I came across the opening on LinkedIn through a post by the hiring manager. I emailed them directly, filled out the required form, and reached out to a few people via cold DMs to put in a word for me.

Round 1: Technical Interview (1+ hour)

The first round lasted a little over an hour.

We started with a discussion about my past internships and the most meaningful work I had done there. The interviewer went deep into my contributions and asked follow up questions to test ownership and clarity.

Then the technical portion began:

• I was asked to explain a few vulnerabilities in detail including root cause, impact, remediation, and the reasoning behind each fix.
• The interviewer opened VS Code and showed me sample code snippets. I had to review the code, identify the vulnerability, explain why it was an issue, and suggest a secure fix.
• A scenario was framed around an API request. He wrote a deliberately weak request and asked me to step through it and progressively harden it. I had to explain each change and why it improved security.
• We discussed some product security work I had done including automation projects and internship contributions in that domain.
• There were 2 to 3 architecture based scenarios around rate limiting, authentication, and minimizing attack surface. These were open ended and required structured thinking.

I was not perfect. In two of the scenario discussions I could only partially answer some follow up questions. However I made sure my reasoning was clear and structured.

Shortly after, I received a call for the final round.

Final Round: Engineering Manager (30 to 45 mins)

This round focused more on decision making and judgment.

Topics included:

• Handling conflict or disagreement in a team
• How I prioritize vulnerabilities
• What I would do if a release had a medium severity issue
• Trade offs between business impact and security risk

We also revisited some of the earlier scenario based discussions, but this time in a more open ended way. Since I had prepared better, I was able to answer more confidently and with stronger structure.

I cleared the process and received an offer.

Offer Details

• Summer Internship
• ₹45,000 per month stipend
• 2 to 3 weeks accommodation + flights covered
• PPO ranging from 20 to 25 LPA depending on performance

I eventually declined the offer as I had other opportunities that aligned better with my plans.

Hope this breakdown helps anyone preparing for similar interviews.