I applied online and was approached by their recruiter, with whom I scheduled a time to chat. The meeting with the recruiter was truly remarkable; she was exceptionally prepared, thoroughly acquainted with my resume and background, and skillfully presented both the company and the role. Despite the potential pay cut, I remained open-minded due to the positive experience. She then scheduled our next meeting with their principal engineer, and we connected over Google. He devoted a significant amount of time discussing his own achievements, highlighting his numerous leadership responsibilities despite being an individual contributor. He even somewhat boastfully mentioned his role in the departure of the previous CISO, which came as a surprise considering the company was still in the process of hiring one. To my dismay, I learned that not only had the last CISO may have been fired, but there was also a previous one who had quit, all within a year, raising a major red flag. The principal engineer proceeded to boast about his involvement in various strategic decisions such as roadmap planning, security framework implementation, procurement of security assets, and selecting a company for security outsourcing. However, when questioned about his background in security, he admitted to lacking substantial expertise. Furthermore, he revealed that he volunteered for these responsibilities, despite never having held a security position, believing himself better equipped than the previous CISO. His arrogance was quite off-putting. Additionally, it became apparent that the role I applied for, which he was responsible for defining, was essentially a project management role devoid of any significant technical functions, contradicting what I was initially informed by the recruiter. Given these discrepancies, it was evident that this was not a suitable match, and we mutually agreed to conclude the interview prematurely.