Security engineering interviews are some of the toughest in the tech industry. As a security engineer, your job is all about reducing risk for technical products by thwarting malicious behavior.
Due to the essential nature of security engineering, the interviews for security engineers can be some of the most challenging in technical interviews.
We sat down with security and cybersecurity engineers from some of the top tech companies including Google, Meta, Amazon, and more to clarify whats actually asked in the security engineer interview and how to prepare.
In this 30-45min interview, your recruiter will ask questions about your resume, light technical questions to gauge your domain knowledge of security engineering, and behavioral questions to assess your culture fit at the company. In general, try to be authentic and genuine, while also showing that youve done research on the company and are genuinely excited to work there. We often recommend looking up your interviewer on LinkedIn to understand them a bit better, and reviewing public vision documents produced by the company.
In this interview, youll speak with the hiring manager about your technical skills and domain knowledge (this is sometimes referred to as the technical screen). Expect to talk through why youre the best candidate for the job and how youd add value to the company.
On-site interviews also vary, but they follow a predictable structure. Typically you’ll interview for 3-5 hours total with a lunch break midway through. You’ll go through many rounds, each 30 – 60 minutes long. One of the interviews will be a coding focused interview, where youll be asked standard algorithms and data structures interview questions. The rest of the interviews will focus more on the methodology of how youd go about solving some security issues, and is more in a discussion format. We encourage you to gather as much information as possible about the exact structure from your recruiter, as well as reviewing our list of Security Engineer interview questions below.
While this is a generally universal structure of the interview process, the interview stages can vary across different companies. Keep in mind your recruiter is on your side–they can answer questions you have about the interview loop before you go to your on-site.
As mentioned, security engineer interview questions can vary widely from company to company. Heres a list of questions weve seen most frequently asked at tech companies.
To be successful in the security engineer interview, we strongly recommend reviewing security engineering fundamentals. Some of the fundamental pieces of knowledge youll want to review includes this glossary below:
While covering all of these concepts may not be in your initial answer, your interviewer will likely push on your initial answer with follow-up questions related to these concepts. For instance, if youre answering a question on implementing authorization and authentication systems, your interviewer may ask you follow-up questions on how you think about the different solutions including SAML, OpenID Connect, and OAuth.
Looking for more resources? Review this study guide to security engineering interviews at Google.
Information Security: Technical Interview Questions | Google IT Support Certificate
Interviews for Top Jobs at Google
Security Engineer Interview
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google in Feb 2022
Interview
Recruiter phone screen then technical video interview. This is followed by more rounds on video and in person, all technical. Total of 6-7 rounds. I was also able to speak with a champion to understand what the job would be like
- What is Asymmetric Cryptography and where is it used
Security Engineer Interview
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (New York, NY) in Sep 2020
Interview
Recruiter reached out after applying on google jobs. Recruiter asked general questions and then set up a technical phone interview with engineer. The technical interview was an hour long. The interview was mainly core security questions and one coding problem
- How to create a botnet
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To get you started in the right direction, we have put together the essentials for your Cyber Security Engineer Google interview prep:Â Â
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Where did these notes come from? See the README.
- Any terms I couldnt easily explain went on to post-its.
- One term per post-it.
- “To learn”, “Revising”, “Done” was written on my whiteboard and I moved my post-its between these categories, I attended to this every few days.
- I looked up terms everyday, and I practiced recalling terms and explaining them to myself every time I remembered I had these interviews coming up (frequently).
- I focused on the most difficult topics first before moving onto easier topics.
- I carried around a notebook and wrote down terms and explanations.
- Using paper reduces distractions.
- Use spaced-repetition.
- Dont immediately look up the answer, EVEN IF you have never seen the term before. Ask yourself what the term means. Guess the answer. Then look it up.
- Review terms all the time. You can review items in your head at any time. If I was struggling to fall asleep, Id go through terms in my head and explained them to myself. 100% success rate of falling asleep in less than 10 minutes, works every time.
- Think hard about what specific team you are going for, what skills do they want? If you arent sure, then ask someone who will definitely know.
- Always focus on the areas you struggle with the most first in a study session. Then move on to easier or more familiar topics.
- Spend more time doing the difficult things.
- If youre weak on coding and you find yourself avoiding it, then spend most of your study time doing that.
- Read relevant books (you dont have to read back to back).
- When looking up things online, avoid going more than two referral links deep – this will save you from browser tab hell.
- Take care of your basic needs first – sleep, eat well, drink water, gentle exercise. You know yourself, so do whats best for you.
- You are more than your economic output, remember to separate your self worth from your paycheque.
- See interviews for what they are – they are not a measure of you being “good enough”.
- Interview questions are intentionally vague. This is to encourage questions.
- Ask clarifying questions
- Questions reveal how you approach problems.
- Write down notes about the question. This is so you dont forget details and only partially answer, or give the wrong answer.
- Interviews should be more like a conversation with a lot of back and forth, thoroughly explore scenarios together and avoid jumping too fast to a solution.
- The interviewer can only make an evaluation on your suitability for the job based on the things you say.
- Interviewers test depth of knowledge
- There will be questions about technical details on topics to the point where itll be hard to answer. This is okay, try your best to work through it and say what youre thinking.
- Interviewers often arent looking for specific answers, they just want to see how deeply you know a topic.
- Approach the question from a low level and even ask your interviewer if you need to add more details before moving on.
- Interviewers test breadth of knowledge
- There will be questions related to the role youre applying for and some that arent. This is to explore breadth of knowledge.
- Try your best to explore the scenarios and ask questions. Its very important to say your thinking aloud, you might be on the right track.
- Try to always ask clarifying questions even if you think you already know the answer. You might learn some nuance that even improves your idea.
- Always repeat the question back to the interviewer to both check your understanding and give yourself thinking time.
- “Okay, Ill repeat back the question so I can check my understanding…”
- “Just to clarify…”
- “I just want to check I heard correctly…”
- Your interviewer will provide feedback if your assumptions are unreasonable.
- “I am going to assume that the organisation is collecting x,y,z logs from hosts and storing these for at least 90 days…”
- “Can I make the assumption that…?”
- “Lets say that we can get x,y,z information…”
- “I dont know but if I had to invent it, it would be like this…”
- “I dont know that exactly but I know something about a similar subject / sub component…”
- “This is whats popping into my mind right now is…”
- “The only thing that is coming to mind is…”
- “I know a lot about [similar thing], I could talk about that instead? Would that be okay?”
- The interviewer can only make an evaluation on your suitability for the job based on the things you say.
- If you dont say your thought process aloud, then the interviewer doesnt know what you know.
- You may well be on the right track with an answer. Youll be kicking yourself afterwards if you later realise you were but didnt say anything (I missed out on an internship because of this!).
- Write pseudo code for your coding solution so you dont have to hold everything in your head.
- “Right now I am thinking about…”
- “I am thinking about different approaches, for example…”
- “I keep coming back to [subject/idea/thing] but I think thats not the right direction. I am thinking about…”
- “Im interested in this idea that…”
- Take notes on the question and assumptions during the interview.
- If the infrastructure is complicated, draw up what you think it looks like.
- Write pseudocode.
- Write tests and expected output for code you write, test your code against it.
- Make a checklist that reminds you of what to do for each question, something like:
- Listen to interview question
- Take notes on the question
- Repeat the question
- Ask clarifying questions
- State any assumptions
- Prepare questions that you want to ask your interviewers at the end of the interview so you dont need to think of them on the spot on the day. Since an interview is also for you to know more about the workplace, I asked questions about the worst parts of the job.
- Bring some small snacks in a box or container that isnt noisy and distracting. A little bit of sugar throughout the interviews can help your problem solving abilities.
- Stay hydrated – and take a toilet break between every interview if you need to (its good to take a quiet moment).
- Do them until they feel more comfortable and you can easily talk through problems.
- Ask your friends/peers to give you really hard questions that you definitely dont know how to answer.
- Practice being in the very uncomfortable position where you have no idea about the topic youve been asked. Work through it from first principles.
- Practice speaking aloud everything you know about a topic, even details you think might be irrelevant.
- Doooo theeeeemmm yes they can be annoying to organise but it is worth it.
What Does a Google Cyber Security Engineer Do?Â
A Google Cyber Security Engineer is responsible for risk evaluation, assessing, monitoring, conducting forensics, and developing security tools, automation, and frameworks. Some of your responsibilities as a Google Cyber Security Engineer will be:
FAQ
How can I prepare for Google Security Engineer interview?
- Coding Topics: Programming Languages. Data Structures: Arrays, Trees, Stacks, Recursion. …
- System Design. Designing complex architecture systems and platforms. Designing product features focusing on system security.
- Behavioral: Leadership. …
- Cyber Security:
What does a Security Engineer do at Google?
As a Security Engineer, you help protect network boundaries, keep computer systems and network devices hardened against attacks and provide security services to protect highly sensitive data like passwords and customer information.
How much does a Security Engineer at Google make?
What are the 5 rounds of Google interview?
