The interview process was the standard three-stage flow. I first spoke with the recruiter, then had an initial interview with a team lead who had several years of industry experience. That conversation went well — proper introductions, relevant questions, and a fair assessment of my background. I was then moved to the technical round. The second interview, however, felt poorly handled. Two people joined the call, but only one actually asked questions. The other spent almost the entire time looking at his own screen, seemingly focused on unrelated work rather than the interview itself. I was asked a few command-line and generic technical questions, which I answered correctly. They then provided a single log line to analyse. The log was very straightforward and didn’t leave much room for deeper explanation, but I still screen-shared, wrote out my analysis, and explained my reasoning in as much detail as possible. The next day I was informed I didn’t progress because I “didn’t explain my analysis properly,” which was confusing given what I provided. Out of curiosity, I looked up the interviewers and found that one had only around two years of industry experience and held a single BTLO1-level certification. There’s nothing wrong with being early-career, but it felt unusual to have someone at that level conducting a technical evaluation for an L1 SOC role. Overall, the technical interview didn’t feel structured or professionally run, and it left me questioning how candidates were being assessed.