Beyond culture fit: non-technical hiring criteria for engineers

I think it's good to remove "friend potential" from the hiring process. Most people are not jerks, and that's really all you need. I find I'll become friends with anyone reasonably pleasant to be around.

But listing criteria without saying anything about how you test for it - like empathy - is a pretty big gap. Hopefully you have a talented HR member with a psych background who can guide you through behavioral questioning.

I hire 100% remote developers, so my #1 soft criteria is discipline. And I find I can test for that, along with communication skills (#2) by asking them to write about best practices. Disciplined developers love to talk about best practices.