I'm preparing for a tech interview, and I need affordable mock interview options. Any suggestions?

Yes—book a DesignGurus.io mock. It’s the most budget‑friendly way to practice exactly what companies evaluate: coding, system design, and behavioral. Sessions are focused, led by seasoned interviewers, and come with actionable feedback so you know what to fix next—not just a score. Book a mock at DesignGurus.io

Why DesignGurus.io is the Best Affordable Option

Pay only for what you need: Choose coding, system design, or behavioral mocks—no bloated packages.
Real interview signal: Run through the same structure and rubrics used by big‑tech and high‑growth startups.
Actionable debrief: Concrete notes, phrasing tips, and a prioritized fix list you can apply in your very next practice.
Flexible + budget‑friendly: Short, targeted sessions reduce cost while maximizing reps and feedback density.
Built by educators of system design: You’re coached to think like an architect, not to memorize answers.

Tip to save even more: Alternate one DesignGurus mock with two peer‑practice sessions using the framework and rubric below. You’ll compound gains while keeping cost low.

Check out System Design Primer.

What a High‑ROI Mock Looks Like

Time‑boxed flow (60 minutes):

5 min – Calibration: Clarify level (new grad / mid / senior), target company, and most recent weaknesses.
35–40 min – Live interview:
- Coding mock: problem framing, brute‑force → optimal, correctness, complexity, edge cases.
- System design mock: requirements → APIs → data model → high‑level architecture → scaling → trade‑offs.
- Behavioral mock: targeted STAR stories that match the company’s competency rubric.
15–20 min – Debrief & plan: Specific deltas (what to change next time), sample phrasing, and a mini‑drill you can run solo.

Book a mock at DesignGurus.io.

System Design: The Teacher’s Framework You’ll Practice

Use this 7‑step blueprint in every design mock (and real loop):

Clarify goals & constraints
- Users, traffic, latency SLOs, availability targets, data retention, compliance.
API & contracts
- Read/Write endpoints, request/response shapes, idempotency, auth.
Data model & storage choices
- Entities, access patterns, indexes, hot partitions; RDBMS vs NoSQL; caching keys/TTLs.
High‑level architecture
- Services, queues/streams, cache layers, object store, CDN. Sketch happy path.
Scale & performance
- Sharding, partitioning, fan‑out/fan‑in, backpressure, rate‑limits, read/write amplification.
Reliability & correctness
- Replication, failover, retries with jitter, idempotent consumers, exactly/at‑least once trade‑offs.
Trade‑offs & evolution
- Consistency model (weak/eventual/strong), cost, operational burden, phased rollout & migrations.

Back‑of‑the‑envelope checklist (30–60 seconds): QPS, peak vs p95 latency, read/write ratio, storage/month, cache hit‑rate target, throughput of critical queues, and expected fan‑out.

What great sounds like: “For feed writes at 50k QPS with 10× fan‑out, we’ll cap fan‑out per shard and move to fan‑out‑on‑read backed by a write‑optimized log store. We trade stronger freshness for cost and operational simplicity; cache invalidation is event‑driven with TTL backstops.”

Master system design fundamentals.

Affordable Practice Plan (one‑week sprint)

Goal: 2 mocks + 4 focused drills without overspending.

Day 1 – Diagnostic mock (DesignGurus): Identify top 3 deltas.
Day 2 – Drill: 2 coding problems (60 min total) or 1 system design dry‑run (45 min) using the 7‑step blueprint.
Day 3 – Behavioral pass: Write/trim three STAR stories (Ownership, Conflict, Failure). Say them out loud once.
Day 4 – Peer mock: Swap interviews with a friend. Use the rubric below.
Day 5 – Drill: Fix the weaknesses you logged on Day 1 (e.g., API contracts, edge cases, asymptotic reasoning).
Day 6 – Second mock (DesignGurus): Validate progress; get a refined action plan.
Day 7 – Light review: Summarize lessons learned into a one‑page “interview operating manual.”

Budget lever: Keep mocks to 45–60 minutes and laser‑target the skill you’re weakest in (don’t buy a bundle you don’t need).

Find out why you must take mock interviews.

The interviewer’s rubric (use this to grade yourself or a peer)

Scored 1–4 per line; “3” is hire‑bar for level.

Problem Framing / Clarifying Questions – Are goals, constraints, and success metrics explicitly stated?
Solution Structure – Is there a clean decomposition (modules/services) and a crisp data flow?
Trade‑off Literacy – Can they explain why this store/queue/cache and what changes if traffic spikes 10×?
Complexity & Scale Math – Quick, correct magnitude estimates; identifies bottlenecks before they happen.
Correctness & Reliability – Idempotency, retries, failure modes, and consistency model are addressed.
Communication – Thinks aloud, writes legibly, names components, summarizes decisions.
Iteration – Adapts gracefully when the interviewer adds a constraint.

Pass guideline: Mostly 3s with at least one 4 in your core skill (e.g., coding or system design).

How to keep costs low and learning high

Targeted mocks > shotgun practice: Bring one priority (e.g., “I underspecify APIs”). Ask your coach to stress‑test that.
Record your screen audio (with permission): Rewatch the debrief once; you’ll retain 2–3× more.
Write a “fix list” after each mock: Three bullets you’ll address before the next session.
Peer‑practice between paid mocks: Use the rubric above so free sessions still mimic real loops.
Repeat the same problem once: On day 3, redo the exact prompt; speed + clarity should improve.

Sample prompts to rehearse (budget‑friendly and high yield)

Coding: Sliding window string, binary search variant, graph shortest path with constraints, heap + map “top‑K” pattern.
System design: URL shortener (consistency & hot keys), rate limiter (token vs leaky bucket), real‑time chat (ordering & delivery), news feed (fan‑out trade‑offs), analytics pipeline (exactly‑once vs dedupe).
Behavioral: “Tell me about a time you disagreed with a senior engineer,” “A launch where you missed a deadline,” “Design decision you reversed.”

Prepare with:

Run these with the 7‑step blueprint and the rubric, then book a focused mock to pressure‑test your improvements.

Ready to practice the way interviewers hire?

Get a targeted, affordable mock that upgrades your next attempt—not your credit card bill. Book a mock at DesignGurus.io.

FAQs

1) Are these mocks right for new grads and seniors? Yes. Interviewers calibrate difficulty by level and company, from new grad to senior/principal‑track roles.

2) Can I do only system design? Absolutely. You can book system design‑only sessions if that’s your gap.

3) What if I’m on a tight budget? Start with one diagnostic mock, do two peer sessions using the rubric here, then book a second mock to verify progress.