[johnfuller]

Great article. Cultural fit is very important. Someone who rubs the team the wrong way in an already stressful environment can spoil the whole batch.

I think the article gets the idea of "cultural fit" wrong though. The problem is that workplace culture is different from regional culture. A developer fresh off the plane from India might be a better cultural fit for me than someone from my own local social circles.

I imagine that having an interviewer determine cultural fit might be a problem unless that interviewer is working closely with the team the developer might be working with. Perhaps a better method might be to have the developer work with the team on a probationary period before being extended a full offer.

Cultural fit is probably also more important for a small organization rather than a large one. If you have a large number of development teams, then a new developer has a better chance of fitting in somewhere as opposed to a small organization where the entire structure is rubbing elbows together.

[greenyoda]

"Perhaps a better method might be to have the developer work with the team on a probationary period before being extended a full offer."

Why should someone risk quitting their current job (and possibly relocating) to go work for a company that only gives them a job offer contingent on a probationary period?

[johnfuller]

True, but if it's a bad cultural fit then you will probably quit anyways.

If the new offer was good enough to quit your current job, then you were probably ready to leave anyways.