Karat

Karat’s purpose is to unlock opportunity, for both hiring companies and candidates. Karat helps connect the best people to right organizations so together they can grow, thrive, and change the world.

We believe the interview status quo is deeply flawed, hindering the potential for individuals and organizations to truly thrive. Interviews are opportunities to change lives. But expert software engineers aren’t necessarily expert interviewers, and software engineering time is crucial for business growth. Most engineering leaders view interviews as a drain on company financials and team morale. Many organizations are unable to conduct the number of interviews with the quality and consistency required to hire great team members, creating an Interview Gap.

The Interview Gap forces shortcuts and limits access to interviews. Inconsistent interviews and restrictive screening processes inject bias and lock organizations out of robust, diverse talent pipelines, creating an Access Gap. These artificial barriers contribute to the growing inequality in the world by locking talented, diverse candidates out of life-changing jobs.

How we do it

We elevate people to do their best work. We operate as a deeply integrated, strategic partner for CTOs and CHROs, and we make technical interviewing a customer-centric experience for candidates. We measure ourselves by our clients’ success, and we never stop innovating.

What we offer

We pioneered the Interviewing Cloud, a human+tech solution for conducting interviews on behalf of companies worldwide, 24/7. Karat’s Interviewing Cloud delivers better results than code tests or traditional interviews, and unlocks opportunity for companies and candidates alike.

Our story

Mo Bhende and Jeffrey Spector connected on the shared commitment to unlocking opportunity in a world where access to career growth is often limited to where a person went to school, who their friends and family are, or their past work experience.

While leading global strategy within XBOX at Microsoft, Mo needed to hire 300 software developers as fast as he could. He learned quickly that the traditional approach to technical interviewing no longer worked. There had to be a better way.

Meanwhile, as Chief of Staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Jeffrey had been researching and addressing economic disparity. Through his work with job seekers, it became clear that the interviewing and hiring process often felt uncomfortable and unfair. He became focused on ways to reduce bias and create greater opportunities for job seekers.

The two friends realized they were thinking about different facets of the same fundamental problems: The interview is the gateway to economic prosperity for companies and individuals alike. It needs to be treated as a scientific discipline and a profession. Continuously optimized like other mission-critical processes. Through their own experiences and research, they came to recognize that improving the interviewing and hiring process for software engineers, in particular, would connect millions to opportunities and power economic growth. The technical interview itself must be re-engineered. In 2014, they came together to create Karat.

Today we’re recognized as the experts and the global leader in technical interviewing, conducting thousands of interviews each month on behalf of leading technology companies and enterprise engineering groups.