If the word "culture" is in any sentence when you're hiring/firing me, I'm punching you right in the fucking face (not actually though) and leaving. It's basically saying "for some arbitrary reason we're going to fire you, but we don't really know why and neither do you, bye!" Sorry for not having a beard, thick rim glasses, and not liking the same N64 video games as you.
The last interview that I was on where someone was not hired because of "culture" was because when an experienced devop was asked for an interesting disaster story, he had none. Then, when pushed, he had one, but one with parenthetical comments about how he had told them not to make the mistake.
We said "culture" but what we really meant was, "He's showing the kind of defensive behavior that you REALLY do not want in a devop when things go pear shaped."
And, given defensive behavior was already seen, do you think we really want to try to justify what was clear to us?
The last interview that I was on where someone was not hired because of "culture" was because when an experienced devop was asked for an interesting disaster story, he had none. Then, when pushed, he had one, but one with parenthetical comments about how he had told them not to make the mistake.
We said "culture" but what we really meant was, "He's showing the kind of defensive behavior that you REALLY do not want in a devop when things go pear shaped."
And, given defensive behavior was already seen, do you think we really want to try to justify what was clear to us?