I went through HF's behavioral rounds for a non-engineering role (ops-adjacent, working with external partners). Figured I'd write this up because most posts here focus on the technical rounds and the behavioral piece gets ignored.
First thing I noticed: they don't use a standard Amazon-style leadership principles framework. The questions were more open-ended and felt less rehearsed on their side too.
Questions I got, roughly:
Open-source and community: "Tell me about a time you contributed to a project where you didn't have formal authority. How did you get others to adopt your approach?"
This one came up twice across two interviewers, slightly reworded. HF cares a lot about the open-source collaboration model. If you have any GitHub contribution history or have worked on projects where you had to influence without authority, lead with that.
Ambiguity and fast-moving environments: "Describe a situation where the requirements changed significantly after you'd started. What did you do?"
They're a fast-growing company and they seem to want people who are comfortable with that. Concrete examples matter here. Vague answers about "embracing change" did not land as well as specific stories.
Disagreement and pushback: "Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision made above you. How did you handle it?"
They wanted to hear that you'll actually push back, not that you just go along with things. The HF culture from the outside seems pretty flat and opinionated, which tracks.
Mission alignment: Not exactly a question, more like a theme that ran through every conversation. They asked why open-source AI matters to me personally. Not "why HF" in a generic sense but actually why open models matter. If you don't have a real answer, it shows.
Overall the behavioral rounds felt human and curious rather than evaluation-checklist-y. I left feeling like they actually wanted to know who I was.