{"slug": "the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back", "title": "The Interview Prep Mistake That Kept Holding Me Back", "summary": "A developer found that reading solutions to coding problems during interview prep was counterproductive, as it prevented the development of independent problem-solving skills. To address this, they built Sde Vault, an AI coach that guides users through their thought process rather than providing direct answers. The tool was designed to force longer deliberation and structured self-analysis before seeking guidance.", "body_md": "[While preparing for interviews, I realized I had a strange habit.\n\nI would solve a problem, get stuck, open the solution, understand it, and move on feeling productive.\n\nA few days later, I couldn’t solve a similar problem on my own.\n\nThe issue wasn’t lack of practice.\n\nThe issue was that I was consuming solutions faster than I was developing problem-solving skills.\n\nSo I changed my approach.\n\nInstead of looking for answers, I started forcing myself to think longer, write down my ideas, identify where I was stuck, and only then seek guidance.\n\nThat worked much better.\n\nBut I couldn’t find a tool that supported this style of learning.\n\nMost platforms either:\n\nSo I started building my own.\n\nThe goal was simple:\n\nAn AI coach that guides the thought process instead of generating the solution.\n\nOver time I added:\n\nThe interesting part wasn’t building it.\n\nThe interesting part was realizing that interview preparation is less about collecting solutions and more about training how you think.\n\nWhat has helped you improve more during interview prep?\n\nReading solutions?\n\nOr struggling with the problem first?\n\nSde vault - [https://sdevaultweb.onrender.com/](https://sdevaultweb.onrender.com/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/ujjwal3769/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back-1fap", "published_at": "2026-06-06 06:21:11+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-06 06:42:00.902470+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "ai-products", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Sde vault"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-interview-prep-mistake-that-kept-holding-me-back.jsonld"}}