Inspiration
We heard our family members complaining about having lower pay than their male colleagues. We found out that this same issue is happening to women across the world—and to many of our peers as well. We wanted to create a safe space where people can practice negotiating their salary and experience some of the struggles that women face during these conversations. Our core question was: can we use AI to simulate the unfairness that women have to go through when negotiating a salary?
What it does
Know Your Worth is an interactive salary negotiation simulator that helps users practice negotiating strategies in a realistic setting. Users enter their job details, experience level, and desired salary, then engage in a back-and-forth negotiation with an AI-powered HR representative. The app provides tips on effective negotiation tactics and shows how initial offers can change based on your responses—highlighting the challenges women often face in these conversations.
How we built it
Frontend: React with Vite, styled with Tailwind CSS, featuring a retro pixel-art aesthetic with a Gmail-inspired compose interface Backend: Node.js/Express server that connects to Google's Gemini AI to power realistic negotiation conversations AI Integration: Used the Gemini API to simulate an HR representative who responds dynamically to user negotiation attempts
Challenges we ran into
Starting to code without proper system design and wireframing Not going over merge conflicts together, especially after a force push Fine-tuning the AI prompts to realistically simulate negotiation dynamics and gender-based biases without being offensive Designing a UI that felt approachable for a difficult topic Balancing educational value with engaging gameplay
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Created a functional AI-powered negotiation simulator in a hackathon timeframe Built an interface that makes a stressful topic feel more approachable through playful pixel-art design Successfully deployed a full-stack application with real-time AI responses
What we learned
How to integrate Gemini AI into a web application The complexity of salary negotiation and how systemic biases affect not just women, but many underrepresented groups Full-stack development with React and Express
What's next for Know Your Worth
Add different negotiation scenarios (promotions, raises, job offers) Include post-negotiation feedback and scoring to help users improve Expand to simulate different industries and roles Add resources and links to real salary data to help users research their worth
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