but also maybe its a green flag in that this employee might see the wood for the trees and save the company a lot of money later down the line. In my experience, a lot of engineers can waste a lot of time dicking around re-inventing wheels and whatnot.

While you consider it a huge warning sign, have you ever employed someone who would answer that way or are you assuming that you're not capable of making hiring mistakes? I can't help but think this "huge warning sign" might simply be a cognative bias where the interviewer is misdirecting their frustration in the poor design of their own process at the candidate [0].

For reference, I think both answers are fine and both perspectives (its a positive or a negative) are equally valid. Its just that I don't think we can confidently state either way.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ3ETK7-ZM8

if you answer ""Well I would probably go home and work on my resume because that's a fool's errand." You probably are missing the wood and the trees.

I think you missed the point in GP's post. Not all organizations optimize for problem solving. Some organizations prefer subordinates who follow orders (or better, is able to read the mind of the boss to decipher what order he is actually making) than those who breaks out of the box and says ”just use gsuite, boss."