I was directly contacted by the hiring manager to conduct the phone interview, then followed up by HR (a Gilead employee) to schedule the in-person interview about 3 weeks later. I was forewarned to have a 30-minute presentation prepared for the interview, on any research conducted in the past. Interview day lasted ~7 hours (almost all day), met groups of 2-3 people in 30 min-chunks. Standard interview Q's. Be mentally prepared for a long day with not much breathing room in between, even before your presentation. Kite is in a period of expanding: they moved into a new building with a lot of empty space + new CEO after acquisition, so things appeared to be less polished and there may be growing pains. It's a small-knit research team. One interviewer said they were interviewing candidates on a daily basis for the past several months. People were generally kind and courteous, but the HR contact from Gilead was extremely frustrating (and stress-inducing) to work with. He would rarely answer his phone or return my calls and seemed highly indifferent/unaware about Kite/Southern California since Gilead is headquartered in Northern CA. There was an incredible lag between the verbal and written offer (another 2 weeks), and basic inquiries about the benefits package were vaguely answered or left unanswered. It felt like the HR guy was irritated with my questions, trying to put in the minimum amount of effort and have me blindly accept the offer, all while trying to convince me that this was "the best offer out there". The poor communication with the HR guy throughout unfortunately left me with a distasteful impression of the company, and although not directly related to the job, it made me question if I wanted to work there.

Phone call with recruiter and a 30 minute Zoom call with the hiring manager to go over your resume and to field questions. The entire process took about a month and a half