Founded in January 2025 by engineers Kaden Birch, Giovanni Galbuchi, and Leandro Cabranes, Prova has emerged with a mission to transform the outdated and inefficient traditional technical interview process. The startup introduces an AI-powered platform designed to bring clarity, fairness, and relevance back to technical hiring.
“Prova serves as an AI partner for technical interviews,” stated Galbuchi, emphasizing that the tool is intended to augment, rather than replace, the crucial human elements of the hiring process.
The genesis of Prova stems from the founders’ firsthand experience with the shortcomings of conventional technical assessments. Galbuchi, a senior software engineer, expressed long-standing frustration with the disconnect between interview evaluations and the actual skills required for engineering roles. “As a candidate, it’s a frustrating experience. The tests often assess irrelevant algorithm puzzles that don’t reflect the real job,” he explained. “From a company perspective, it’s equally challenging to accurately identify true talent using these flawed systems.”
The proliferation of generative AI has further exacerbated these issues, enabling candidates to easily circumvent traditional algorithm-based questions, leaving companies unable to effectively gauge genuine skills.
Prova offers a fundamentally different approach. The platform allows companies to define the specific skills and tech stack relevant to their needs. Candidates then complete practical, hands-on projects within their own development environment. Upon submission, Prova’s proprietary AI generates targeted follow-up questions based on the candidate’s submitted work.
“This enables candidates to articulate the rationale behind their project decisions,” explained Birch. “It provides valuable insight into their understanding of the implemented solutions and showcases their communication abilities.”
By integrating project-based evaluation with AI-driven questioning, Prova empowers hiring teams to make more informed hiring decisions with greater speed, while providing candidates with a more equitable opportunity to demonstrate their real-world capabilities. “Our goal is to bridge the widening gap between how engineers operate and how they are evaluated for hiring,” Galbuchi elaborated. “Prova offers a unique solution, leveraging AI to accurately measure an engineer’s proficiency.”
In its initial months since launch, Prova, based in Lehi, Utah, has already onboarded ten companies and facilitated the assessment of over 400 engineers. Notably, Prova recently partnered with Sandbox, a selective startup program from which Prova itself originated, to screen applicants for an upcoming cohort.
“Our platform is fully operational, and we are experiencing rapid growth,” commented Galbuchi. Birch added that candidate feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with one user describing Prova as “a pretty awesome tool, considering how ineffective technical interviews have become.”
The Prova founding team brings a proven track record, having previously built and sold Senda, a relationship management tool for door-to-door sales teams. The founders pivoted from Senda, despite significant recurring revenue potential, driven by their conviction in the transformative potential of Prova.
Looking ahead, Prova’s current revenue model focuses on B2B partnerships, with plans for future diversification. The company is also sponsoring a high-profile hackathon on May 17 in Draper, Utah, featuring $10,000 in cash prizes and support from industry players.
Following their official demo day on April 23, 2025, Prova is currently raising a pre-seed funding round, having been entirely bootstrapped to date.
“For companies actively hiring software developers, scaling their engineering teams, or leading technology organizations, Prova offers an immediate solution to optimize their technical hiring process,” concluded Birch.
