---
title: "Red and Green flags when interviewing for a startup"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/red-and-green-flags-when-interviewing-for-a-startup-zflsmcadu
source_url: https://www.saiyangrowthletter.com/p/red-and-green-flags-when-interviewing
type: article
source: "Saiyan Growth Letter"
published: 2025-04-13T17:35:29.422Z
updated: 2025-04-13T17:35:43.725Z
tags: ["startup", "entrepreneurship", "company-culture"]
reading_time: 4
upvotes: 57
comments: 4
language: en
---

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# Red and Green flags when interviewing for a startup

**[Saiyan Growth Letter](https://daily.dev/sources/saiyangrowthletter)** · 4 min read · 57 upvotes · 4 comments

## Summary

When interviewing for a startup, it's important to recognize both positive and negative indicators. Green flags include transparency, respectful treatment, meeting potential teammates, practical interview processes, and clear business models. Red flags to be wary of are vague answers, toxic behavior, impractical interview processes, slow communication, lack of team interaction, and unclear financial stability. Pay attention to patterns and trust your observations throughout the process.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.saiyangrowthletter.com/p/red-and-green-flags-when-interviewing>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@dk56** · 3 upvotes

> https://www.saiyangrowthletter.com/i/160136966/impractical-process
>
> That would eliminate 99% of them.
>
> I like the idea of having this as a reference, but honestly, if one were to follow this and pass on startups that are in the red flags, might as well just not apply to them. They'd be passing on so many of them.
>
> Same applies to large companies tbf, but this brings me to my next point. The one question I'd absolutely make sure of (even if there's a bunch of other red flags) is getting 100% transparency about their funding situation. There's nothing worse than going into a startup and having...

**@shantanumethikar** · 0 upvotes

> Amazingly put!

**@ghost** · 0 upvotes

> this applies to all companies.

**@joncoe** · 0 upvotes

> When they dangle the stock options in lieu of the cheap salary, I ask for an investment deck, since you're basically being asked to invest your own money in the company. That usually stops the whole process in its tracks, in my experience.
>
> And if they ever wave the "early engineers at AirBnB are millionaires now", just hang up the call.

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---

Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#entrepreneurship](https://daily.dev/tags/entrepreneurship), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/red-and-green-flags-when-interviewing-for-a-startup-zflsmcadu)