Professional Overview
Aline Lerner is the founder and CEO of interviewing.io, a San Francisco-based company specializing in an anonymous mock interview platform and a technical recruiting marketplace. Interviewing.io focuses on improving technical hiring through anonymous mock interviews that mitigate biases in the hiring process, targeting a meritocratic approach to recruitment in technology sectors.
Company and Role Context
- Company: interviewing.io
- Position: Founder & CEO
- Location: San Francisco, California, United States
- LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/alinelerner](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinelerner)
Interviewing.io serves engineers by pairing them anonymously with senior engineers from top-tier tech companies to conduct mock technical interviews. This process is designed to bypass resume biases and traditional gatekeeping mechanisms. The platform boasts collaboration with leading tech firms including Facebook, Uber, Dropbox, Twitch, Yelp, Lyft, Quora, and others.
Educational and Professional Background
- Lerner attended MIT, studying computer science and neuroscience.
- Before founding interviewing.io, she worked as a software engineer and a technical recruiter.
- Her experience spans hands-on engineering and recruitment, lending her deep expertise in both hiring processes and technical skill validation.
Key Contributions and Thought Leadership
Publications and Authorship
- Author of _Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview_, the official sequel to the widely acclaimed _Cracking the Coding Interview_ (CtCI). This book is aimed at helping candidates navigate the increasingly difficult and complex technical interview landscape in 2024 and beyond.
- The book was publicly announced and released for pre-order through late 2024, with distributions starting January 2025.
- It contains a dedicated section detailing why technical interviews and job searches are flawed and how to better prepare for them.
Blog and Public Commentary
- Runs a well-cited blog ([blog.alinelerner.com](https://blog.alinelerner.com/)) that advocates for reducing reliance on resumes in favor of more objective, performance-based assessment methods.
- Promotes the idea that resumes often obfuscate candidates’ true potential and that a focus on substantive interview performance is more effective.
- Has authored research and commentary on technical interviews, hiring biases, and recruitment strategies, supported by data derived from thousands of interviews and resumes.
Public Speaking and Media
- Featured in multiple interviews and podcasts discussing technical interviewing and best practices in tech recruiting.
- Provided insights into FAANG-level software interviews, revealing statistical nuances and trends observed from extensive data collected at interviewing.io.
- Regularly shares actionable hiring guidance targeting both engineering candidates and recruiters.
Business Impact and Scale
- The platform attracts about 3,000 new engineers signing up regularly for job search support through interviewing.io.
- The company uses anonymous interview replays and extensive data to refine the interview process and reduce hiring biases related to educational background, resume gaps, and demographic information.
- Lerner’s leadership has positioned interviewing.io as a notable innovator in meritocratic hiring and diversity-enhancing recruiting methods over the last decade.
- Interviewing.io’s approach has been recognized for closing the engineer diversity gap by anonymizing the candidate’s identity during initial technical screening.
Thought Leadership on Industry Issues
- Publicly opposes anti-DEI rhetoric, advocating for meritocracy while supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion policies within tech hiring frameworks.
- Analyzes systemic problems in traditional recruiting such as bias in resume screening and interviewer inconsistencies.
- Emphasizes leveraging AI and structured interview methodologies without falling victim to over-reliance on rote algorithmic practice (e.g., “lead code zombies”).
Relevant Recent Activity and Public Engagement
- In 2024–2025, actively published new content on emerging challenges in tech recruiting, including:
- Critiques on resume designs that unnecessarily complicate recruiter decision-making.
- Promotion of high-ROI resume tactics and interview preparation strategies through both her blog and social media channels (X/Twitter).
- Continues to engage with the interviewing.io user base for feedback and collaboration on content related to her book, notably requesting permission to use interview session replays as teaching materials.
Actionable insights point to Aline Lerner as a highly informed and influential figure combining technical background, recruitment expertise, and innovative product leadership. Her focus on data-driven, anonymous interview processes aligns with trends in objective, merit-based hiring. Leveraging Lerner’s insights or offering solutions that align with meritocratic and bias-reduction hiring technologies would be particularly resonant. Additionally, her role as an author of a key industry book underscores her thought leadership and influence in evolving technical interview preparation and recruiting methodologies at scale.
