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Security Engineering Interview Course
Tpm course

Nail Your Next Security Engineering Interview

4.84
Tpm reviews

Designed and taught by FAANG+ Security Engineers, this course will give you a foolproof preparation strategy to crack the toughest interviews at FAANG and Tier-1 companies. 

Security Engineers!
Get interview-ready with lessons from FAANG+ engineers
Master core Security Engineering interview concepts
Sharpen your coding and behavioral interview skills
Cyber Security
Register for webinar
Learn more about the course & pricing
It's Free
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Get all the information about the course and pricing in our live webinar with Q&A.
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Next Batch
12th June, 2022
Location
Live & online
Duration
4 months (apx. 10 hours/week)

Students who chose to uplevel with IK got placed at

engineering
Abhishek Garai
Sr. Cloud Security Engineer
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Pratik Agarwal
Software Development Engineer ll
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Kishore Periassamy
Software Development Engineer
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Anshul Bansal
Software Engineer
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Suat Mercan
Senior Software Engineer
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Vinayak Prabhu
System Development Engineer
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Kelsi Lakey
Software Engineer
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Shrey Shrivastava
Software Development Engineer ll
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Aniruddha Tekade
Senior Software Engineer
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13,500+
Tech professionals trained
$1.267M
Highest offer received by an IK alum
53%
Average salary hike received by alums
Best suited for
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Current or Former Security Engineers, Security Analysts, Application Security Engineers, Security Architects, Security Support Engineers
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Application, System or Network Support Engineers
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Cloud Security/Support Engineers
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Current or Former Security Analysts, Sec Ops Engineers.
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System, Network, or Cloud Support Engineers who don’t have coding experience.
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Other Infrastructure Protection Professionals who don’t have coding experience

Why choose this course?

Comprehensive Curriculum

Program designed by FAANG+ leads

Covering data structures, algorithms, interview-relevant topics, and career coaching
Rigorous Mock Interviews

Individualized teaching and 1:1 help

Technical coaching, homework assistance, solutions discussion, and individual session
Plenty of 1 x 1 Help

Mock interviews with Silicon Valley engineers

Live interview practice in real-life simulated environments with FAANG and top-tier interviewers
Career Skills Development

Personalized feedback

Constructive, structured, and actionable insights for improved interview performance
Salary Negotiation

Career skills development

Resume building, LinkedIn profile optimization, personal branding, and live behavioral workshops
Salary Negotiation

50% Money-Back Guarantee*

If you do well in our course but still don't land a domain-relevant job within the post-program support period, we'll refund 50% of the tuition you paid for the course.*

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A typical week at Interview Kickstart

This is how we structure and organize your interview prep with our high-quality, content-rich course. Our learners devote 10 to 12 hours per week to this course.

Thu

Get foundational content
Get high-quality videos and course material for the upcoming week's live class
Covers fundamentals, interview-relevant topics, and case studies
Attend timed test and review session
Focused group discussions involving learners and the instructor on the assignment's solution
Interview-like drill down into key techniques and design choices

Sun

Attend Online live sessions
Attend 4-hour interactive sessions covering interview-relevant Security Engineering concepts
Each class covers a wide variety of interview problems, including open-ended questions and how to approach these questions
Live feedback from a FAANG+ instructor

Mon-Wed

Practice problems & case studies
Practice concepts taught in live sessions to solve assignment questions
Live doubt-solving with FAANG+ instructors
Learn about the hiring process at various FAANG+ companies

Every day

1:1 access to instructors
Personalized coaching from FAANG+ Cybersecurity instructors
Individualized and detailed attention to your questions
Solution walkthroughs
Contact for Pricing

Meet the class

Years of experience
Current domain of enrolled students
Eligibility Criteria
blue tick
Current or Former Security Engineers, Security Analysts, Application Security Engineers, Security Architects, Security Support Engineers
blue tick
Application, System or Network Support Engineers
blue tick
Cloud Security/Support Engineers

Course curriculum

System Design
calender-icon
3 weeks
airplay-icon
3 live classes
1

Online Processing Systems

  • The client-server model of Online processing
  • Top-down steps for system design interview
  • Depth and breadth analysis
  • Cryptographic hash function
  • Network Protocols, Web Server, Hash Index
  • Scaling
  • Performance Metrics of a Scalable System
  • SLOs and SLAs
  • Proxy: Reverse and Forward
  • Load balancing
  • CAP Theorem
  • Content Distribution Networks
  • Cache
  • Sharding
  • Consistent Hashing
  • Storage
  • Case Studies: URL Shortener, Instagram, Uber, Twitter, Messaging/Chat Services
2

Batch Processing Systems

  • Inverted Index
  • External Sort Merge
  • K-way External Sort-Merge
  • Distributed File System
  • Map-reduce Framework
  • Distributed Sorting
  • Case Studies: Search Engine, Graph Processor, Typeahead Suggestions, Recommendation Systems
Security Engineering
calender
5 weeks
Air-play
5 live classes
1

Applied Cryptography

  • Comprehensive coverage of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography techniques to keep digital communication secure : RSA, ECC, DS6, AES
  • Discussion on ideal Cryptography outcomes: Confidentiality, Authenticity, Integrity, and Non-repudiation
  • Discussion on non-trivial questions:
  • If you had to both encrypt and compress data during transmission, which would you do first, and why?
  • How can one perform an MITM attack on all HTTPS traffic? Is it even possible?
  • Can you describe rainbow tables?
  • What makes encryption techniques tough to crack?: Avalanche effect, Hash functions, Hash collision
  • Common mistakes you can do during interviews: Encryption vs Encoding, Encryption vs Hash Functions
  • How can you authenticate a user who is accessing your system? : In depth working of Kerberos, SAML, OAUTH 2.0, JSON Web Token and PKI(Public Key Infrastructure)
2

Network Security

  • Comprehensive coverage of network components - ARP, IP & MAC, Protocols, Firewall, TCP, OSI layers, etc.
  • Important interview questions on secure Wi-Fi connection, pre-shared key, firewalls and many other network components
  • How to secure DNS and DHCP servers? Get pro tips on server hardening. Get to know some interesting follow-up questions: 
  • How does DNS name resolution work in networks?
  • What is the BIND service in linux?
  • What does the hosts file do in a windows system?
  • How to detect and respond to intrusions? - Discussion on Intrusion detection system
  • Solve tough problems: Challenging assignments on DNS poisoning, SYN/ACK flood attack
3

Cloud Security

  • Comprehensive coverage of different stages where data needs to be protected:
  • Data-at-rest
  • Data-in-transit
  • Data-in-use
  • Discussion on most pressing issues with PaaS (cloud): Data security, Integrations, Customisation of legacy systems, Vendor lock-in
  • Deep dive into common cloud configuration issues: Granting public access to data, disabled logging and monitoring
  • The interview focused on open-ended assignments and challenging questions:
  • As a consultant how would you improve client’s cloud security posture?
  • How would you secure a cloud containerised environment?
  • Why is tagging important when it comes to cloud environments?
  • Biggest challenges to security of cloud : Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS), its types and mitigation strategies
  • Key principles to keep your cloud secure: logging and monitoring, cloud native security tools like AWS GuardDuty 
4

Application Security

  • Focus on building a security mindset for developing secure applications
  • Challenging assignment based on real-life scenarios: Music streaming API security
  • Deep dive into application security principles: Threat Modeling, OWASP Top 10
  • Discussion on code reviews questions: Identify security flaws in the given code (most frequently asked in FAANG+ interviews)
  • Case studies on application security flaws:
  • Link Shortening
  • IDOR
  • User-Facing Authentication
  • Discussion on important security frameworks to keep your application secure:
  • STRIDE
  • CHIRPS
5

Security Themed Coding, Code Reviews

  • What are some of the checkpoints and best practices to develop more secure code? Discuss various strategies to write better code: 
  • Data/Input Validation
  • Output Encoding
  • Session Management
  • Access Control
  • Reducing attack surface and many other checkpoints
  • Comprehensive coverage of attack vectors and common software vulnerabilities - How to stay updated with latest vulnerabilities? 
  • How does Threat Modeling help with making secure code - A deep dive into three threat modeling techniques
  • Interview-relevant strategies: Learn to do Attack Tree analysis, a method to model the threats against a system in a graphical easy-to-understand manner
  • Additional methods to mitigate security risks in code to impress your interviewer:
  • Code Signing
  • AppLocker, Code Integrity, and IPE
  • Code Repository Authentication
  • Pentest team
  • Interesting open-ended interview questions: 
  • Why would you use modular design vs. resiliency design?
  • Tell me how code can be written in an insecure manner.
  • Is it possible for vulnerabilities to exist if each separate system is secure?
Career Coaching
calender
3 weeks
airplay
3 live classes
1

Interview Strategy and Success

2

Behavioral Interview Prep

3

Offers and Negotiation

Support Period
calender
6 Months
1

15 mock interviews

2

Take classes you missed/retake classes/tests

3

1:1 technical/career coaching

4

Interview strategy and salary negotiation support

Next webinar starts in

00
Days
:
00
Hrs
:
00
Mins
:
00
Secs
Eligibility Criteria
blue tick
Current or Former Security Analysts, Sec Ops Engineers.
blue tick
System, Network, or Cloud Support Engineers who don’t have coding experience.
blue tick
Other Infrastructure Protection Professionals who don’t have coding experience

Course curriculum

System Design (Optional)
calender-icon
3 weeks
airplay-icon
3 live classes
1

Online Processing Systems

  • The client-server model of Online processing
  • Top-down steps for system design interview
  • Depth and breadth analysis
  • Cryptographic hash function
  • Network Protocols, Web Server, Hash Index
  • Scaling
  • Performance Metrics of a Scalable System
  • SLOs and SLAs
  • Proxy: Reverse and Forward
  • Load balancing
  • CAP Theorem
  • Content Distribution Networks
  • Cache
  • Sharding
  • Consistent Hashing
  • Storage
  • Case Studies: URL Shortener, Instagram, Uber, Twitter, Messaging/Chat Services
2

Batch Processing Systems

  • Inverted Index
  • External Sort Merge
  • K-way External Sort-Merge
  • Distributed File System
  • Map-reduce Framework
  • Distributed Sorting
  • Case Studies: Search Engine, Graph Processor, Typeahead Suggestions, Recommendation Systems
3

Stream Processing Systems

  • Case Studies: on APM, Social Connections, Netflix, Google Maps, Trending Topics, YouTube
Cyber Security Engineering
calender
7 weeks
Air-play
7 live classes
1

Applied Cryptography

  • Comprehensive coverage of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography techniques to keep digital communication secure : RSA, ECC, DS6, AES
  • Discussion on ideal Cryptography outcomes: Confidentiality, Authenticity, Integrity, and Non-repudiation
  • Discussion on non-trivial questions:
  • If you had to both encrypt and compress data during transmission, which would you do first, and why?
  • How can one perform an MITM attack on all HTTPS traffic? Is it even possible?
  • Can you describe rainbow tables?
  • What makes encryption techniques tough to crack?: Avalanche effect, Hash functions, Hash collision
  • Common mistakes you can do during interviews: Encryption vs Encoding, Encryption vs Hash Functions
  • How can you authenticate a user who is accessing your system? : In depth working of Kerberos, SAML, OAUTH 2.0, JSON Web Token and PKI(Public Key Infrastructure)
2

Network Security

  • Comprehensive coverage of network components - ARP, IP & MAC, Protocols, Firewall, TCP, OSI layers, etc.
  • Important interview questions on secure Wi-Fi connection, pre-shared key, firewalls and many other network components
  • How to secure DNS and DHCP servers? Get pro tips on server hardening. Get to know some interesting follow-up questions: 
  • How does DNS name resolution work in networks?
  • What is the BIND service in linux?
  • What does the hosts file do in a windows system?
  • How to detect and respond to intrusions? - Discussion on Intrusion detection system
  • Solve tough problems: Challenging assignments on DNS poisoning, SYN/ACK flood attack
3

Cloud Security

  • Comprehensive coverage of different stages where data needs to be protected:
  • Data-at-rest
  • Data-in-transit
  • Data-in-use
  • Discussion on most pressing issues with PaaS (cloud): Data security, Integrations, Customisation of legacy systems, Vendor lock-in
  • Deep dive into common cloud configuration issues: Granting public access to data, disabled logging and monitoring
  • The interview focused on open-ended assignments and challenging questions:
  • As a consultant how would you improve client’s cloud security posture?
  • How would you secure a cloud containerised environment?
  • Why is tagging important when it comes to cloud environments?
  • Biggest challenges to security of cloud : Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS), its types and mitigation strategies
  • Key principles to keep your cloud secure: logging and monitoring, cloud native security tools like AWS GuardDuty 
4

Application Security

  • Focus on building a security mindset for developing secure applications
  • Challenging assignment based on real-life scenarios: Music streaming API security
  • Deep dive into application security principles: Threat Modeling, OWASP Top 10
  • Discussion on code reviews questions: Identify security flaws in the given code (most frequently asked in FAANG+ interviews)
  • Case studies on application security flaws:
  • Link Shortening
  • IDOR
  • User-Facing Authentication
  • Discussion on important security frameworks to keep your application secure:
  • STRIDE
  • CHIRPS
5

Security Themed Coding, Code Reviews

  • What are some of the checkpoints and best practices to develop more secure code? Discuss various strategies to write better code: 
  • Data/Input Validation
  • Output Encoding
  • Session Management
  • Access Control
  • Reducing attack surface and many other checkpoints
  • Comprehensive coverage of attack vectors and common software vulnerabilities - How to stay updated with latest vulnerabilities? 
  • How does Threat Modeling help with making secure code - A deep dive into three threat modeling techniques
  • Interview-relevant strategies: Learn to do Attack Tree analysis, a method to model the threats against a system in a graphical easy-to-understand manner
  • Additional methods to mitigate security risks in code to impress your interviewer:
  • Code Signing
  • AppLocker, Code Integrity, and IPE
  • Code Repository Authentication
  • Pentest team
  • Interesting open-ended interview questions: 
  • Why would you use modular design vs. resiliency design?
  • Tell me how code can be written in an insecure manner.
  • Is it possible for vulnerabilities to exist if each separate system is secure?
6

Incident Response & Management

  • Answer questions such as -
  • Using a SIEM of your choice, how would you write a query which alerts on a successful login after several failed logins?
  • How would you secure [Company’s] corporate networks? You can use whatever tools and software you want.
  • Congratulations, you’re a hacker now. How would you break into the network you just secured?
  • Comprehensive coverage of attack vectors and common software vulnerabilities - How to stay updated with latest vulnerabilities? 
  • Key interview relevant topics-
  • Threat Assessment
  • Threat Actors & Motivations
  • Advanced Persistent Threats
  • Threat Assessment, Incident Management, & APTs
  • Working With Threat Assessment
  • Intrusion Detection & Analysis
  • Detection & Analysis At Scale
  • SecOps at Big Tech
  • Example Queries (Mandiant Query Language)
  • Incident Response & Management
  • IR&M At Big Tech
  • Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT)
  • Incident Management Plan
  • Incident Management: Respond to Incidents
7

Python Scripting for Security

  • Scripting Examples & Analysis
  • Python for Scripting & Automation
  • Parsing Information
  • Handling Files & Data with Python
  • Proactive Python
  • Python for Threat Response & Automation
Career Coaching
calender
3 weeks
airplay
3 live classes
1

Interview Strategy and Success

2

Behavioral Interview Prep

3

Offers and Negotiation

Support Period
calender
6 Months
1

15 mock interviews

2

Take classes you missed/retake classes/tests

3

1:1 technical/career coaching

4

Interview strategy and salary negotiation support

Next webinar starts in

00
Days
:
00
Hrs
:
00
Mins
:
00
Secs

Meet your instructors

Our highly experienced instructors are active hiring managers and employees at FAANG+ companies and know exactly what it takes to ace tech and managerial interviews.
instructor

Larry Hu

Senior Security Engineer
18+ years experience
instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Akshar R

Security Engineer
9+ years experience
instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Omkar Deshpande

Head of Curriculum
15+ years experience
Instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Alisha Kloc

EM - Cybersecurity
13+ years experience
Instructor-cmpnyInstructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Daniel Glassow

AWS Security Engineer
12+ years experience
Instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Troy Wegner

Customer Success Engineer
11+ years experience
Instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
instructor

Nick Camilleri

Head of Career Skills Devp. and Coaching
10+ years experience
Instructor-cmpny
Linkedin
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Practice and track progress on UpLevel

UpLevel will be your all-in-one learning platform to get you FAANG-ready, with 10,000+ interview questions, timed tests, videos, mock interviews suite, and more.
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Mock interviews suite
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On-demand timed tests
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In-browser online judge
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10,000 interview questions
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100,000 hours of video explanations
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Class schedules & activity alerts
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Real-time progress update
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11 programming languages

Get upto 15 mock interviews with                      hiring managers

What makes our mock Interviews the best:

Hiring managers from Tier-1 companies like Google & Apple

Interview with the best. No one will prepare you better!

Domain-specific Interviews

Practice for your target domain - Security Engineering

Detailed personalized feedback

Identify and work on your improvement areas

Transparent, non-anonymous interviews

Get the most realistic experience possible

Career impact

Our engineers land high-paying and rewarding offers from the biggest tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, and Netflix.
engineer

Abhishek Garai

Sr. Cloud Engineer
Placed at:
amazon
Interviewing has always been difficult for me. I always had fear and anxiety of failing, my confidence was low. IK has put together different aspects of interviewing in well defined plan. Live Classes and Practice problems gives you inner confidence of facing the interviews. I have tried reading multiple books on different topics but they are theoretical and doesn't help in interviews. IK takes you to problem solving mode, they do it in very structured pattern.

Ian Hwang

Software Engineer
Placed at:
I attended IK and I've got a lot of knowledge that helped me get into Microsoft. Their curriculum (algorithms and data structures) is organized very well and explanations are so helpful. And mock interviews and the feedback helped me a lot. It was worth it!

Neetika Srivastava

Software Engineer
Placed at:
I really like how the program is structured and how it caters to different domains. It is really helpful. The patterns that they teach you at Interview Kickstart are really useful because you can apply those patterns to any new problem. Knowing those patterns, you can solve basically any question because you can relate it to problems you have already solved, which gives you confidence.

Chun Wu

Senior Software Engineer
Placed at:
I joined iK after stumbling across it while reviewing some other interview prep materials after doing poorly in an interview at Linkedin. I knew that doing well in these interviews would require dedication and investment of my time - but with so many resources online I didn't have structure. This is what the IK platform provided me.

Shrey Shrivastava

Software development Engineer ll
Placed at:
google brand logo
The Interview Kickstart course is very structured and informative. They teach you about DS and algo fundamentals very thoroughly and also prepare you for the software engineering interview. I really like the live classes by FAANG engineers, and the homework and tests definitely help you toprepare for a real interview. If you have been looking for a bootcamp that prepares you for software engineering interviews, I would say this is definitely the right place to do it.

Sridhar Gandham

Senior Software Engineer
Placed at:
My experience at IK was extremely positive. I was preparing for FAANG companies using the standard techniques that you find on the internet. When I started preparing, there was no structure to the madness. For example, a simple quicksort can be implemented in multiple ways. So solving a medium problem would take me about 30 minutes. The biggest benefit that I got from IK was a clear, structured way of solving problems. After IK, I could solve medium problems in 10 minutes!

Akriti Bhatt

Software Engineer
Placed at:
Interview Kickstart is a great platform to perfect your basics and get a deep understanding of algorithms. These sessions helped me crack Google and several other companies.
Having struggled for a while to understand what I was doing wrong in interviews and how to behave during an interview, I took the help of 1-1 interview sessions with the mentors and the guidance provided by them helped me understand the problem with my approach.
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How to enroll for the Security Engineering Interview Course?

Learn more about Interview Kickstart and the Security Engineering Interview Course by joining the free webinar hosted by Ryan Valles, co-founder of Interview Kickstart.

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Already preparing or want a sneak peek? Try the SE Interview Prep 7-day email course

A Free Guide to Kickstart Your Security Engineering Career at FAANG+

From the interview process and career path to interview questions and salary details — learn everything you need to know about Security Engineering careers at top tech companies.
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It's Free

Security Engineering Interview Process Outline

The interview process at FAANG+ and other Tier-1 companies for Cyber Security Engineering interviews vary a bit for each company. However, the general structure is as follows:
  • Initial technical screening 
  • On-site interview:
  • 1-2 coding rounds
  • 1 security code-review round
  • 1-2 system design/core security rounds
  • Behavioral round

What to Expect at Security Engineering Interviews?

1
Recruiter screening:
30-45 min interview with a recruiter. They 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.
2
Initial technical screening:
This usually involves a coding round and a few questions testing your general knowledge of Security topics. The coding questions are typically at an Easy/Medium level on Leetcode.
3
On-site: 4-5 Rounds:
  • Each round is 30 - 60 minutes long.
  • 1-2 general coding rounds: Depending on the total years of experience, candidates go through 1-2 coding (DSA-based) rounds. The questions are usually LC easy/medium.
  • One security code-review round: In these rounds, candidates could be asked to review a code snippet to find vulnerabilities it contains. Alternatively, they could be asked some security-themed coding questions focusing on text parsing and manipulation, basic data structures, and simple logic flows.
  • 1-2 system design rounds: Candidates are asked to design systems to secure various applications. The solution is evaluated on all aspects: network, system, application, and information security. Usually, the discussion leads to several conceptual questions on Networking, OS, Cryptography, Malware, Digital Forensics, etc. For candidates having <5 years of experience, the design round is often replaced by a core Security understanding round of medium/high difficulty.
  • Behavioral round: To test for cultural fit and check your leadership and communication skills.

Security Engineering Interview Questions

Practicing Cyber Security interview questions and answers is key to nailing your Cyber Security interview. Want to gauge your Cyber Security Engineer interview preparation levels? See if you can answer these Cyber Security Engineering interview questions:
1
Security Engineering Coding Questions
Find the single element that does not appear thrice in a given array of integers.
For a given number, find the number of ones in its binary representation. Given nums=[0, 1, 3] return 2.
How would you test for a loop in a linked list?
How would you reverse a linked list?
Sort an array using bubble sort and quicksort.
Reverse a string without using any built-in functions.
2
Domain-specific Security Engineering Interview Questions
How do you ensure that a server is secure?
How do you differentiate between symmetric and asymmetric encryption?
What Is SSL encryption?
What do you mean by port scanning?
How frequently do you perform patch management?
Can you reset a password-protected BIOS configuration?
What is the difference between Black Box Testing and White Box Testing?
What is forward secrecy?
What is ARP poisoning? Can you explain with an example?
What do you mean by SQL injection?
Do you know what XXE is?
Differentiate XSS from CSRF.
What is a server-side request forgery attack?
What is the same-origin policy and CORS?
3
Security Engineering Interview Questions on Behavioral Skills
Why do you want to build a career in Cyber Security?
What are your greatest strengths and accomplishments?
What is the most challenging project you encountered on your learning journey?
What skills do you think a security engineer has to have the most?
What does the job of a security engineer entail, as per your understanding?
Why our company and why this role? Which of our company’s principles is your greatest strength?
Describe your most complex project.
How would you prioritize work and tasks in a program? Tell me about a time when you had to deal with competing priorities.
Describe a conflict you had with your manager or team member. How did you solve it?

Security Engineering Career Path

Cyber Security Engineers are the first line of defense a company has against unauthorized access and security threats. It is clear that a robust and diverse skill set is a necessity to be a Cyber Security Engineer at any Tier-1 company. We’ll now discuss about the career progression and role of a Cyber Security Engineer.
1
Security Engineering Job Roles and Responsibilities
Even though the specific responsibilities of Security Engineers may vary for each company, the key day-to-day responsibilities of Cyber Security jobs includes:
Perform vulnerability and risk assessments, including ethical hacking, to detect security loopholes
Devise the necessary Security policy
Define, detect and prevent security issues at the Application, System, and Network layers
Contribute to building security tools and infrastructure to analyze, deploy, and manage security controls
Design, develop, implement, and test security solutions with cost, performance, and reliability in mind
Design computer security architecture and develop detailed Cyber Security designs
Prepare and document standard operating procedures and protocols
Configure and troubleshoot security infrastructure devices
Develop technical solutions and new security tools to help mitigate security vulnerabilities and automate repeatable tasks
Ensure that the company knows as much as possible, as quickly as possible, about security incidents
Write comprehensive reports including assessment-based findings, outcomes, and propositions for further system security enhancement
2
The educational qualifications needed to become a Security Engineer include:
A bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, or another related field. 
Expert knowledge of Cyber Security and related subjects and a fair amount of previous work experience. 
Understanding of scalable systems, applications, networks, encryption standards, secure coding practices, and types of threats: detecting and preventing them
Knowledge of formulating security policies, skilled in a high-level language/scripting language. Proficiency in Python, C++, Java, Ruby, Node, Go, and/or Power Shell
Some certifications like CISSP, GIAC, CISA, and CISM may be useful
Experience with Firewalls (functionality and maintenance), Office 365 Security, VSX, and Endpoint Security
Great awareness of Cyber Security trends and hacking techniques. Ability to work under pressure in a fast-paced environment. Strong attention to detail with an analytical mind and outstanding problem-solving skills.
Experience implementing security solutions that resolve security and business risk trade-offs and an understanding of cryptography, web service frameworks, mobile application architectures, service architectures, networking, and communication protocols.
3
Career Roadmap for a Security Engineer
Amazon Technical Security Engineer Career Path
L4 - Security Engineer → L5 -Sr. Security Engineer→ L6 - Security Architect → L7 - Principal Engineer → L8 - Sr. Principal Engineer → L9 - Scientist
Apple Technical Security Engineer Career Path
L2 → L3 → L4 → L5 (at this level, the people are generally known in the industry)  → L6
Despite the levels, the career path is quite fluid. The transition is from writing code to designing architecture/framework and then to cross-team collaboration and designing a complete system or platform architecture.
Microsoft Technical Security Engineer Career Path
61 - Entry Level → 62 → 63 → 64 → 65 - Principal Engineer

Security Engineer Salary and Levels at FAANG

The average entry-level Security Engineer salary in the US is $90,709, but the salary range typically falls between $77,510 and $108,871.
The average salary for a Security Engineer in the US is $124,527. The average additional cash compensation for a Security Engineer is $20,347. Finally, the average total compensation for a Security Engineer is $144,874.
The estimated total pay for a Cyber Security Engineer is $109,098 per year in the US, with an average salary of $101,548 per year. 

Cyber Security Salaries by Role

Cyber Security professionals are well compensated for their skills, even at the entry-level. As you gain experience and move into more advanced roles, salaries expectedly go up. To give you an idea of what’s possible, here’s a look at the average salary of some high-paying Cyber Security jobs in the US. (Source: glassdoor.com)
  • Ethical Hacker: $101,165
  • Penetration Tester: $102,405
  • Security Engineer: $111,691
  • Cyber Security Manager: $132,180
  • Security Architect: $153,751
  • Chief Information Security Officer: $170,928
facebook
Facebook Security Engineer Salary
The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Facebook is $172,333 with $86k as the lowest known and $260k as the highest known Facebook Security Engineer salary.
Technical Program Manager at Facebook
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
IC3
$137K
$107K
$21K
$11K
IC4
$204K
$212K
$37K
$18K
IC5
$289K
$212K
$72K
$32K
IC6
$376K
$212K
$119K
$18K
amazon
Amazon Security Engineer Salary
The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Amazon is $309k with a $175k base, $24k stocks, and a $110k bonus. It also varies quite a bit with levels.
Technical Program Manager at Amazon
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
L4
$136K
$104K
$26K
$9K
L5
$187K
$137K
$34K
$18K
L6
$256K
$159K
$78K
$22K
L7
$398K
$182K
$198K
$36K
apple
Apple Security Engineer Salary
The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Apple is $171,805 with $86k as the lowest known and $260k as the highest known Apple Security Engineer salary.
Technical Program Manager at Apple
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
ICT3
$213K
$151K
$43K
$19K
ICT4
$276K
$179K
$74K
$24K
ICT5
$390K
$210K
$147K
$33K
netflix
Netflix Security Engineer Salary
The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Netflix is $158,015 with $141,267 as the lowest known and $176,750 as the highest known Netflix Security Engineer salary.
Technical Program Manager at Netflix
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
Sr. SW. Engineer
$305K
$275K
$14K
$13K
google
Google Security Engineer Salary
The average annual salary of a entry-level Security Engineer at Google is $156,731 with $79k as the lowest known and $258k as the highest known salary.
Technical Program Manager at Google
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
L3
$173K
$121K
$38K
$17K
L4
$230K
$143K
$62K
$25K
L5
$297K
$170K
$94K
$32K
L6
$389K
$200K
$139K
$50K
dollor
Salary Details of Security Engineers at Other Tier-1 Companies
Knowing the Security Engineer's salary details for other Tier-1 companies can help you evaluate your options better. We’ve curated the entry-level salaries associated with each of these companies at different levels:
  • Uber: The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Uber is $162,253 with $82k as the lowest known and $267k as the highest known Uber Security Engineer salary.
  • Twitter: The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at Twitter is $147,841 with $129,639 as the lowest known and $168,599 as the highest known Twitter Security Engineer salary.
  • LinkedIn: The average annual salary of a Security Engineer at LinkedIn is $128,593 with $103,500 as the lowest known and $159,771 as the highest known LinkedIn Security Engineer salary.
Technical Program Manager at Tier-1 Companies
Average compensation by level
L3
L4
L5
L6
Microsoft
$173K
$174K
$193K
$274K
Uber
NA
NA
$312K
NA
Twitter
NA
NA
NA
$298K
LinkedIn
NA
$215K
NA
NA
Average
$154K
$212.6K
$282.6K
$308.75K

FAQs on Security Engineering Interview Course

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