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Reading the signals in a remote job posting

Postings leak information about what a company is actually like. Here is how to read them.

A job posting is a marketing document, but it is written by people under time pressure, and what they choose to mention is informative.

Good signals

• A named salary range. It means the company has a compensation framework and is not planning to pay you what you ask for.
• A described interview process with stages and rough timing. It means someone owns it.
• A named EOR or an explicit list of countries. It means international hiring is real.
• Async working, written culture, documentation. It means the company has thought about how distributed teams communicate.

Warning signals

• Wear many hats, fast paced, we work hard and play hard. Usually understaffed.
• A list of ten technologies for one role. Either the job is three jobs, or the team does not know what it wants.
• Rockstar, ninja, family. The family one in particular tends to appear where boundaries are poor.
• No mention of the team you would join, who you report to, or what the first project is.

Neutral things people misread

A long requirements list is usually a wish list, not a gate. Applying at seventy per cent match is normal and expected. A posting open for months might mean a hard role to fill, or might just mean an evergreen pipeline.

The single best tell

Does the posting describe the problem you would work on, or only the person they want? Postings that describe the work are written by the team. Postings that only describe the candidate are written by someone who has never done the job.