Interviews at Dust
At Dust, we're building an AI operating system to transform how work gets done. We connect company infrastructure to AI capabilities, bringing intelligent primitives to users' fingertips. Finding the right people to join us in this mission requires more than traditional interviews – it requires seeing how candidates think and work in real scenarios.
Real work, real impact
Building a transformative product requires people we can trust to make good judgments across all functions and levels. At Dust, every team member shapes our product's direction – whether they're engineers writing specs and shipping features, or GTM professionals helping evolve our product strategy.
Unlike traditional companies where roles are siloed, we operate as a team of builders. Engineers don't just write code – they own features end-to-end. GTM team members don't just sell – they help shape our product roadmap with deep technical understanding. These full-stack roles are rare because most companies don't operate this way.
Standard interviews rarely reveal whether someone can:
- Shape direction and take ownership in ambiguous situations
- Think deeply about product decisions
- Balance technical constraints with user needs
- Communicate effectively across functions
Additionally, success at Dust requires adapting to an environment where roles evolve rapidly and problems aren't clearly defined. Traditional interview processes, often modeled after large company practices, don't account for this reality.
That's why we've made a full day onsite the cornerstone of our hiring process. It's an intensive day of real work that gives both sides a clear picture of what working together would look like
What to expect
For engineers (60% of our team), the day involves building a proof of concept (PoC). The task is intentionally too large to complete in a day – we're more interested in how candidates prioritize and make decisions than in seeing a finished product.
For GTM and Business Operations roles, candidates work on actual business challenges, from prioritizing customer feedback to framing new projects.
In both cases, candidates get:
- A dedicated Slack channel with their onsite buddy
- Focus time (70-80% of the day)
- Team interactions over lunch
- Opportunity to present their work
What we look for
Beyond technical skills, we evaluate:
- Ownership: Can you shape direction and take initiative?
- Communication: Are you clear and effective in writing?
- Product/System thinking: Do you balance technical and user needs?
- Prioritization: How do you handle scope and product/time constraints?
The process
- Initial Screening: Standard first round with the hiring team
- Role-Specific Interview: Technical for engineers, team interviews for GTM
- Written Exercise: For GTM roles
- Founder Chat: With Stan (eng) or Gabriel (GTM)
- Full Day Onsite: The final and most important step
Unlike some companies that run multi-day trials, we've condensed most of our evaluation into one intensive day. It’s a great way for both the candidates and our team to get respective signals on how we work and whether we’ll be a good fit for one another.
Our culture in action
During the onsite, you'll experience our direct communication style firsthand. You might get responses like "strong ownership" or "see something, say something, do something" in Slack – reflecting our culture of ownership and swift decision-making.
We aim to give candidates a clear decision within days, along with detailed feedback regardless of the outcome. We believe in transparency and want every candidate to understand our reasoning.
If you're excited about shaping the future of enterprise AI and this process resonates with you, we'd love to meet you. Check our open positions.
At Dust, we're building the infrastructure layer that transforms how work gets done. Our interview process reflects this mission – we look for builders who can push the boundaries of what's possible when AI meets enterprise data and workflows.