GitHub · Primly Community

GitHub behavioral interview questions and values, what actually comes up

qa_quinn · 4 replies

I've been in tech 15 years and done a lot of loops. GitHub's behavioral round stood out in a specific way that I want to call out for people prepping.

Most companies say they care about culture fit but end up asking the same generic STAR-format questions you'd hear anywhere. GitHub felt different. The behavioral questions were clearly tied to how they actually operate as a remote-first company. A lot of it came down to: how do you work when you're not in the same room as anyone?

Questions I got or heard about from others on the same loop (we compared notes after): "Tell me about a time you had to make a significant decision asynchronously, without being able to grab people for a quick meeting." "Describe a situation where you disagreed with a team direction. How did you raise it, and what happened?" "How do you create clarity for your team or stakeholders when the problem is still ambiguous?" "Tell me about a time you had to onboard yourself onto a complex existing codebase."

The thread connecting all of these: async communication, written clarity, and autonomous judgment. GitHub is famously async-heavy. They use GitHub issues and discussions for internal decision-making. If you can't show evidence of working well in that mode, you're going to struggle.

What seemed to land well in my answers: specifics. Not "I communicated clearly" but "I wrote a two-page internal doc, got async comments over three days, and we aligned without a single meeting." They're looking for proof you actually operate this way, not that you've read about it.

What I'd prepare: 3-4 stories about cross-functional influence without direct authority At least one story about writing something (a proposal, a design doc, an incident retrospective) that changed minds A story about receiving hard feedback and acting on it

It's behavioral prep, but specific to their operating model. Generic STAR stories won't cut it if they don't speak to async-first work.

4 replies

firsttime_mgr

The async angle is real. I coached a report through this loop and the thing that tripped her up was she kept framing everything as "so we jumped on a call and..." She had to rebuild her stories to show she could operate without constant synchronous touchpoints.

laidoff_lena

Did they ask anything specifically about open source contributions or how you engage with the broader developer community? Given what GitHub is I'd expect that to come up.

careerveteran

Came up lightly in the hiring manager conversation, not a structured behavioral question. More like "what's your relationship to open source." You don't need to be a prolific contributor but being thoughtful about open source culture helps.

ops_omar

The written clarity piece hits. I work remote and the people who struggle most are the ones who are great verbally but haven't built the muscle of writing for an async audience. It's a genuinely different skill.