It seems fairly obvious that a pure tech interview doesn't screen for cultural fit, and that you need to have some form of behavioral/cultural assessment as par

It seems fairly obvious that a pure tech interview doesn't screen for cultural fit, and that you need to have some form of behavioral/cultural assessment as part of the interview process. Depending on how much time you have to interview (and I suggest you take the time if you're going to hire someone!) the "standard" dev interview can do pretty well at weeding out candidates who clearly lack basic skills. Joel Spolsky is a proponent of this and I agree. I've found that passion is a great indicator of future success, and you can usually get a good quick read on whether they are serious about software development by asking people about their favorite projects, what they spend their time working on, and what interesting things they see happening in the field.