Interview Engineering is Going Global

Next to family, friends, and health, our careers are one of the most important parts of our lives. Jobs give us purpose and fulfillment.

Interviews are the gateway between each of us and our next job — they are a critical connection point. And yet, while the interview is a universal experience, it has never been recognized as its own discipline. In fact, the vast majority of people conducting interviews receive no formal training in how to do so.

If interviewing is no one’s full time job, how can we expect interviews to be conducted with scientific rigor or be improved upon? Or be enjoyable or fair for candidates?

We believe that every interview can — and should — be predictive, fair, and enjoyable.

When we founded Karat, we recognized that this problem was especially acute for software engineering roles. We had a simple hypothesis: just like Front-End Engineers excel in front end work and Back-End Engineers excel in back end work, a community of dedicated, passionate Interview Engineers would excel at the job of interviewing their fellow software developers.

Elevating interviewing to the profession and science of Interview Engineering would bring the level of rigor and advancement needed to do the job right. Supporting Interview Engineers with an interviewing infrastructure and the learning from tens of thousands of interviews would mean that they could interview with the consistency required to be highly predictive, while putting candidates at ease.

We are proud to say that Interview Engineering has upended the status quo and is the new reality. The results of Interview Engineering speak for themselves:

• We’ve transformed an otherwise stressful process into one that is enjoyable for candidates. Candidates can flexibly interview 24/7 on their own schedule and can even redo their interview if they feel they could have done better. And more candidates are getting an opportunity to interview than ever before.
• We have built a strong, tight-knit, global community of Interview Engineers who pride themselves on the quality of their craft. 98% of candidates give their Interview Engineer an excellent rating after their interview, a far cry from the status quo in the industry.
• In 2019 alone, companies we partner with will gain over one million hours of productive developer time. Our clients will run world-class hiring processes on the Karat interviewing infrastructure and access insights that shape hiring strategy across all levels of the organization.

And today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve raised a $28 million Series B led by Tiger Global Management to bring Interview Engineering to every company. Tiger’s investment will accelerate our expansion so that we can partner with more clients globally and deliver exceptional candidate experiences around the world. Moreover, we are now uniquely positioned to invest in further developing the most predictive, fair, and enjoyable interviews in the industry.

We want to thank the entire Karat team, our community of Interview Engineers, partners, investors, and advisors who have contributed so much to get us to this important milestone. As a community, we have a shared belief that we can redefine what an interview should be.

We’ve made great strides, but there is much left to do. In the coming years, nearly 3 billion people will be impacted by interviews — that one simple step between talent and opportunity. We’ll be there to ensure that every interview provides the opportunity for growth that all people deserve.

We look forward to the journey ahead.

— Mo and Jeff, Karat Co-founders