The ultimate interview preparation framework. Part 5: Cultural fit
In 2025, this type of interviews gains more momentum, because the companies are afraid of hiring wrong people. Some companies even put this interview to the beginning of the process, as the presence of the soft skills gained importance over the last several years.
This interview goes by many names, be so "Meet the team", or "Soft skills assessment", or "Final talk about your goals and values" or "Meet the CEO" - all that is "Cultural fit", and you will be examined for the values match, the culture match, and whether this particular position/company is for you.
Some say such interview is more like a formality, but I strongly disagree. First of all, your goal here is to make good impression on people you will be working with, and it is not always an easy task to do. Second, this interview is a good chance to ask questions still left unanswered: about the business, the company, the values, the mission. This is important, right questions asked will demonstrate your motivation, and also will help you make your final decision, especially if you have multiple offers on the table. You are about to give this company 1-2 years of your life after all.
In my experience, the interview will most likely take an online format, 30-45-60 minutes max. There is going to be either one person interviewing, or a group of people, sometimes even an entire team.
The interviewer(s) will be most likely your future direct colleague, your manager or a product owner.
They will introduce themselves first, and then pass the mic to you. Here, it's better to repeat the same pitch you had in the recruiter screening interview, but make it more concise.
Be ready to give a short recap on your achievements again, if asked.
When this is over, people will start asking behavioural questions probing your teamworking, conflict management skills, etc. The questions will likely be prepared in advance, but sometimes people improvise.
You can expect this interview to be a little bit more technical if the interviewer(s) are engineers.
The most common questions I've heard were:
- Imagine there is a conflict in your team. One engineer wants to merge a PR, and you strongly disagree. What would you do? - this question is an absolute leader, it is asked on every interview. They screen for a good team player. Here you can say that it's important no to be biased by your own judgment, listen to the other side of the conflict and seek diplomatic solutions, council and opinions.
- If they ask about the worst situation you ever had, it's okay to say there was none, as you managed to solve the problem before it had to be escalated.
- Tell me about your biggest failure. - a check for your ability to withstand pressure and learn from your mistakes.
- How do you prioritize your work? Who decides what to do next? - they are trying to figure out, are you a leader or a follower? You can mention here decision tactics, such as the Descartes Squares or the "impact vs effort" matrix.
- How do you manage technical debt? - a good question to check for your prioritization skills.
- How do you make other people shine? - a good question probing for your ability to motivate others.
- How do you keep your knowledge up to date?
- Describe a time you had to handle a high-pressure situation. How did you cope?
- What excites you most about this role and our company? - they check for your motivation and general interest in working for the company.
- What do you look for in a company culture?
- What is the difference between mentoring and leading?
- What will you miss from your current company when you leave?
- What does the role of a senior engineer / lead engineer / ... mean to you? - a very vague open-ended question, just to check your perspective on the role.
- Something that didn't go as planned. What was the lesson learned?
- What differentiates a good senior software engineer from an average one?
- What was the last bug that you were proud of fixing?
- What does ownership mean to you?
- Are you an adept of focusing or supporting. What does flexibility mean to you?
- When would you stick to a monolith and when to microservices?
- What’s your ideal future dream job?
- What do you expect from the role at the company?
- How do you balance between a beautiful solution of your dreams and a shitty quick delivery?
- Good answer: try to find the best possible compromise between the two. If necessary, cut the complexity of the delivery, or even delivery the leanest solution possible. Don't do security compromises. Have a good plan for the upcoming improvements.
- Who makes the decision to turn the feature on?
- A product manager asks for something you disagree with. What would you do?
- A good answer here would be to say that the manager gets informed about the risks, and the alternatives considered. If the manager holds their ground, you can think of delivering the feature in a contained environment, exposing it only to a subset of loyal customers, and if something doesn't go as planned, have a solid backup plan.
- A user keeps complaining about a problem in the product. What would you do?
- Good answer: keep the reports organized. For bugs create a ticket, assess the severity and impact. Assess the customer's importance for the business. Keep the customer informed with regular updates. Inform the team about the issue. Try to prioritize the fix if necessary.
There could be niche-specific or company-specific questions, for example:
- You work for a company that maintains an open source project. You and another contributor submitted similar PRs at the same time. Which one of two PRs will you let in?
There could be questions that probe your soft skills and seniority, for instance:
- How to go about finding the cause of performance bottlenecks?
- What does Principal mean to you?
- How do you make sure the result matches the requirements?
The list of questions can potentially go on and on.
Five years ago I could have written here "Just be yourself", but in 2025, this is unforunately not enough.
The best way to act here today is to use the following framework:
- Listen to the question very carefully, ask to rephrase or clarify if necessary.
- Think for a few seconds before you answer, don't rush.
- Give your personal take on the topic, briefly (15-20 seconds).
- Reinforce your answer with an example from your own professional experience, using the STAR method (30-60 seconds).
- Make a bottom line at the end of your answer, if feels necessary (5 seconds).
The framework:
- Allows the interviewer to get the maximum from your answer, without too much water.
- Prompts the interviewer to ask follow-up questions, which is what you want to do.
- Lets you keep the time constraint in check by avoiding long smeared answers.
Before the interview:
- Google the person you will be talking to.
- Prepare good relevant questions (if interviewed by a PM, ask product-specific questions, if by an EM, then you can go more technical).
- To get inspired, you can read through the company's blog, and see what they value.
- Do the position recap.
- Give the product a try once again, find potential problems, come up with a solution and bring it up in the interview.
- Practice giving answers to the questions mentioned in the beginning of this article, using the framework mentioned earlier.
- Have a cup of cofee (but not too much to avoid being overagitated).
During the interview:
- Be relentless, show curiosity.
- Tell the interviewers about their own company, make statements and then ask follow-up questions. For example: "Your company has a product X. I gave it a try, and I have such and such questions." or "I've read through your 20xx report, it is quite impressive, but I couldn't help noticing, that ..."
- Smile.
- Don't panic in front of many unfamiliar people, consider this to be just a regular team meeting.
What you shouldn't do:
- Blame others for your own mistakes.
- Play victim.
- Be overly humble.
- Say "we" instead of "I" (remember: saying "I" gives you confidence, thus you sound stronger).
After so many failed cultural fit interviews, I've observed one pattern that harms them all: interviewers being eerly silent between the questions. After giving it some thought on why this may happen, I've come up with the following hypothesis: an interviewer gets silent when:
- The personal connection between them and you isn't building up naturally.
- They receive not the answer they were hoping for, and they don't know how to proceed from here.
- The answer took a lot of time and they've lost track of the conversation.
- The answer wasn't deep enough (missing the general take or the career example), so it didn't give them enough material to come up with the follow-up questions organically.
- There is no clear leader in the conversation, and the interviewer is waiting for the other person to take the lead (which may not happen instantly).
- The interviewers come unprepared and have little motivation for the interview.
- The sound quality is poor on their side, they haven't heard you clearly and they are too reluctant to bring this topic up.
The silence is tough and disorienting. Here is how you can try saving the situation (but that's not 100% guarantee):
- Use the framework mentioned above when you answer.
- Ask if the answer was enough, or if they would like to hear more.
- Reflect their question back on them, ask how would they go about it.
- Ask if they hear you well.
The success of the interview almost every time isn't only about the information you provide, but also about the vibe you give. If the interviewers had great time talking to you, if they really connected with you, you may expect a strong yes even if you missed some details when answering.
In the last years this type of an interview requires a special craftmanship to succeed. The more you practice, the better you will get.
Good luck!
