This is in the cyber security space. While the above numbers look great, this came after some intermittent interviewing practice. Happy to field a few questions on interviewing and being employable. Places I converted interviews into offers: 1. Elastic - IC - $300k 2. Vectra AI - Management - $270k + pre-IPO money 3. Two Sigma - IC - $310k 4. BCG - IC - $245k 5. AWS - IC - $315k 6. BetterUp - Management $287k + pre-IPO money 7. Sysdig - IC - $220k + pre-IPO money Did not convert interviews into offers 1. CrowdStrike Voluntarily stopped interviews at: 1. TikTok 2. Corelight 3. Cisco 4. Arctic Wolf 5. Google 6. Mandiant 7. Trellix Applied, no interviews 1. Devo 2. Visa 3. Huntress Current TC: 230k YOE: 6 Update: Thanks for engaging on this post. I have answered most comments/questions. If I haven't, either I have already answered that question in a comment above or I didn't follow the question. #cybersecurity #interview
Level?
It was a mixture of levels, given that I applied for a wide variety of positions in IC. Most of them are Senior/Principal and first line manager titles. I think the roles are mid level roles
Which ones did you take ?
What is your message for us?
1. There's no scarcity of offers for the right skill sets and if you're early in your career. Do not buy into fear mongering about recession 2. Put yourself out there in terms of exploring opportunities and take calls, you'll never know which one will work out despite your initial assumptions/feelings 3. Do not specialize too early. Take your first 5 to 6 years, to explore different opportunities and roles unless you know exactly what you want to do after you graduate out of college ( I suspect this is not the case with 80% of the people). Don't be afraid to take risks and try out different roles 4. Unpopular opinion: Choose the people you work with over TC. Once you hit a certain TC that affords a quality of life that you're fairly happy with, losing mental peace over +- 20-30k doesn't make sense if that means you have to deal with a poor work culture
Your 4th point is making me think you didn’t accept the AWS offer. Elastic?
Congrats! Could you please share the preparation strategy, especially for two sigma? Thanks!
Definitely DSA like coding, followed by stakeholder management interview and domain specific coding knowledge
By domain specific coding knowledge, do you mean low level system programming?
Can you elaborate on what the right skill sets are? Also congrats.
Thanks. In security, complementing that with soft skills like stakeholder management, hustling to get the job done is really critical. I have found that getting over adversity and proving success is valued more than hard skills. Having said that, in terms of hard skills, coding is tablestakes regardless of the role except for maybe an analyst role. Even there, I would say it's an advantage if you could script stuff and get things done. Cloud security and DS/ML will elevate your profile
Mind if I follow you on LinkedIN?
What kind of IC roles were you interviewing for? (Appsec, CloudSec, IR, etc…) and what tech skills appeared to be most in demand from the companies you interviewed with?
Given the current trend in supply chain risks, I say product sec/appsec is currently hot. The hype cycle for detection and response in and of the cloud is also increasing.
The IC roles I was interviewing for are not well defined industry roles as you mentioned. My skillset spans software dev+RE+ML, so I interviewed for MLE/DS, threat research, sec eng positions; all requiring different percentage of the hard skills I needed for the job. I can't stress enough about the soft skills that really helped me get these offers.
Two sigma looks low? What level op? Is it for Houston?
security at hedge hund is not gonna be their most paid role
Is it Software engineering or security engineer role? What didn’t go well with Crowdstrike?
For some it was DS/MLE/SDE role, some places with Sec Eng role. CrowdStrike -I bombed the interview, it was more of mentally not being present and attentive during the interview. I completed the coding round, but didn't do well in the DS/ML round.
@vmware, was the role an actually ML software engineer role or data science cybersecurity role?
is this a remote role? Is this in California?
Remote, non-Bay area
Why stopped?
A few of these offers gave me what I was looking for in terms of role and responsibilities. Also, interviewing takes up a lot of time
What is the interview pattern and questions ask can you please explain what convincing answers your provided