Jiazhao Shi.

We’re the team behind TechHerAI, a nonprofit platform dedicated to supporting women—especially recent graduates—entering the tech industry. Our core mission is to level the playing field using AI-powered tools that provide accessible, high-quality career support.

Our team includes:
Jiazhao Shi, Team Leader
Chuanrui Li, Software Engineer
Donghui Zhang, Software Engineer
Kuan Lu, Machine Learning Engineer

We come from diverse technical backgrounds across AI, software development, and product design, and we share a common passion for using technology to drive social impact. The idea for TechHerAI emerged as we observed how industry layoffs and competitive hiring practices disproportionately affected underrepresented groups in tech. We realized that while AI was transforming industries, it could also be used to empower those who needed it most.

What started as a side project quickly evolved into a scalable platform combining NLP, FastAPI, and deep learning models fine-tuned with human feedback. Winning at NY Product Design Awards affirms the impact of our mission, and we’re excited to continue innovating at the intersection of AI and social good.

Winning the NY Product Design Awards is both an honor and a meaningful milestone for our team at TechHerAI. It affirms our belief that design is not just about aesthetics—it’s about creating inclusive, intelligent, and accessible experiences that solve real problems.

For us, this recognition highlights the importance of building technology that empowers underrepresented communities, especially women in tech. More importantly, it lays a strong foundation for our continued growth—helping us gain visibility, attract collaborators, and expand our impact globally.

For our team at TechHerAI, this recognition validates our belief that technology can—and should—be used to drive equity and empowerment. In the long run, we hope this achievement brings greater visibility to our mission, helps us reach more women navigating the tech industry, and attracts collaborators, mentors, and supporters who share our values.

Since the announcement, the award has helped lay a solid foundation for our next stage of growth. It has strengthened our credibility and opened the door to new conversations with potential collaborators and partners. We believe this recognition will continue to support our efforts as we expand and refine our impact.

Experimentation is central to how we design and evolve TechHerAI’s AI interview system. Since every user’s experience and background is unique, we continuously test new question-generation strategies, scoring algorithms, and feedback formats to ensure interviews feel personalized, fair, and constructive.

For example, we experimented with multiple large language models and fine-tuning techniques to improve how our system assesses behavioral and technical responses. Through reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), we refined how the AI evaluates clarity, confidence, and content depth—making the feedback not only accurate but actionable.

This culture of experimentation allows us to balance cutting-edge NLP with real-world usability, ensuring our interviews don’t just simulate the process—but actively help users grow.

One of our most unusual yet powerful sources of inspiration came from Reddit threads and anonymous forums where women openly shared their frustrations about the tech job search—ranging from imposter syndrome to the pressure of writing the “perfect” cover letter.

These raw, unfiltered conversations gave us deep insight into the emotional barriers many face—something that typical UX research often overlooks. It inspired us to design tools that go beyond function, offering not just technical assistance but also empathy, encouragement, and confidence-building features. That emotional layer has become a core part of the TechHerAI experience.

We wish more people understood that great design isn’t just about how things look—it’s about how they work for real people, especially those who are often overlooked.

At TechHerAI, design means deeply understanding user pain points, iterating relentlessly based on feedback, and balancing empathy with functionality. It’s not a linear path—it’s a continuous dialogue between problem, solution, and user. The most elegant design often comes from asking hard questions, challenging assumptions, and being willing to scrap what doesn’t serve the mission—even if it looks good.

For us at TechHerAI, our “client” is our end user—women navigating the tech job market. Balancing expectations means listening deeply to their needs while holding firm to our mission of empowerment through accessible, ethical AI.

We approach this balance by involving users early and often in our design process. When feedback challenges our original ideas, we don’t see it as compromise—we see it as refinement. Our goal is to deliver tools that are not just innovative, but genuinely helpful. Staying true to our ideas doesn’t mean ignoring input; it means ensuring every decision reflects the values we stand for.

One of our biggest challenges was designing an AI-driven platform that felt both technically robust and emotionally supportive. Many job platforms focus on features, but we wanted TechHerAI to truly connect with users—especially those feeling overlooked or discouraged. Striking that balance required extensive user testing and continuous iteration.

On the technical side, fine-tuning large language models for accurate, empathetic responses was no small feat. We overcame this by curating high-quality data, incorporating reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and collaborating closely across design, engineering, and ML teams.

Ultimately, every challenge pushed us to build not just a smarter tool, but a more human one.

When we hit a creative block, we step back and reconnect with our users’ stories. Reading feedback, revisiting interview transcripts, or even scrolling through community forums reminds us why we’re building TechHerAI in the first place. That real-world perspective often reignites our motivation and ideas.

We also lean on each other—our diverse team brings different lenses to a problem, and informal brainstorming sessions often spark breakthroughs. Sometimes, stepping away entirely—taking a walk, reading something outside of tech—helps us return with fresh clarity.

At TechHerAI, our designs are deeply shaped by our personal values—especially equity, empathy, and empowerment. Many of us have faced the same hurdles our users encounter: navigating job markets as underrepresented candidates, feeling overwhelmed by rejection, or lacking access to guidance.

These experiences fuel our commitment to building tools that are not just intelligent, but inclusive—tools that speak to users’ real needs, support their growth, and respect their individuality. Every feature we design reflects a belief that technology should level the playing field, not reinforce existing barriers.

Design with intention, not just ambition. Success in design isn’t about following trends—it’s about solving meaningful problems for real people. Stay curious, ask why constantly, and don’t be afraid to challenge assumptions.

Also, don’t wait for permission to build. Start small, iterate fast, and share your work early. Whether it’s a passion project, a redesign idea, or a tool like TechHerAI—impact begins when your ideas meet the world.

Finally, surround yourself with people who push your thinking and share your values. Design is a team sport, and great design comes from collaboration, not isolation.

If we could collaborate with any designer, it would be Don Norman—a pioneer in human-centered design. His philosophy that design should serve people, reduce friction, and enhance usability deeply aligns with our mission at TechHerAI.

We admire how he combines psychology, empathy, and systems thinking to create intuitive experiences. Collaborating with someone like him would push us to think even more holistically—especially as we design AI tools that not only function well, but also feel supportive, empowering, and emotionally intelligent.

While we track usage data, feedback scores, and model performance, the impact we care most about is confidence. When a user tells us, “I finally felt ready for my interview,” or “Your tool helped me believe in myself again,” that’s the outcome we’re striving for.

TechHerAI was built to empower—not just to inform. We wish more people asked about the emotional and psychological shift our users experience, because that’s where real transformation begins.