Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI) Topics
Organizational practices and strategies for measuring, implementing, and sustaining diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Covers DEI measurement frameworks, accountability mechanisms, pay equity analysis, representation metrics, inclusive hiring, belonging programs, and connecting DEI initiatives to business outcomes. Includes both technical measurement aspects and organizational culture/policy implementation.
Psychological Safety and Inclusive Culture
This topic assesses a candidate's approach to building trust, inclusion, and a safe environment where team members feel comfortable taking risks, admitting mistakes, and contributing diverse perspectives. It covers practical practices for creating psychological safety such as role modeling vulnerability, soliciting dissenting opinions, establishing meeting norms that invite participation, running blameless postmortems and retrospectives, and using one on ones and feedback loops to surface concerns. It also includes inclusive leadership behaviors and concrete actions to increase diversity and equity, for example inclusive hiring and promotion practices, bias mitigation in decision making, mentoring and sponsorship for underrepresented groups, and designing rituals that celebrate learning rather than assigning blame. Interviewers may probe how candidates handle failure and conflict, how they respond to defensive or fearful dynamics, how they measure and track culture changes, and specific examples of decisions or changes that resulted from creating psychological safety. Candidates should be prepared to describe concrete examples, metrics or signals of success, trade offs they managed, and how they continuously reinforce and scale inclusive practices across teams.
Inclusive Leadership and Diversity Advocacy
Commitment to building inclusive teams, advocating for underrepresented groups, creating belonging for diverse perspectives, and taking action on diversity and inclusion beyond performative gestures.
Diversity and Inclusion
Demonstrating genuine respect for and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in teamwork and decision making. Includes working effectively with people from different backgrounds, cultures, identities, and perspectives; recognizing and mitigating unconscious bias; creating inclusive environments where all voices are heard; and describing concrete actions taken to support underrepresented colleagues or customers. Candidates should be prepared to explain why diversity and inclusion matter for team performance and customer outcomes, and to discuss participation in inclusion initiatives or approaches to making inclusive decisions.
Inclusion and Psychological Safety
Focuses on how you create and sustain an environment where diverse voices can contribute without fear of negative consequences. Areas assessed include facilitation techniques that amplify quieter contributors, deliberate structures for equitable participation, explicit signals of psychological safety, methods for soliciting and acting on dissenting opinions, inclusive decision making, and measurable practices to ensure that inclusion improves program outcomes. Interviewers look for concrete examples of interventions you used to surface different viewpoints and how those practices affected team performance and program quality.
Culture and Inclusion
Focuses on building inclusive team environments and aligning to company mission and values. Topics include creating belonging and psychological safety, valuing diverse perspectives, advocating for underrepresented colleagues, designing inclusive processes, handling conflicts or microaggressions, and translating organizational mission and values into engineering team practices. Candidates should show concrete examples of fostering inclusion and sustaining a healthy team culture.