Motivation & fit
How to answer: “Why do you want to work here?”
A fit and homework test. Connect a specific, verifiable thing about the company to your own trajectory and values.
Why it is asked
What this question is really testing
This question filters out candidates who are spraying applications. The interviewer wants to know that you chose them on purpose and that your reasons are real enough to survive contact with the job. Generic flattery (you are a leader in your space, I love your culture) signals you did no homework and would say the same thing to a competitor.
A strong answer names one or two specific, verifiable things about the company (a product decision, a recently shipped feature, an engineering blog post, the way they handle a hard technical problem) and connects each one to something true about you. The structure is: specific observation, why it resonates with your trajectory, and what you would contribute.
Do the reverse test on your answer: if you could swap in a competitor's name and the answer still works, it is too generic. Make it un-swappable.
Where you get your evidence matters as much as having it. The strongest signals come from the company's own engineering blog, a conference talk by someone on the team, a public postmortem, the changelog, or the product itself used as a real customer. Spend twenty minutes there before any interview and write down two concrete observations and why each one matters to you. That preparation is invisible to you in the moment but obvious to the interviewer, because specificity cannot be faked, and it quietly tells them you treat joining a company as a decision rather than a lottery ticket.
The signal
What interviewers listen for
- Concrete, recent evidence that you researched the company.
- A genuine connection between their work and your own goals or values.
- Forward motion: what you would contribute, not just what you would get.
- Authenticity over rehearsed flattery.
Worked example
A STAR answer you can adapt
Scenario: Engineer applying to an infrastructure-heavy company. Read it for the shape, then swap in your own story.
Situation
I read your engineering post on how you cut tail latency on the routing layer, and the trade-offs you described matched problems I have lived.
Task
At my current job I spent a year fighting exactly that class of p99 problem on a smaller scale.
Action
Working somewhere that treats latency as a first-class product feature, and publishes the reasoning openly, is the environment where I do my best work.
Result
So this is not a generic move for me. The specific way your team works on reliability is the reason I applied here and not to three other companies hiring the same title.
Answer skeleton
Fill-in-the-blank template
I read or noticed [specific recent thing]. That resonates because [true thing about me / my trajectory]. I would want to contribute [specific contribution]. That is why this company, not a generic one.
Avoid these
Common mistakes
- Praising things true of every company in the industry.
- Talking only about what you get (pay, brand, perks) and not what you give.
- Confusing the company with a competitor or naming an outdated fact.
- Reciting the about page back to the interviewer.
By role
How the answer shifts by role
Engineering
Reference a concrete technical decision, open-source project, or engineering post. Specificity is the whole game.
Product management
Tie a recent product or roadmap bet to your own thesis about where the market is going.
Design
Point to a specific flow or design system detail you admire and explain why it reflects how you think about craft.
Be ready for
Likely follow-up questions
- What do you know about how our team works?
- What would you want to work on first if you joined?
- What other companies are you considering, and why?
Last reviewed by the site editor: June 2026
Nearby topics
Questions that often follow this one
Interviewers rarely stop at one story. These prompts sit close to this one and reward the same preparation.
Turn prep into an offer
Behavioral rounds are only half the loop. See the technical and behavioral questions for your exact role, and when an offer lands, check it is competitive with the salary comparison tool.