I do think I'd mark it against someone if I reserved 10-15 minutes at the end of an interview and they didn't have anything at all they wanted to know about the job or the company. I'm not expecting them to have a laundry list, but still. Or if you're not going to ask something, then have something to say at least. I'd rather you just go "No questions, since I assume this job pays me in money I can use to buy things?".
Getting a new job is a big deal - either you're about to quit somewhere and presumably you're looking because you care about finding a new employer that's better on some axis than your current job, or you're out of work and desperate to take anything, which is fine as well, but if you don't want to just admit that, you should probably have some idea of what to say otherwise.
Companies don't conduct interviews, people do. You need to be able to ask questions in an inoffensive way, and you might get some meaningful signal back. If you conclude you can't ask hard questions and instead go to Glassdoor then you're biasing yourself to demonstrative cheerleaders or people with an axe to grind, neither of which will really tell you anything about what's actually going on within the ranks of power on the inside of a company.
It depends on the questions - I don't feel like I've often gotten bad answers when I've asked and I know I try my hardest to be as honest as possible when candidates ask me hard questions about my position.
If I get red flagged for asking about their on-call policies or office-work plans or how they're handling the position/responsibilities that I would be taking on, then that seems like a bullet dodged? It's not like I'm expecting people to ask "So tell me about why you hate your manager" or "When was the last time you fired someone". You can ask probing but polite questions that give you information without having people tell you the sort of angry gossip you get on Glassdoor.
Obviously, tailor this to how desperate you are. If you want absolutely zero chance anyone will reject you for any reason, then you should be asking the most fluffy questions you can. I certainly don't reject people for asking those questions. I just find it a weird signal when someone seemingly doesn't even want to pretend to care about content, structure, and culture of the job they're interviewing for.
Interviewing candidates in a startup context I try to answer questions as openly and honestly as possible–I want both parties in the conversation to be on the same page and know what they're getting into. I don't think anyone benefits when people dance around topics that will materially impact success and satisfaction at work on a daily basis.
I'm struggling to think of legitimate questions which would get someone red flagged. Asking about oncall, team dynamics, inter-team dynamics, culture, why people want to work there, etc. all feel like they're important for the candidate to get to know if they'd want to work there.
> and they didn't have anything at all they wanted to know about the job or the company.
I assume that does not include scenarios where the large company interview claims they can't answer questions about a specific job until much later after a "team matching" step.
Sure. Obviously there's exceptions, and I mostly haven't worked anywhere where that's been an issue, but you also know what you're in for if you're interviewing somewhere that size. It's a very different process.
That said, I've regularly done interviews from both sides where I wasn't talking with someone who would be anywhere close to my role/team, and there's still plenty to ask there. At worst, you'll learn some about a different part of the organization, and maybe get some interesting contrast to other people you talk to later.
Even finding out what things are and aren't the same across the whole company can be interesting. Does vacation policy vary by team? Their use of various tools? Their work/ticket management process?
Getting a new job is a big deal - either you're about to quit somewhere and presumably you're looking because you care about finding a new employer that's better on some axis than your current job, or you're out of work and desperate to take anything, which is fine as well, but if you don't want to just admit that, you should probably have some idea of what to say otherwise.