Building things that people want is overrated. A person can derive great pleasure and satisfaction from ripping things apart instead. That's the gig we're offering. We work with some of the most interesting companies, along with lots of companies with interesting technology you've never heard of.
This job has had me write compilers, learn Scala, reverse and interoperate with freaky network protocols, test chipsets, write hypervisors, extend debuggers, and crawl through the heating ducts and garbage chutes of several of the biggest web apps out there. It is a very cool gig.
And, I have news! Since last I posted this appeal, we've opened a Bay Area office. I'm hiring in NYC. I'm hiring in Chicago. And I'm hiring in SFBay.
We're looking first and foremost for people who can code and who have a deep interest in software security. I've been thrilled with the quality of people I've gotten to talk to on HN. You can't possibly waste my time. My contact info is in my profile.
I swore off that sh-t ten years ago. I just got too worried about lawsuits, hit men (some toughs show up and you've got 30 seconds to decide how badly you want to mess them up to minimize your risk of future problems), wondering which people on the mailing lists and IRC channels I was on were spooks... and then there was the time that I got the FBI to investigate Japan's #1 superheroine.
I decided it was much better to build things that people want after all.
Nice post! You're right about how sometimes it is more fun to rip things apart than to build them. For example: I remember running a fuzzer on a brand new Solaris 10 install several years back and when the server spontaneously rebooted itself, I knew I had just found a remote root exploit.
I can vouch for this. I started at Matasano two months ago, and am very pleased to find seriously bright people and a really fun gig. As one of the Matasanoans said, it is curiosity that is important in this gig, not paranoia or certificates. I have always enjoyed drilling down to find out what makes something tick. Clients ask us to find vulnerabilities in their systems. The gigs involve burping web apps, pulling apart C# and Java programs, understanding C, machine language, or even firmware and hardware.
And the coding part is most often in ruby or jruby (and yes, I do try to sneak in a little clojure past Tom). You don't need to know Ruby coming in the door, but if you are a good programmer, you will pick up in no time.
Check us out.
(Ok, back to breaking things. But they tell me I should stop breaking tools in the black bag, though.)
This job has had me write compilers, learn Scala, reverse and interoperate with freaky network protocols, test chipsets, write hypervisors, extend debuggers, and crawl through the heating ducts and garbage chutes of several of the biggest web apps out there. It is a very cool gig.
http://www.matasano.com
And, I have news! Since last I posted this appeal, we've opened a Bay Area office. I'm hiring in NYC. I'm hiring in Chicago. And I'm hiring in SFBay.
We're looking first and foremost for people who can code and who have a deep interest in software security. I've been thrilled with the quality of people I've gotten to talk to on HN. You can't possibly waste my time. My contact info is in my profile.