The process began with a phone screen, followed by a take-home assignment that took about 4 hours—half of my Saturday. I completed all the requested targets, provided a detailed README.md explaining my thought process and design decisions, added unit and integration tests using Googletest, and even included a sample Jenkins CI/CD pipeline.
Despite putting in significant effort, I didn’t hear back for several weeks. Eventually, HR reached out to ask if I wanted to continue with final interviews. I declined, as the lack of communication and respect for my time left a poor impression. The "final" stage involved 3.5 hours of back-to-back 1:1 technical interviews, which seemed excessive considering the comprehensive take-home assignment that already demonstrated my abilities in systems programming.
Given the scope of the assignment and Secureworks' focus, I couldn't help but wonder if the work was repurposed internally—but that’s just speculation. My advice to fellow engineers: Be cautious about committing to lengthy take-home assignments unless it’s clearly a toy problem or you’re certain the company is worth the time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The take-home was to write a Linux userspace process that monitors system state and serializes the data to be served over a socket. There were no restrictions on tools, languages, or frameworks.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Secureworks (Austin, TX)
Interview
Was contacted by a recruiter , after a quick Q&A , the recruiter kept pushing the interview with the hiring manager. Finally after 2 weeks , had a chat with the hiring manager and then 2 rounds phone interviews with Engineers.
Now the recruiter has stopped communicating again, inspite of being by the engineers that I was a great fit .
From my interactions so far, it seems to be a chaotic place with unprofessional recruiters.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Secureworks (Atlanta, GA) in Nov 2011
Interview
This position is for java technologies. First I had a phone interview with the manager and that was easy. Pretty much general questions on java like abstract class, interface, JSP, CSS questions. Then I was selected for the panel interview and it was scheduled for 3 long hours at their Atlanta office. This project is very much diversed and people sit at different geographic locations. Only two of their project members sit at altanta, GA. Rest two at RI and two at myrtle beach. so, I had teleconference with them.
Team members at atlanta, ga seemed very geeky and their questions were with some purpose Though it was not so difficult questions, they easily built my nerves. They asked questions about datastructures, recursive functions, comparator, comparable difference etc. They asked about java services and some design patterns.
Rest of the teleconferencing went good. Few logical questions and programmatic java questions. They were testing on the practical knowledge of java.
2
Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you
