Hiring engineers is one of the most important things we do at AuthZed. In the previous posts in this series, we covered the Background Panel and the Technical Skills Panel. Those interviews help us understand a candidate's experience, technical depth, and approach to solving problems.
But great engineering teams are not built on technical ability alone.
The final panel in our engineering interview process is the Culture Panel: a behavioral interview focused on how candidates work with others, navigate ambiguity, handle disagreement, and operate in a startup environment.
This post explains what we are looking for, why this interview matters, and how candidates can approach it.
While this post focuses on engineering candidates, the Culture Panel is part of the interview process across all roles in the company. The examples and qualities discussed here are simply framed through the lens of engineering work.
Why We Have a Culture Panel
At AuthZed, we are an engineering organization working on difficult distributed systems problems, open source software, and customer-facing infrastructure. The way we collaborate matters just as much as the code we write.
This is why we have an additional panel after we evaluate candidates' technical skills. The Culture Panel helps us understand how candidates have behaved in past situations. Past behavior is not a perfect predictor of future performance, but it is often one of the best signals we have for understanding how someone operates in a team.
We care deeply about engineers who can:
- Work through ambiguity without becoming blocked
- Look to leave things better than when they found them
- Communicate clearly and directly
- Disagree constructively
- Take ownership of outcomes
- Collaborate across functions
- Balance pragmatism with technical quality
- Learn quickly and adapt
- Operate with humility while still having strong opinions
These qualities also connect closely to our company values:
- Agency: We value engineers who can operate independently, drive initiatives forward, and take ownership of outcomes.
- Collaboration: We help each other to tackle complex problems.
- Diversity: We believe strong teams are built from diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and ways of thinking.
- Open-Mindedness: Strong engineers hold opinions thoughtfully, stay open to feedback, and consider alternate perspectives and solutions.
What to Expect
We usually ask candidates to describe real situations from previous roles. We are less interested in polished narratives and more interested in authenticity and reflection.
We also do not expect perfect answers. Some of the strongest interviews involve candidates openly discussing difficult situations, mistakes, or things they would approach differently today.
Reflection, self-awareness and growth matter much more than presenting a flawless story.
Preparing for the Interview
The best preparation is reflecting on your actual experiences ahead of time. We recommend creating a "story bank" with examples of conflict resolution, mistakes, ambiguity, leadership, collaboration, and tradeoffs.
One common way to structure answers is the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. You do not need to follow it rigidly, but it can help keep answers clear and concise.
A few practical tips:
- Use specific examples instead of speaking in generalities
- Focus on your own contributions, not just team outcomes
- Be honest about mistakes and what you learned
- Take a moment to think before answering if needed
- Expect follow-up questions from us, be prepared to dive deep into examples
What We Are Not Looking For
We are not looking for candidates who fit a particular mold. We do not believe there is one communication style, personality type, or background that works best at AuthZed. Strong teams benefit from diverse perspectives and working styles. The goal of this panel is alignment on how we work together, not whether everyone behaves identically.
To summarize, we want to build an environment where people trust each other's abilities and motivations, collaborate openly, and feel empowered to make meaningful impact.
We are looking for people who are collaborative, thoughtful, adaptable, and excited to help build both our products and our organization together. The Culture Panel helps us identify people who will thrive in that kind of environment and contribute positively to it over time.