There’s more to culture fit than being “fun to hang out with”. Personally, I tend to work well with engineers who mesh well with my brand of often-neurotic product management, and contribute to our team’s culture of user empathy and open feedback. Furthermore, someone’s ability and willingness to learn new things absolutely contributes to them being a culture fit or not, and can enable them to cover skill gaps that more experienced candidates don’t have.

I’ll take a junior candidate with a track record of learning on the fly who brings a strong sense of user empathy over the senior engineer who you’re going to force into your team.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and see if we agree. Thanks for your response!