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WorkWingman — Communities & Prep for You (Plain Language)

During onboarding, WorkWingman asks a few optional EEO-style questions — gender, race/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status. Those questions exist on every real job application anyway, and they're always optional there too. WorkWingman's take on them: if you choose to answer, we can use that to point you toward communities and interview prep built for people like you — almost all of it free — not because you need extra help, but because these programs exist and you might not know about them.

The seed idea for this feature: Karat's Brilliant Black Minds offers completely free mock technical interviews for Black software engineers, run by real senior engineers, with a 10,000+ person community behind it. That's a genuinely useful, genuinely free thing — and there turn out to be a couple dozen similar programs across different backgrounds.

The most important thing: your answers never leave your computer

This is worth being extremely direct about, because the data involved (who you are) is sensitive:

  • Nothing you type into those onboarding questions is ever sent anywhere. Not to a cloud server, not to an analytics tool, not into a log file. Ever.
  • The matching happens entirely on your own machine, using a small, fixed list that ships with the app. There's no "calling home" step at all — the whole thing works even with your internet disconnected (the only thing the internet is for is actually opening the link once you click one).
  • You never have to answer these questions. If you leave them blank, you simply won't see this section — no nagging, no "you're missing out" message. It's not a form you have to fill in to unlock something; it's just quietly there if you chose to share something.

What you'll see

If you answered any of those onboarding questions, the Study & prep screen shows a "Communities & prep for you" section: a small card for each matching organization — its name, what it actually offers (free mock interviews, a mentorship program, a job board, a scholarship, a community), and a link to visit it. A couple of professional societies on the list (NSBE, SHPE) charge membership dues for their general membership — those cards are honestly marked "membership dues" rather than being lumped in as free, though both do offer real free options (like a free first year for new graduates). There's a clear note right on the section reminding you these are optional suggestions based on what you shared, and a Hide button if you'd rather not see it — click it once and it stays hidden.

What kind of things are on the list

A curated, hand-checked list — not everything that exists, just real, free (or mostly-free) things that are actually worth your time:

  • If you identified as Black or African American: Karat's Brilliant Black Minds (free mock interviews), /dev/color (mentorship), NSBE, AfroTech, and Blacks In Technology.
  • If you identified as Hispanic/Latino: Techqueria, SHPE, and Latinas in Tech.
  • If you identified as Indigenous/Native American: AISES.
  • If you identified as a woman: Girls Who Code, AnitaB.org (home of the Grace Hopper Celebration), and Elpha.
  • If you identified as LGBTQ+: Lesbians Who Tech + Allies and Out in Tech.
  • If you identified as a veteran or military spouse: VetsinTech, Operation Code, and Hiring Our Heroes.
  • If you identified as having a disability: Disability:IN and Lime Connect.

Every single one of these was checked by hand before being added — the organization still exists, the link works, and the specific thing it offers is genuinely free (or has a real free option). If an organization on an older list has shut down since (Women Who Code, a well-known one, closed in 2024), it's deliberately left off rather than pointing you somewhere dead.

This list isn't everything that's out there — it's a starting point, and it'll keep growing.

Technical version (privacy internals, matching logic, the API): ../technical/demographic-resources.md