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.

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.