Engineer interviewing startup Interviewing.io Inc. announced today it has raised $10 million in new funding in a Series A round led by M13.

Founded in 2015, interviewing.io pitches itself as reinventing the way tech companies hire engineering talent. The company’s platform gives engineers tools to level the playing field while providing employers access to a pipeline of rigorously vetted, premium talent from a vast range of backgrounds.

That may sound like a traditional hiring firm, but interviewing.io comes with a twist: Top tech companies interview engineers anonymously. Only once engineers pass the first round does the interviewing company gain access to information about the candidate, ensuring that the best candidates aren’t missed because of poor screening or unconscious bias.

For engineers, the company provides a platform to participate in mock technical interviews to hone their interview skills. Interviewing.io has mock interviewers and mentors who have worked at or still work at some of the largest tech companies, such as Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp., Google LLC and Amazon.com Inc. An engineer participating in a mock interview gains specific and actionable feedback.

The practice mock interview process does not stop there, however. Interviewing.io aggregates mock interview scores, factoring in everything from technical ability to communication skills and adjusts for each interviewer’s strictness. Only the top 3% of these engineering candidates are eligible to join the interviewing.io job portal.

Tech companies who partner with interviewing.io post jobs with top engineers interested in the position booking interviews directly with employers on the platform. Companies using the service include Facebook, Amazon, Lyft Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., Snap Inc. and Dropbox Inc.

The elite screening and blind interviewing process are said to have shown tremendous results, according to the company. Interviewing.io claims that from the first touch to hire, a top-tier tech company is 20 times more likely to hire a candidate from interviewing.io than it would from any other source. The service is also said to save companies an average of 200 hours of staff time, split between engineering and recruiting.

The service also assists in diversifying recruitment. Engineers from non-traditional backgrounds represent 40% of the hires made through interviewing.io, many of whom previously had been rejected by the same company.

“High-tech engineering organizations traditionally rely on low-tech, antiquated methods to recruit and screen candidates — to their own detriment,” Aline Lerner, founder and chief executive officer of interviewing.io, said in a statement. “The resume is a great way to surface applicants who are ‘good on paper,’ but that doesn’t necessarily translate into an excellent engineer.”

Lerner added that technical interviews are just like standardized testing in that they tend to favor candidates who have the resources to prepare. “Neither is a reliable indicator of excellence in the job,” Lerner noted. “Interviewing.io was founded to level the playing field for engineers of all backgrounds while cutting out the screening process for tech firms altogether.”

Including the new funding, interviewing.io has raised $15 million to date. Previous investors include Unpopular Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Manifest Investment Partners, Vela Partners, TenOneTen Ventures, Social Capital, Kapor Capital and Susa Ventures.

Oddly enough, Interviewing.io’s funding comes on the same day as Karat Inc., a technical interviewing startup, raised $110 million in new funding.

Image: interviewing.io