Experience taught me that technical competence is not the whole of professional life. Every organisation has ways of communicating, deciding and recognising good work. Ignoring them can make a difficult task harder.
My original manuscript compared what I had observed in Spanish and American working environments. Those impressions were not the result of a systematic study, and they should not be read as rules about entire countries. The useful lesson is to understand the particular organisation, team and role in front of you.
Expectations about a CV, career changes or length of service can vary. So can the meaning attached to formal clothing. If a company uses a suit to signal credibility, arriving dressed very differently may affect the first conversation. In a casual team, unnecessary formality can create a different distance.
Reading those signals does not mean surrendering your principles or copying every behaviour you see. It means choosing where adaptation helps you work with others and where a boundary needs to remain clear.
Respect for the culture around you can make collaboration easier. A healthy working culture should also leave room for people who bring different backgrounds, ideas and ways of contributing.