Genuinely opening up is a mistake. The incentives for these clearly mean that they actually select for candidates who are capable of glibly blagging their way through an extended conversation without saying anything inconsistent, weird, compromising or of substance.
This isn’t usually a required engineering skill. I’m guessing the interview was designed for salespeople and/or middle management.
I'd say it depends - evaluate the vibes. I spent 8y and recently 7y at a company where I genuinely responded with what I thought. But I'd say it's a matter of the audience - some people want to hear certain things and deciding if you can share these thoughts is up to you. It also allowed me to make decisions - if people don't care what I think and want sycophancy is this the company I want to be working at? I understand though it depends on one circumstances = you have to grin and bear it
Yeah, definitely just tell them what they want to hear on the personal question front ("tell me about a time..."). There's zero benefit to being truthful and zero downside to blagging it.