You should never say a word of criticism about the company to anyone but your primary point of contact and you should be darn circumspect with how you word it to him.
Maybe my question is "socially and professionally inept", but why is realizing that you're not going to fit into a company automatically a criticism?
I'm not talking about the guy who walked out in the example or the way the poster described the situation. I'm asking a much more general question and I'm genuinely interested in an honest answer.
To me it seems quite legitimate that one could come to a realization that there are irreconcilable incompatibilities between oneself and one or more aspects of the job. I consider that a case of "it's not you, it's me".
Are you really objecting to the fact that it might be interpreted as "I've got better things to do with the rest of my day"?
I'm trying to understand the reason why you're so emphatic about this (e.g. couching it in terms of "antagonizing").
Consider the probability that one's opinion vis-a-vis the company's culture is likely to come out in any comment about that company's culture (in particular, Ctrl-F on this page for "toxic", now guess how many of those folks would avoid showing their cards given five seconds to speak on the matter). Consider the probability that the people who do fit in with a culture actually value what that culture values and their participation in that culture, probably rather highly.
Also, with specific regards to everyone but your primary point of contact, I suggest noblesse oblige. There are particular company cultures which do not cause me to vibrate with sympathy. That's neither here nor there. No junior engineer at those companies has the power/authority to meaningfully change core bits of the company culture in response to my feedback. It's like complaining to a Delta clerk because my flight got canceled due to the weather: no gain whatsoever (the thunderstorm and the flight schedule are both beyond the clerk's ability to control), turns this into a you-versus-me situation to no purpose, and sucks up mental cycles that could better be used asking the obvious follow-up "Well, that's too bad. What are our options?"
Your options, vis-a-vis a young engineer at a company whose culture you would not be a good fit for, include "Make a decent impression on him such that, when he moves to a different company in three years, if your name comes up in conversation he says 'Oh yeah, I met him once. Nice guy.'"
I suspect it's automatically a criticism if the words coming out of your mouth are "I only want to work with smart people" or on interesting problems, or whatever. I further suspect people will say more or less precisely that without realizing it. "oh, I didn't mean to call you stupid, you're just not as smart as me, that's all."
Maybe my question is "socially and professionally inept", but why is realizing that you're not going to fit into a company automatically a criticism?
I'm not talking about the guy who walked out in the example or the way the poster described the situation. I'm asking a much more general question and I'm genuinely interested in an honest answer.
To me it seems quite legitimate that one could come to a realization that there are irreconcilable incompatibilities between oneself and one or more aspects of the job. I consider that a case of "it's not you, it's me".
Are you really objecting to the fact that it might be interpreted as "I've got better things to do with the rest of my day"?
I'm trying to understand the reason why you're so emphatic about this (e.g. couching it in terms of "antagonizing").