The 10 red flags of a fake or ghost developer job

Some listings are not real hires. Learn the signals so you spend your energy on roles that exist.

The ten flags

1. Open for over a year with no changes. It may be an evergreen pipeline, not a job.
2. Re-stamped, the posting date keeps resetting while the role never closes.
3. Vague company with no website, or a domain registered weeks ago.
4. Pay far above market for the stated experience.
5. You must pay for training, equipment, or "onboarding". Never.
6. Interviews over chat only, with no video and no real questions.
7. A request for personal documents, ID, bank details, before any offer.
8. Copy-pasted description with another company's name in it.
9. Recruiter cannot answer basic questions about the team or the product.
10. Pressure to move fast, "offer expires today".

What to do

Verify the company independently, find the role on the company's own careers page, and see where jobs are actually posted. If a listing is reported by enough people, we flag it and pull it from the board; see how it works.

Your instinct is data

If something feels off, it usually is. There are thousands of real roles; you do not owe a suspicious listing your time.