the actual conditions of an interview.

The real problem wasn't a content gap. It was a simulation gap. Real interviews have timers that can't be paused. Follow-up questions that destabilise your answer mid-flow. Interviewers who ask you to estimate before you've finished designing. No existing platform put you inside that experience — because building it is significantly harder than uploading another prompt. The design bet was to close that gap entirely: build a platform that doesn't just test knowledge, but manufactures the conditions that make knowledge crumble.

The reframe: Senior engineers don't need more content to study. They need more reps under conditions that feel real enough to hurt.