I’ve worked in software for more than 20 years, most of them at the same company. In that time, I sat through my share of culture presentations, plus more than one consulting firm brought in to tell us why culture mattered.
So I thought of culture as something you read about. It was a pie-in-the-sky place companies wanted to get to someday, not something that came up in everyday conversation or in the way business actually got done.
Then I joined Atomic Object, and I changed my mind. If you’re an experienced professional thinking about a career move, here’s why culture deserves more weight than you’re probably giving it, and how to check whether a company’s culture is real before you say yes.
When culture is a presentation
At my previous companies, culture came from the top. Leadership would present it: here are our values, and here’s why they matter. The words were usually fine.
The problem was what happened after the meeting, which was not much. The values lived on a slide, and if we were lucky, on a T-shirt or some tchotchke that ended up in a desk drawer. Meanwhile, the day-to-day work went on the way it always had. If you saw a better or newer way to handle a task, the safe move was to follow the leader’s example and not stray from it.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one noticing. In a 2024 Dayforce survey of about 9,500 workers, 84% of executives said their company invests in culture. Only 49% of employees agreed (Fortune).
When culture is a presentation with no actions behind it, people learn to tune it out. I know I did. That’s how I became a skeptic.
When culture is just how things work
At Atomic, nobody presented the culture to me. It just is.
I noticed it within my first two weeks, when several Atoms (that’s what we call ourselves) asked me to pair lunch. A pair lunch is two colleagues, one meal, paid for by Atomic. The point is to get to know each other, and to do it at a local spot so the money stays in the community. Over those lunches, we talked about what brought each of us to Atomic and what they’d learned since joining.
At other companies, you could easily eat alone on your first day in the office. Nobody at Atomic told me “we value connection.” People just asked me to lunch.
The same goes for how ideas get treated. From day one, I’ve been trusted and valued. Whether I’m talking with fellow marketers, developers, or managing partners, my opinion counts. I don’t have to follow someone else’s way of doing things when I see a better one.
Part of why this works is that fit gets checked before you ever walk in the door. Atomic’s hiring process took the time to learn my social norms and see whether they matched Atomic’s. So on my first day, I didn’t have the usual jitters. Nothing felt awkward. Nothing felt out of place. I felt like I’d found a place where I belonged.
How to vet a company’s culture before you move
You don’t have to take a company’s word for its culture. Here’s what I did before saying yes.
1. Read what other people say about the company
A careers page is the company talking about itself. I read articles that mentioned Atomic, Glassdoor reviews, and LinkedIn posts from people who worked there. If reviews from people who left sound a lot like posts from people who stayed, you’re probably looking at the real culture.
2. Watch your future manager when they aren’t recruiting you
During the hiring process, I attended a webinar my future manager, Elaine Ezekiel, ran called “Claude for Normies.” She wanted people to get comfortable with AI instead of being scared of it. I got to watch how she presented, how she handled questions, and how she pulled other people into the conversation. That told me more about how she’d lead than any interview question could. If your future boss gives talks, runs webinars, or writes posts, go find one.
3. Notice what the hiring process asks about you
My get-to-know-you interview didn’t hold any big surprises. What stood out was that Atomic took the time to learn my social norms and see whether they matched theirs. That told me culture was part of how they decided who to hire.
Culture matters more than you think
I came to Atomic thinking culture belonged in leadership books and classrooms. I was a naysayer. What changed my mind was a lunch invitation in my first two weeks, and every conversation since where my opinion counted. I’m almost six months in and still wearing the rose-colored glasses. I think they’re here to stay.
When a company holds true to its values, you can feel the difference. It brings out the best in the people who work there, and that brings out the best in the company. If you’re weighing a move, give culture more weight than you think it deserves. Then go find out whether it’s real.