Ace Hired is free to use and free of paywalls. That has to be paid for somehow, and one way we do it is through affiliate commissions on a small set of recommended tools and courses. This page explains exactly how that works.
What this means in practice
Some outbound links on Ace Hired are affiliate links. When you click one and end up buying something, the partner pays us a commission. The price you pay is the same; the commission comes out of the partner's margin.
Examples of affiliate partners we currently use or may use:
- Coursera
- AlgoExpert
- LeetCode Premium
- LinkedIn Learning
- Udemy
- Educative
- Other course and tooling partners through networks like Impact and PartnerStack
The exact list changes; we add partners when a useful tool offers an affiliate programme and remove them when they stop being useful.
Editorial independence
This is the part that matters: commissions do not affect what we recommend, rank, or write about.
Specifically:
- Interview questions, sample outlines, and follow-ups are written based on what's actually useful for the role. We never insert affiliate links inside a question's answer outline.
- Salary data is aggregated from public sources and user reports. Partners cannot pay to change a salary figure.
- Company pages list questions, comp data, and interview process information independently of whether the company has any commercial relationship with us. (Most don't.)
- Tool roundups and "best of" lists are ranked on merit. If a non-affiliate tool is better than an affiliate one for a given use case, we say so.
If we ever feature a tool because of the commission rather than the quality, the site loses the only thing that makes it worth visiting. Not a trade we're willing to make.
How to spot an affiliate link
You can identify affiliate links on Ace Hired in two ways:
- In the HTML. Every affiliate link carries
rel="sponsored noopener". View source on any link card to check. - In the visible UI. Affiliate link cards display a small "Partner" badge next to the title. If there's no badge, it's not an affiliate link.
This applies across all surfaces: company pages, tool roundups, guides, and inline mentions inside long-form content.
Why we do it this way
The alternatives to ads and affiliate commissions for a site like this are:
- A paywall on the question database. (Defeats the point.)
- Selling user data. (We don't, and won't.)
- Sponsored content that doesn't disclose. (Dishonest and probably illegal under UK CAP Code and FTC rules.)
Affiliate commissions on tools we'd recommend anyway are the cleanest model we've found. You get the recommendation; we keep the site free; the partner gets a customer; everyone knows the deal.
FTC and ASA compliance
This disclosure exists to comply with the US FTC's "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising", the UK ASA / CAP Code on affiliate marketing, and the EU's Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. If you spot an affiliate link on Ace Hired without a "Partner" badge, that's a bug; please email us at team@palenebula.com so we can fix it.
Contact
Questions about partnerships or this disclosure: team@palenebula.com.