I initially applied through a referral from my friend who works at the company. From what I understand, this allowed me to bypass the coding challenge portion of the process. I was still sent the coding challenge, though, because I also applied through their website, so my application may have been double-counted.

I still took the coding challenge because I was curious. It was an assortment of questions on various topics and languages, from bit manipulation to CSS floats.

The first step of my process was a phone call with an engineer on the team who shares similar interests to me. It was a very casual phone conversation and seemed to be more of a culture fit call.

The next two steps of the process were two coding interviews done over the phone using an online text editor called CoderPad. The interviewers were very friendly, and the questions were fair but not too challenging. Each interview was an hour long, and I heard back about the results within a few days.

The last step was the onsite interview. This included two coding interviews, a lunch, a cross-functional interview, and a working session.

The two coding interviews featured challenging questions that I hadn't seen before in any of the standard books, but they were fair and quite enjoyable to solve. The interviewers were very friendly, and it felt more like a collaborative effort than an interview.

The lunch was with a few members of the team in the office. They were serving dim sum that day!

The cross-functional interview was with an employee who wasn't on the engineering team. We chatted about my background, experiences, and interest in Gusto. This interview seemed to focus on Gusto's culture and core values.

Lastly, the working session involved working on an actual ticket in Gusto's codebase. This was a collaborative effort between myself and one of the senior engineers on the team. It felt pretty exciting to touch their codebase during the interview. It gave me a good sense of what working at Gusto would be like.

Overall, it was a fantastic and positive experience. Gusto seems to value both engineering chops as well as culture fit. The onsite interview was my favorite interview experience I've ever had. Everyone was very welcoming, and the recruiter I was working with checked in frequently to make sure I was okay, well-fed, had beverages, etc.

I found out the results about two weeks later (due to a holiday break in between) and I'm excited to join Gusto next year!