Submitted on Tue 16 Sep 2025
If you’ve been hiring in tech for more than five minutes, you’ve probably heard the phrase “culture fit”. It’s one of those buzzwords that sounds good on paper but can mean wildly different things depending on who you ask.
For some hiring managers, “culture fit” means someone who gets along with the team. For others, it’s someone who laughs at the same memes. And for a few, it’s code for “they’re basically like us already.”
But if you only hire people who think the same way, act the same way, and bring the same perspective to the table… you end up with a team that’s basically a well-dressed echo chamber.
That’s where the concept of culture add comes in. And in 2025, it’s one of the smartest hiring strategies for building high-performing dev teams.
First, Let’s Define the Difference
Culture Fit = Hiring someone who blends seamlessly into the existing company culture. They share similar values, work styles, and maybe even the same brand of coffee preference as the rest of the team.
Culture Add = Hiring someone who brings something new to the culture. They might have different life experiences, problem-solving approaches, or technical perspectives that expand and strengthen the team’s capabilities.
Think of it like building a tech stack. Culture fit is upgrading to the same version of a framework you’re already using, it’s safe, predictable, and you know how it works. Culture add is introducing a new library that enhances performance and opens up new possibilities.
Why Culture Fit Has Been the Default in Dev Hiring
Let’s be fair, culture fit has its advantages. In software development teams, you need people who can collaborate smoothly, communicate clearly, and understand the team’s working style. A certain level of fit is essential for harmony (and to avoid sprint planning sessions that feel like a reality TV reunion episode).
The problem? When it becomes the filter, you risk hiring for comfort over capability.
Why Culture Add Wins in the Long Run
When you hire for culture add, you’re not just maintaining the status quo, you’re levelling it up.
In dev teams, this might look like:
- Bringing in a backend dev with deep experience in a niche framework your team hasn’t touched yet
- Hiring someone from a different industry who can challenge assumptions and spark new ways of solving problems
- Adding a team member who’s passionate about accessibility, security, or performance tuning when those haven’t been your core strengths
Culture add fuels innovation, and in tech, innovation is the difference between being the team everyone wants to work for and being the one stuck fixing the same bugs in perpetuity.
The Secret? You Actually Need Both
Here’s the reality…culture fit and culture add aren’t mutually exclusive.
When I’m hiring for permanent dev roles, I look for values fit (shared principles, aligned work ethic) combined with capability add (skills, perspectives, or experiences the team doesn’t currently have).
That balance means you get people who get your mission but can also challenge and expand your approach, without causing cultural whiplash.
So if you only hire for culture fit, you’ll keep building the same team you already have. Safe? Yes. Innovative? Not so much.
If you only hire for culture add, you might risk disrupting the team dynamic too much, too quickly.
The sweet spot? Hire people who share your core values but bring something unique to the table, whether that’s a new skill, a fresh perspective, or a knack for solving problems you didn’t even know you had.
Need help finding those people? That’s where I come in. I’ve got my finger on the pulse of the dev market, and a knack for finding candidates who will make your team better, not just bigger.
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