GOJEK
Recruiting for Tech
The Challenge: Hiring for a ghost
In 2018, Gojek was a household name in Indonesia, a unicorn contributing to 1% of the country's GDP. In India’s hyper-competitive tech industry, the company was practically invisible. This created two major hiring roadblocks:
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Brand? What Brand? Gojek wasn’t top-of-mind for India’s best engineering talent.
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No Presence in Key Recruitment Spaces. No visibility in universities or among junior talent meant limited organic applications.
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Our mission? Build a recruitment funnel that would not only attract top talent but keep them engaged
Above: Gojek's recruitment page in 2018, before the redesign
MY ROLE:
HOD, Design, Magikbox Media (2018-2019)
Design Specialist, Gojek, India (2019-2023)
The Employer Branding leaders at Gojek, in 2019, brought me onboard for the following:
Recruitment Website Overhaul – We rebuilt the site into an interactive, research-backed experience that showcased Gojek’s culture, engineering challenges, and career growth opportunities.
The Gojek Tech Blog visual design: The unsung hero and lynchpin of the content marketing strategy. This became a top engagement driver, averaging 3 minutes per page, proving engineers read—when the content is worth their time.
Social Media Channels: Gojek Tech’s Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, was designed to feature geek-championed content that engineers could actually relate to.
Design Strategy
Good design isn’t just about intuition—it’s about data, research, and understanding human behaviour. So before touching a single pixel, we asked the right questions:
Who is our candidate? What information do they need at each stage of the funnel?
What levels of experience do these candidates have? Does it change their experience of the funnel?
Are we answering their questions and featuring content that they care about?
Are we tracking our successes and iterating on our failures?
Insights
Before diving into solutions, we needed to understand what truly drives an engineer’s decision to switch jobs. We started with extensive secondary research, identifying the top factors that influence job changes:
Growth
Engineers sought roles that sufficiently leveraged their past experience and set them up for success
Culture
With full-time workers spending 40% of their waking hours at work, a positive, low-toxicity and high-efficiency environment was essential to attracting and retaining top talent.
Compensation & Benefits
Mid-to-senior level engineers prioritized a strong work-life balance and competitive compensation to support their families and personal commitments.
Learning & Development
Engineers wanted learning opportunities as well as mentorship and professional challenge in their role
Tech & Peers
For junior to mid-tier engineers, the tech stack and community contributions were key—they wanted roles that levelled up their skills. For senior leaders? More of a résumé flex than a dealbreaker.
Primary research
The findings from secondary research was validated through internal surveys, 1-on-1 with engineers, recruiters and hiring managers.
Culture
"The culture of actively contributing to continuous learning; flat hierarchy; sense of ownership over my work."
Learning & Development
72% of respondents cited career growth & learning opportunities as their top reasons for joining.
Culture
64% of respondents valued Gojek’s collaborative work culture.
Siloed Teams
"Priorities and deadlines are set by teams, but we need better alignment between product and engineering."
Channels (2019)
49% of respondents first learned about Gojek through industry events & referrals.
41% followed Gojek’s technical blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn for insights.
Learning & Development
67% of respondents highlighted mentorship & exposure to new tech as a key reason for joining.
Challenge
"The biggest challenge? Keeping design and code aligned while scaling fast."
Systems
55% of engineers struggled with scaling challenges & legacy code management.
Tech & Peers
"I was drawn to the fast-moving tech and the ability to work with polyglot engineers."
Culture
"The flexibility of work is amazing; it’s more about delivering rather than rigid rules."
Onboarding & orientation
"There’s a lack of documentation, and gaining access to different systems takes time."
Growth
81% of junior-to-mid engineers prioritized growth & skill enhancement in their roles.
Site Structure: Information flow and clarity
The Scale of Gojek – Engineers wanted challenges, not just jobs. We highlighted the complexity and scale of problems they’d solve.
Tech Principles – A transparent look at our engineering philosophy and problem-solving mindset.
Tech Stack – A key factor for junior to mid-tier engineers, we showcased the tools and technologies used to stay ahead.
Employee Stories – Engineers wanted growth, impact, and community. We brought these elements to life through real experiences.
Value Propositions – Compensation and benefits were especially critical for mid-to-senior engineers balancing family and career.
Social Impact – Engineers cared about meaningful work. We highlighted Gojek’s role in the Indonesian economy and everyday life.
Visual Design
Iterative improvements
In the first iteration, we took the “move fast, trim everything” approach to get the site live. But within a year, Gojek’s hiring exploded—going from 6 open roles to over 90 across Southeast Asia. Suddenly, search and location filters weren’t just nice-to-have; they were mission-critical.
The page became an
endless scroll-a-thon
when hiring scaled
Updated to a grid-layout using an accordion-style collapsible display for better organization
From Data to Decisions: Optimising the Site
with Real User Insights
The careers page had a content irrelevance problem—our below-the-fold video was gathering digital dust, while employee snippets (buried four scrolls deep) were holding attention start to finish.
With real user data rolling in, we fine-tuned the journey.
Marketing insights + tracking behaviour = smarter design.
We streamlined the search interface, optimized for scalability, and enhanced search by autofill assistance.
Crafting Visuals Engineers Would
Take a Byte Of 🎨
We knew traditional corporate messaging wouldn’t cut it. Engineers don’t just want a paycheck—they want challenges, impact, and a sense of belonging. So we flipped the script.
Mythology & Geek Culture: Why fight it? We leaned into what engineers love—comics, anime, and mythology—creating content that felt fun, read-worthy, and relatable.
Failure as a Strength: India’s legacy IT culture often fears failure. We did the opposite: positioned Gojek as a company that embraces learning through trial and error.
Our Storytelling Strategy: The Engineer as a Hero – Inspired by the Hero’s Journey, we framed engineers as protagonists overcoming challenges and growing in their careers.
Some stories deserve more than just a pretty picture—they need that extra punch, turning static visuals into dynamic narratives. Whether it was breaking down complex ideas with slick motion graphics or adding a playful twist to abstract concepts, we made sure our visuals didn’t just sit there—they moved the story forward.
