Great interviews are engineered.  Come help Karat make every interview predictive, fair and enjoyable.

The status quo for technical interviewing doesn’t meet the needs of candidates or hiring companies. Haphazard interview experiences, subjective evaluations, and lack of capacity and expertise mean too many companies miss their hiring goals and miss out on great software engineers. At Karat, it's our mission to create better outcomes for companies and candidates by making every interview predictive, fair, and enjoyable.  

Karat conducts first-round technical interviews on behalf of companies including Indeed, Atlassian, Intuit, Peloton, The New York Times and Wayfair. We do this through a community of Interview Engineers who are equipped with Karat's interviewing platform, battle-tested questions, and data-informed best practices. 

The result is highly predictive and fair interviews at scale that candidates truly enjoy. Karat has amassed the largest and most robust dataset of structured interview intelligence to produce never-before-seen hiring analytics. 

As the world continues to transition to virtual work, and the fairness of hiring practices in the tech industry come under greater scrutiny, Karat is uniquely positioned to be a valuable, strategic partner as companies transition to 100% remote hiring.

Founded in 2014, Karat is a privately held and venture-funded company based in Seattle.

VP People, Karat

To fuel Karat’s growth, Karat seeks a VP People and Culture to join the company’s Leadership Team in Seattle, WA. 

Given the current and anticipated growth, the VP People and Culture is a high stakes, high visibility position for Karat both internally and externally. The company needs an innovative and forward-thinking leader who can blend sound business judgment with People function expertise while using innate resourcefulness and creativity along Karat’s journey to becoming an influential market leader. The mandate calls for a company builder, a strategist and a highly engaged, and empathetic individual to lead an essential business capability and to foster a world class company culture driven by the Karat Core Principles.

Specifically, the VP people and Culture will be the architect of the strategies and processes that enable the end-to-end Karat employee (Karateer) lifecycle. Karat’s internal employee base will continue to scale up over the next 3 years along with our 1099 contractor base of global Interview Engineers as demand for Karat’s solution grows. 

In addition to shaping and driving our internal practices around People and Culture this role will also have a unique role in support of our category-creating business. Karat’s VP People and Culture will leverage their business acumen and understanding of People practices to inform and directly support Karat’s GTM and Product strategies. 

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute People strategies, programs, processes and policies across the entire employee lifecycle that are aligned with the company’s growth objectives. 
• Establish operational excellence including leveraging technology and analytics towards creating strong People practices
• Build Karat’s organization that is highly mission and values-aligned in order to create a sought after employer brand.
• Be the steward of Karat Culture and Values. Exemplifying what it means to be human-centered, a partner, future oriented, an owner and able to celebrate along the way. 
• Act as a Trusted Partner who represents and embodies the best interests of the company and its people. 
• Serve as an intermediary between the Karat Leadership Team and employees on critical people issues. 
• Partner with the Leadership Team to simplify and repeat appropriate internal communications which support growth of our talent and our business.  
• Serve as an external advocate to peers in the community and support GTM and Product leadership in the adoption of a new category defining model.
• Be an innovator, leveraging Karat as a platform to experiment with new People practices so that we can continue to serve as a market leader in the industry.

Experience and Leadership Capability

The VP People must:

• Thrive in a fast-paced, high growth environment with proven track record in building and running People programs at large and small companies. 
• Minimum 10 years of experience across multiple People functions with at least 5 years in a Senior Leadership role at a high growth SaaS or technology company. Start up experience is a bonus. 
• Specific role experience in Talent Acquisition desired, but not required.
• Demonstrate ability to manage a direct team as well as indirect stakeholders in support of an organization’s strategy. 
• Possess strong business acumen with the ability to create win-win strategies that advance the development of our teams and the strategic and financial trajectory of the company.
• Have a track record towards innovating in the People space with a mindset for leveraging Karat as a platform for testing new product ideas. Talent Acquisition expertise is a plus. 
• Ability to practice calm and sound judgement under pressure and in support of the organization and our people. 
• Proven track record of successfully navigating complex employee relations situations. 
• Direct experience supporting complex workforce footprints - across geographies and worker types. 
• Be persuasive in high-stakes sales situations where the VP People can influence peers to adopt a new solution that produces high ROI.

Benefits of joining Karat:

While doing meaningful work is rewarding in itself, we also offer the following programs and benefits for all our full-time employees:

• Competitive salary and benefits

• Medical / dental / vision insurance 

• Flexible vacation and paid company holidays

• Paid parental leave 

• State-of-the-art equipment for your work station

Statement of Non-Discrimination:

In keeping with our beliefs and goals, no employee or applicant will face discrimination or harassment based on: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital/domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, or veteran status. Above and beyond discrimination and harassment based on “protected categories,” we also strive to prevent other subtler forms of inappropriate behavior (i.e., stereotyping) from ever gaining a foothold in our office. Whether blatant or hidden, barriers to success have no place at Karat.

We value a diverse workforce: people of color, womxn, and LGBTQIA+ individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.