Behavioral: Culture and Mission Alignment (Software Engineer, Onsite)
Context
You are interviewing for a Software Engineer role at a mission-driven technology company. The panel aims to assess your alignment with the mission, ethics and safety orientation, decision-making under ambiguity, feedback culture, collaboration style, and quality standards.
Answer the prompts below with specific examples. Using STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection) is encouraged.
Prompts
-
Mission motivation
-
What motivates you about our mission? How does it connect to your past work and the kind of impact you want to have?
-
Safety/ethics over speed
-
Describe a time you prioritized safety or ethics over shipping fast. What risks did you identify, what actions did you take, and what was the outcome?
-
Principled decisions under uncertainty
-
How do you make decisions when the data is incomplete? Share a concrete example and the framework you used.
-
Inviting and acting on blunt feedback
-
How do you create channels for candid feedback? Describe a situation where you received tough feedback and what you changed as a result.
-
Disagree and commit
-
Give an example of disagreeing with a decision, then committing to it and ensuring success despite your initial view.
-
Sustaining a high quality bar
-
What practices do you use to maintain a high quality bar over time (not just at launch)? How do you prevent regressions and avoid "quality theater"?