Peppermint AI

The Story Behind PAI

System design interviews are tough by design — so we built Peppermint AI to be tougher.

Live mocks help, but they’re pricey, inconsistent, and never enough.

Reading solutions or watching videos isn’t the same as defending your trade-offs when someone’s poking holes in them.

So We Asked

“What if you could run open-ended, unscripted system design interviews — anytime, as deeply as you want — and build the clear-headed judgment top hiring panels really look for?”

That’s why we built PAI — a rigorously crafted AI interview platform that mirrors the stakes, the messiness, the ambiguity, and the relentless follow-ups of real senior-level system design rounds.

We exist to help engineers build the judgment and calm that real interviews demand — no coaching bias, no empty theory.

What We Believe

AI should make prep better, not just faster.

Every feature we build starts with what real candidates struggle with — then we ask: How can AI push your thinking deeper, surface blind spots sooner, and make premium prep more accessible to more people?

Readiness should be repeatable, realistic, and bias-free.

No overpriced mocks. No second-hand playbooks. Serious practice should be on your schedule — as many reps as you need, until you trust your own depth.

Pushback builds clarity.

Judgment is forged under pressure — not by memorizing patterns, but by defending them when they’re stress-tested for real.

Depth beats surface fixes.

Fancy frameworks and static checklists won’t help if you can’t adapt when your interviewer throws a curveball.

Who we are for

If you’re a mid-to-senior engineer (SWE2+) aiming for top tech companies and you refuse to coast on shallow prep — you’re our people.

Maybe you’re here to train like an athlete — pushing for FAANG, craving reps under real pressure, building the judgment edge that panels trust.

Or maybe you just want a clear, no-nonsense way to pass the system design round — to catch the blind spots that stump good candidates, and get real value from your very first session.

Either way, you’ll walk away sharper from your first run, and clearer every time after.

And if you’re a TPM or PM? Stay tuned — we’re sharpening the same real-world edge for you too!

The Peppermint Promise

No rigid schedules. No hidden fees. No shallow practice partners. Just clear, on-demand sessions that mirror actual system design interviews with actionable feedback so you’re tested for real, not just rehearsing theory.

Buy interviews on PAI as and when you need them — and go as deep as you want, as often as you want. No subscriptions, no surprise renewals. Just focused, repeatable practice, fully in your control.

Our team

Peppermint AI is led by Priya Sambandam — a builder, product strategist, and engineer who spent over a decade at Amazon shaping AI-powered products millions use every day.

Connect with Priya

From Alexa’s voice and video experiences to Prime Video and Fulfillment tech, Priya built complex systems at scale — and saw firsthand how traditional prep falls short when real-world trade-offs and shifting constraints come up, both on the job and in the interview room.

As an Amazon Bar Raiser for five years — a select group of senior interviewers trusted to uphold hiring standards and mentor peers — she led 200+ interviews across software, data, and network engineering roles. This breadth gave her a front-row seat to where even strong candidates stumble — and what it really takes to clear the bar at top tech companies.

She’s building PAI to close that gap for interview candidates — with senior engineers pressure-testing every scenario to match real-world complexity.

When she’s not sharpening system design prep, you’ll find her reading, exploring aerospace and astronomy, or rethinking how AI can actually help humans think better.