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.
Diversity Inclusion and Belonging
Covers design, implementation, and stewardship of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging programs that create fair access and a sense of belonging for all employees. Candidates should be prepared to describe concrete actions such as building inclusive hiring processes, removing bias from selection and promotion, creating equitable advancement opportunities, launching and supporting employee resource groups, designing belonging initiatives and accommodation policies, and delivering training and coaching for managers. The description includes measuring impact through diversity metrics, inclusion surveys, retention and promotion rates, and other outcome indicators, as well as iterating programs based on data. At senior levels, articulate understanding of systemic barriers, cross functional partnership with People Operations and leadership, change management strategies to scale initiatives, handling resistance, and long term approaches to embed equity into processes and culture.
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.
Compensation Equity and Career Development
Evaluating and designing fair and transparent compensation and career progression frameworks for teams. Topics include conducting pay equity analyses, setting salary bands and leveling guidelines, defining clear promotion criteria and career ladders, advocating for compensation adjustments, communicating compensation decisions, and aligning total rewards with business budgets and performance. Also covers retention strategies linked to compensation and career development such as bonus design, equity allocation and vesting policies, non monetary rewards, development plans, mentorship and mobility opportunities, and how to partner with people operations and finance to implement changes while ensuring legal compliance and consistency across teams and geographies.
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.
Psychological Safety and Inclusive Leadership
Practices for creating an inclusive team culture where people feel safe to speak up, take risks, and learn from failure. Topics include addressing exclusionary behaviors, ensuring quieter voices are heard, supporting underrepresented team members, facilitating inclusive retrospectives and meetings, building trust through one on ones and feedback, and designing interventions to reduce bias and microaggressions.
Inclusive Leadership and Empathy
Leading teams with empathy and inclusive practices. Topics include creating psychological safety, fostering diversity and inclusion, providing equitable career development and feedback, mentoring and coaching, resolving conflict with empathy, inclusive hiring and promotion practices, and measuring and sustaining a healthy team culture. Interviewers will probe how candidates embed inclusion in daily rituals, decision making, and team structures while supporting underrepresented groups and building trust.