Google Interview Warmup is gone. here’s how to keep practicing.

from the job pls team · updated August 2026

In April 2026, Google quietly retired Interview Warmup, the free tool it launched in 2022 to help people practice answering interview questions out loud. The official explanation was one line: “We’re doing a little spring cleaning and have decided to retire Interview Warmup.” The old address now redirects to a generic article about preparing for interviews.

If you used it, or someone just recommended it to you, this page is the short version of what happened and what your options are now.

what Interview Warmup got right

Warmup was simple: it asked you a real question, you answered out loud, and it showed you a transcript with patterns in your answer. No audience, no judgment, no scheduling. That made it the rare tool people actually used, because the scary part of interview practice is not the questions. It is saying answers out loud with someone listening. Warmup let you do the out-loud part safely.

That idea was right. The research agrees: people who practice answering remember far more than people who re-read notes (61% vs 40% a week later, Karpicke & Roediger, Science, 2008), and 70% of candidates already try to practice out loud alone (JDP, 2020). More numbers on our interview statistics page.

your options now

Gemini Live. Google itself now points interview practice toward Gemini Live, its conversational AI. It is free and you can ask it to run a mock interview with you by voice. The trade-off: you have to drive it. You open the app, set up the exercise, and keep it on track each session.

job pls (that’s us, so weigh this accordingly). We built the thing we wished existed: a coach that lives in your text messages. It texts you a real question for your role, you answer in a voice memo, and it gives you one specific fix, then has you say it again. Like Warmup, it is low-stakes and out-loud. Unlike Warmup, it answers back, remembers your stories, and follows up before your interview date. Your first answer is free, with no app to download.

A friend and a timer. Still the classic. If someone will ask you five real questions and be honest about one thing to fix, take that deal. The reason most people don’t: it is hard to schedule and harder to get honest feedback from someone who likes you.

whichever you pick, keep the habit

The tool mattered less than what it made you do: say your answers out loud before the interview, where mistakes are free. Do not let a retired product retire the habit.

also worth reading: can you practice interviews with ChatGPT? and is it weird to practice answers out loud?