Interview Etiquette in Silicon Valley

Join me for an live event next week on How Big Tech Hears Your Story

UPDATE: the original link was wrong for registration. New link: https://formation.dev/public/session/e5050750-f6de-11f0-9378-d3fc6c80b64e

Come join me for How Big Tech Hears Your Story—a hands-on behavioral interview workshop next week with the folks at Formation. You’ll practice structuring stories the way Big Tech expects, avoid the “good but not great” pitfalls, and make your impact unmistakable.

Thursday, January 29th, 2026 at 4:00pm PST

Register here. It’s free :)

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If you’re interviewing at Big Tech companies from outside the Silicon Valley ecosystem, one of the hardest things to do is adapt to the expected culture. The stories you tell, the words you choose, and how you show up in the room all signal whether you understand the landscape you’re entering. It’s part of the motivation for writing Mastering Behavioral Interviews.

One overlooked dimension of interview prep is how you conduct yourself—interview etiquette, or more broadly, the mindset you bring to the conversation.

I came across a recent interview between Lenny Rachitsky and Sam Lessin on this very topic. While much of it focuses on how to show up in rooms full of founders or navigate dinner with VCs (would you offer to pay for $10k worth of wine? lol), Sam’s framework for presence and mindset applies directly to behavioral interviews.

The Abundance Mindset Matters

Sam emphasizes an abundance mindset or approaching interactions not as transactional, but with genuine curiosity and confidence. Obviously this is challenging in an interview.

Your upcoming interview might truly be your one shot at a dream job(*). But if you treat it that way, then it will show. If you desperately seek validation, or treat it as an opportunity to extract value for yourself, it won’t go over well with a Big Tech interviewer.
(*) Most of the time you can come back to the well later if you’re rejected, remember that.

The abundance mindset here means approaching the interview as a conversation between two professionals. Don’t let it devolve into a performance you’re desperately trying to nail. Be confident and not worried about your prospects with this company. Be genuinely interested in the interviewer. Be genuinely interested in whether this role is right for you.

Practical Interview Etiquette

Beyond mindset, there are concrete ways to signal that you understand Silicon Valley norms, that Sam also covers:

Dress one notch above the role. If the team is casual, wear business casual. It shows you at your best.

Optics matter. Even if it feels uncomfortable, people are judging you by what your video call looks like. Improve your lighting. Keep your background clean and professional—your home office should look like a place where serious work happens.

Start with small talk. Hard when you’re nervous, I get it, but small talk is part of the dance. It’s where you establish rapport and signal confidence. Your interviewer might cut it short or lean in—be prepared either way, and don’t take the redirect personally. This is part of the abundance mindset. You’re not extracting every second of interview time for your career stories.

Keep your heart rate down. Sam’s phrase stuck with me. Keep breathing, pause before answering. If you’re speaking slowly and deliberately, you’re signaling control.

How you show up shapes which stories land. A story about scrappy hustle plays differently when you’re calm and collected versus when you’re defensive. A story about collaborating with difficult stakeholders rings true when you’re genuinely curious about the interviewer’s perspective, not performing agreement.

Silicon Valley interviewers are trained to notice whether you’re adapting authentically to their culture or parroting what you think they want to hear. The abundance mindset isn’t a trick—it’s the only frame that reads as genuine.

I write more about how to adapt your responses to Big Tech dynamics in Mastering Behavioral Interviews, including covering the six Silicon Valley myths you need to internalize to guide your storytelling.

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Book Update

Thank you for continuing to support Mastering Behavioral Interviews, now available on Amazon. It’s the #1 New Release in the Job Interviewing category and continues to help candidates land roles at top tech companies. If you’ve found it valuable, please leave a review—it genuinely helps other people discover the book.

I also recently returned to Coding Chats with John Crickett where we discussed how AI is reshaping interviews, broke down common behavioral questions, and explored how to adapt stories for different organizational cultures.

More podcast episodes are coming soon, including appearances on Book Overflow and Gregor Ojstersek’s Engineering Leadership podcast.

Here’s what Nathan Troups said about the book in his review on Amazon, and he knows books!

This book is easy to read and immediately actionable. It is well written, well paced, and provides a lot of framework, tooling, and real-world examples. It delivers on its promise, and it will certainly help you master behavioral interviews in tech.

Thanks Nathan!