I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at IOActive (Cheltenham, England) in May 2024
Interview
NOT WORTH THE EFFORT!
>> After applying for the less senior role I received a set of challenges for which there might be or there might not be a solution (???). I solved the necessary ones, according to the recruiter's indication.
>> Submitted a report of 20+ pages, explaining my thinking process which was supposed to be more important than the solutions, since not all of the challenges had solutions (¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Spent in total around 20-30 hours or more in the span of one working week.
>> Now it's the best part: I wait for over a week, no response! I receive an automated message that they are not proceeding with my application, because they wanted more experience (I applied in the less senior role by the way -_-). The only thing I requested for in the end was to know the solution to the challenge I spent the most time with (even though according to their extremely genius approach there might have been none). HOWEVER, of course I got a response that they cannot provide more. The only feedback I got was that I was not able to solve the ( solvable??? / unsolvable????) challenges...
>> YOU ARE ABSURD! You require candidates to put so much effort in and then you cannot even give them a response to a simple freaking question because you think that they will damage your process. You want more experience while you do not provide even one solution which would help your candidates become better. This was one of the worst experiences I had, especially given the time I spent on the whole challenge. Message received, not planning on applying to joke companies like yours ever again. Cheers!
>> I would only like to state that throughout the process the person I was talking with was very positive, polite and nice overall. I just want to make sure that there is a clear distinction here between them and the company
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Various challenges including: RE, Embedded and Source code auditing but also not related categories to the role, such as: WebApp
I applied online. I interviewed at IOActive (London, England) in Nov 2021
Interview
several interviews and a CTF you need to pass. The first interviewed is the HR interview, then you need to resolve the CTF and then you need to pass technical interviews
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at IOActive
Interview
Applied online, had a short interview with the HR gatekeeper before being given six CTF challenges to complete and do a write up on. The CTFs covered topics such as basic web app hacking, source code review and crypto cracking. I completed all of the CTFs, and did some extra, finally producing a 14 page write up documenting my methodology, as well as potential mitigations. After a few days, HR sent me a canned rejection letter, which I'm fine with, just spare me the homework assignments next time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a crypto algorithm, some ciphertexts and plaintext messages, find the 8 byte crypto key and decrypt the ciphertext messages.