The Top Gusto Interview Questions and How to Prepare Your Answers

Interviewing at Gusto can be an exciting opportunity, but also a nerve-wracking experience. As a leading HR and payroll software company, Gusto only hires the best of the best. We’ve put together this guide to help you feel fully prepared with tips, sample answers, and the inside scoop on what to expect during the Gusto interview process.

Overview of the Gusto Interview Process

The typical Gusto interview process consists of

• An initial 30 minute phone screening with a recruiter
• A technical phone interview focusing on your area of expertise
• An onsite interview which includes:
  • A coding challenge (for engineering roles)
  • A case study presentation
  • Various behavioral and technical interviews
  • Lunch with your potential future team
  • Meeting with hiring managers
• Reference checks
• An offer!

While every role is slightly different you can generally expect 4-8 separate interviews during the full-day onsite interview. Gusto really takes the time to get to know candidates from all angles.

The good news is that Gusto provides questions ahead of time for the technical portions. This allows you to practice and polish your answers.

However, you’ll still need to think on your feet for the behavioral interviews. We’ll equip you with plenty of sample questions and winning answers in this guide.

Common Gusto Behavioral Interview Questions with Sample Answers

Here are some of the most frequently asked behavioral interview questions at Gusto along with tips on how to craft your best answers:

1. Tell me about yourself.

Tips:

• Focus on your professional background here, not personal details
• Keep it concise – touch on 3-4 highlights
• Emphasize achievements, skills, and experience relevant to the role

Sample Answer “I’m a product manager with 5 years experience building SaaS platforms. In my current role at Acme I led cross-functional teams to launch 2 new products from scratch that now generate over $2M in revenue. I’m skilled at developing product strategy, analyzing data, and delivering creative solutions on tight deadlines. Earlier in my career I helped redesign the mobile app at my previous company, increasing engagement by 15%. I’m excited to bring my background in product innovation to the Gusto team.”

2. What do you know about Gusto?

Tips:

• Demonstrate your understanding of Gusto’s mission, products/services, culture, and recent news
• Share why you’re interested in Gusto specifically

Sample Answer: “Gusto is focused on creating an accessible, modern payroll and HR platform for small businesses. You offer features like health insurance, 401(k), and integrated accounting. Beyond the products, I’m impressed by Gusto’s values like putting people first and pursuing excellence – it seems like a great culture. I’d be excited to join Gusto because I’m passionate about how technology can empower small businesses like the coffee shop I grew up going to in my neighborhood.”

3. Why do you want this job?

Tips:

• Point out specific aspects of the role that appeal to you
• Align yourself with the company’s mission and culture
• Share why you’re looking to make a move at this point in your career

Sample Answer: “I’m excited to take on the challenges of this product manager role. I’ve always enjoyed identifying users’ needs and designing creative solutions. This position would allow me to own the full product lifecycle, which is the next natural step for me after focusing mainly on UX design in my current job. Most importantly, I’m looking to join a mission-driven company where I can have real social impact. Empowering small businesses to succeed resonates with me deeply, especially after growing up around family-owned shops in my community.”

4. What are your strengths?

Tips:

• Choose strengths relevant to the role
• Provide 1-2 specific examples of those strengths in action

Sample Answer: “I’m an excellent problem solver. For example, when we were building our payment processing feature, we hit a roadblock that threatened our launch date. The engineering team was stumped on a tricky technical issue. I was able to dig in, understand all sides, and suggest a creative workaround that got us back on track without cutting any corners. I’m also a strong team leader and collaborator. I motivate others while also building trust and bringing out the best in people.”

5. What is your greatest weakness?

Tips:

• Choose a minor weakness that will not raise red flags about your ability to do the job well
• Emphasize what you’re doing to actively improve on this weakness

Sample Answer: “I tend to set very ambitious goals for myself and my team. This means we’re always focused on the next challenge rather than celebrating wins. I’ve been working on taking a step back to appreciate progress and motivate my team through acknowledgment when goals are achieved. My manager often reminds me to pause and thank the team for their great work before moving onto the next objective. This balance is improving, but I’m still focused on getting even better.”

6. Tell me about a time you faced a conflict at work/school. How did you handle it?

Tips:

• Focus on interpersonal conflicts, not task-related disagreements
• Demonstrate emotional intelligence and conflict resolution skills

Sample Answer: “When I was leading a cross-functional initiative, two members of the team disagreed strongly on technical requirements. They started avoiding each other rather than talking it out. I brought them together, suggested we take a step back, and had both explain their concerns and desired outcomes. By becoming more understanding of each perspective, we found a compromise that worked for the initiative’s success while respecting both parties’ mandates. Keeping a calm, open and communicative environment enabled the project to get back on track.”

7. Describe a time you failed. What did you learn from it?

Tips:

• Choose a real failure that is minor rather than catastrophic
• Demonstrate humble reflection and growth

Sample Answer: “Early in my career, I was leading development of a new analytics feature on a tight timeline. I didn’t leave enough buffer time for quality testing and slightly overpromised on scope. The end result had bugs that reduced data accuracy. I learned to be more meticulous, say no when needed, thoroughly QA, and communicate transparently even when there is bad news to share. While it was a disappointment, it taught me how to better set and manage expectations.”

8. Why are you leaving your current job?

Tips:

• Keep reasons focused on your own growth vs negativity about current role
• Be appreciative of the learning opportunities at your current company

Sample Answer: “I’ve greatly enjoyed my 6 years at Acme Company and appreciate everything I’ve learned. I feel I’ve progressed as far as possible in my current role, and I’m ready for new challenges in a product leadership position. Acme is a smaller company, so those opportunities are limited there. I’m excited to bring my experience to a high-growth company like Gusto where I can have greater impact.”

Using these examples and guidelines, you’ll be able to craft winning answers even to behavioral questions that come out of left field during your Gusto interview.

Technical Interview Questions at Gusto with Sample Answers

In addition to behavioral questions, expect highly technical interviews tailored to your specific role at Gusto.

Here are some examples along with strong sample answers:

Software Engineering

1. Design a parking lot using object-oriented principles.

Tips:

• Clarify requirements and constraints upfront
• Think through major objects/classes, attributes, and behaviors
• Communicate your thought process clearly

Sample Answer: “To start, I’d want to know basic requirements like capacity, number of levels, and payment options. I’d design core classes like Level, ParkingSpot, Ticket, and PaymentProcessor. Each Level would hold spots with attributes like a unique spot ID, vehicle type and availability status. The Ticket would include payment details, assigned spot etc. There would also be helper classes like a ParkingAttendant that handles the assignment of spots when cars enter and exit. I can go deeper into other attributes, relationships between objects and design considerations like interfaces, inheritance and encapsulation if helpful.”

2. How would you improve the performance of the Gusto app?

Tips:

• Ask clarifying questions to deeply understand existing architecture
• Suggest performance optimization techniques
• Balance speed vs scalability

Sample Answer: “Could you provide more detail on the current app architecture and bottlenecks? That would help me tailor my approach. Some typical strategies I’d consider are caching repetitive queries, minimizing expensive backend calls by processing more logic on the device, implementing lazy loading for images, optimizing animations, and ensuring network requests execute in parallel. I’d have to measure closely to determine where the biggest wins could be achieved. However, it’s also crucial to optimize with scalability in mind, so adding infrastructure like CDNs may ultimately be smarter than only focusing on localized device-specific improvements.”

Product Management

1. How would you approach fixing churn at Gusto? Walk me through your process.

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