| My new strong feeling is that those of us with a little runway (as in 1-3
| months, not "rich") should just find a personal passion project and build it.
| Then maybe the project makes money, or maybe it's just a showpiece to pass some
| of the dumber interview processes which want you to solve unrealistic CS300
| level algorithm tests in a crappy web UI with a timer and audience.

This is the conclusion I came to as well. I started working on a cybersecurity threat hunting, analysis, website/blog. At a minimum I hope to give some insight and formal processing (albeit limited to my experience and exposure to threats) back to other interested practitioners or students. If the interview ends up being a wash the questions / context end up being good things to write up about. This also helps with the take-home or questionnaire type items as I can reference my github and ask for more context surrounding any questions. I.E. I see you are asking about xyz are you expecting a similar output to github/abc-project/results.

| But I totally relate about the feeling...two verbal interviews, two live coding test interviews, and finally an
| interview with the CTO...Then I got a no.

Another consideration is you are just a candidate filling a required, "interviewed outside people" checkbox for what has already been deemed an inside hire. Or internal recruiters have to talk to "X" number of candidates for their status report this week. Which is why I usually don't "prepare" for an interview. If you read up every week and have a general following of your subject area I wouldn't see this as an issue. If I'm not regularly working within a subject area, isn't that obvious from my resume? This is also a good tell within the interview if its kinda BS when you are asked items that don't appear to be related. I usually follow up a bit on how that question relates to my experience or the job posting.

Lastly, It seems kinda obvious that if you aren't going to hire people to grow into the role then you attract people that already know everything about the role, which mostly then leads to the money hopping that some employers comment on. Why stay at my current company if I can do the same thing elsewhere for more.

A few tips I've picked up when interviewing (your experience may vary*):

- When I see senior roles at a company I ask if its new or an existing position. You _might_ follow up with
asking if anyone internally has applied. This also gives you insight into wether they want you to share your
skills to train junior people. Thats worth more money so don't leave that on the table, esp. if you are
looking to continue more of a IC role.
- Ask if the person interviewing you will be working with you, same department, related department, etc. This
can help shape how you answer or what clarifications to ask about.
- Ask about tooling and day to day processes. Use the job posting as list to go through. I.e "The posting lists
threat modeling and reporting, what tooling do you currently use for that?" This can also be a good segue
into you expounding on a subject area. A lot of companies try to put up a good front by asking about
unrelated topics that they themselves don't use and/or you find out they are looking to expand into that
area.
- Everyone is replaceable, no job is guaranteed. Any interview, especially VC funded startup, that has (5) or
more interviews is a waste of time and speaks to a highly inefficient company. If anyone wants to dispute
that they can provide the evidence collected and studied for their company or industry that shows
differently. Otherwise its just all random.

* This is all based on having the runway the OP posted above. If you really need the job you might just have to "play" the game.