Contrast Security Interview Questions
& Process

Got contacted by a recruiter about this role, which was also posted on LinkedIn. Had an initial chat with the recruiter, who then connected me with the talent acquisition person. They then arranged an interview with the hiring manager a few days later. The interview was 45 minutes and seemed to go well. Didn't get a formal outcome though because the hiring manager resigned afterwards.

The interview process was pretty simple. First, there was a screening call with the internal recruiter, who was friendly. Then, I had a 45-minute interview with the hiring manager, who was also very nice. After that, the next stage involved meeting a team of three engineers I'd be working with. This part felt a bit awkward because they didn't ask many technical questions, and only one person seemed to be asking them, with long pauses in between. I actually had more experience with all the tools they used than they did, so technically it seemed like a good fit. However, I'm not so sure about the personality fit. They seemed really laid-back and even mentioned they decided their own work, which was unusual. There wasn't a clear roadmap for the role; it felt more like a 'figure it out as you go' situation. I ended up asking them more questions than they asked me, which makes me wonder how they find good candidates that way.

I had a quick recruiter call first, then got referred. They identified I was a fit and set up a Zoom call with the hiring manager. That was 30 mins, and it led to calls with two peers. One peer was super knowledgeable and we had a really good, detailed conversation for an hour. The other peer was late, blaming the link, even though we used the same one. They insisted on sticking to 30 mins, which cut the conversation to 15. They asked me what my motivation was twice. Then, nothing for 2 months. Got a form email 2.5 months later saying they hired someone else. Pretty bad to ghost a candidate like that, they should have just said they weren't moving forward.

The company reached out multiple times before I agreed to interview. There were 8 interviews total, plus a big written test. After two silent weeks, they said I was great but the role had a strict East Coast requirement, which they hoped the interviews might change, but didn't. Something weird happened right before my onsite: they emailed interviewers to say the job changed from non-technical to technical without telling me, and I couldn't even see the new description. I never got a job description even though I asked. Also, a founder kept asking for secret info about my current company's product features, which I couldn't share because it's competitive.