6 red flags I saw while doing 60+ technical interviews in 30 days
6 red flags I saw while doing 60+ technical interviews in 30 days
By Uduak Obong-Eren | Published: September 14, 2020; Last updated: October 31, 2025
Hey, Aline (founder of interviewing.io) here. We’re trying something new. Up till now, all posts on this blog have been written by interviewing.io employees or contractors. Why? Frankly, it’s hard to find great content in the recruiting space. There’s so much fluff and bad advice out there, and we didn’t want any part of that.
A quick note because this is the first time we’re doing this. One of the things I’m most excited about with this new Guest Author series is the diversity of opinions it will bring to our blog. Technical interviewing and hiring is fraught with controversy, and not everything these posts contain will be in line with my opinions or the official opinions of interviewing.io. But that’s what’s great about it.
Uduak Obong-Eren
Uduak Obong-Eren is a Software Engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area who is passionate about architecting and building scalable software systems. He has about five years of industry experience and holds a Masters in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an open source enthusiast and writes technical articles – you can view some of his writings at https://meekg33k.dev. He especially enjoys conducting free mock technical interviews to help folks get better at technical interviewing. You can follow him on Twitter @meekg33k.
What is the one thing you would look out for if you had to join a company?
Sometime between January and February 2020, I wanted to change jobs and was looking to join a new company. This, among other reasons, led me to embark on a marathon of technical interviews – 60+ technical interviews in 30 days.
In this article, I will be sharing some of the red flags I observed while I was on this marathon of technical interviews. I will not be mentioning names of any companies because that’s not the intent behind this article.
The Red Flags
Your interviewer is only open to solving the problem ONE way
In the world of computing and in life generally, for any given problem, there is typically more than one way to solve that problem. For example, given a sorting problem, you could solve it using a merge-sort algorithm or a heap sort algorithm.
Having this rich number of techniques to solve a problem makes it even more interesting and the general expectation in technical interviews is that you should have the flexibility to solve a problem using your preferred technique.
When I probed a bit further to know why, it appeared that the reason he asked that I used the second wasn’t to test my knowledge of that second technique; it was because he was more ‘comfortable’ with that approach.
Undue pressure to accept an offer letter
It’s very exciting and fulfilling when you go through all preliminary stages of a technical interview, through to the onsite interview (remote or in-person) and then you receive that “ Congratulations
However, that excitement often becomes short-lived when there is some form of pressure from your soon-to-be employer to accept the offer.
That was the case for me when I interviewed with a startup based in Palo Alto. They were a small company in terms of staff strength. I asked to know how long I had to accept the offer letter and I was told seventy-two hours.
The offer letter arrived later that evening, and it looked great — a six-figure offer definitely didn’t seem like a bad start. I turned down the offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture?
Not enough clarity about your role
Among the many reasons why you would join a company is your desire to be involved in valuable work. I had the opportunity to join a US company based in Boulder, Colorado. In both interviews, I couldn’t get a clear sense of what my specific role was.
If the role isn’t that important, it may mean when a layoff comes, your position may be impacted.
On a more personal note, I don’t want to be just a number.
So it’s important to get clarity about your role, for where you are today and for future career growth.
Consistent lack of interest or low morale from interviewers
When looking to join a company, one of the things you simply must care about is the team you will end up working on. If through all the different stages of the interview process, you experience a consistent lack of interest or low morale from your interviewers, you might want to pay attention.
When I experienced that during one of my interviews, I couldn’t exactly tell what the cause was, but I knew something just wasn’t right.
A lack of interest or low morale could be pointers to a combination of any of the following:
- Your prospective team-mates may be experiencing burnout.
- Some internal dissatisfaction with company — culture, policies, something, anything.
- The team isn’t that interested in you.
Your interviewers aren’t prepared for the interview
Have you been in an interview before where the interviewer doesn’t seem to have any questions to ask you? Trust me it can get really awkward.
Some of which include lack of proper planning by the HR/recruiting team or busy schedules for the interviewer.
Lack of a clear direction on where the company is headed
It’s fulfilling to be a part of a company that is involved in meaningful work that creates value for its users. While it’s important to do that, I think it’s equally important that the company should be able to sell you on its vision and what it hopes to achieve.
Conclusion
We sometimes focus more on securing the job and even though that is very important, even more important than getting the job is staying fulfilled on the job. For me, fulfillment meant joining a company that had a clear vision of where they were headed, working in a role that was critical to the company’s business while being equipped with a lot of growth opportunities.