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Leviathan Security Group

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Leviathan Security Group reviews

4.0

73% would recommend to a friend

(32 total reviews)
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Frank Heidt

75% approve of CEO

65% positive business outlook

Leviathan Security Group has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 32 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Leviathan Security Group employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

32 reviews
5.0
Feb 2, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Interesting work: The consulting work is extremely diverse, ranging from high-level web pentests to low-level kernel and hypervisor vulnerability analysis. There is even a fair chunk of reverse engineering software and hardware work. One of the best things about being apart of the team there is that management makes an earnest effort to match people up with work that is interesting to them. In my case for instance I was consistently thrown into work covering my particular interests: C vulnerability analysis, binary analysis, reverse engineering custom network protocols etc. Great people: The Culture at Leviathan has a strong family feel, and is a place where anyone will find themselves among friends. Like any work-place there will be personalities that conflict, but I found that even in these situations people made an effort to overcome these conflicts and move forward in their professional relationships. The executives and management (CEO, COO, PM) are all extremely technical and have adept knowledge into security, the hacker culture etc. This is quite refreshing. Workflow: Low stress in terms of overall vibe. People aren't breathing down your neck. The work is typically interesting enough to where people finish it by means of their own passion and interest, if you aren't self-driven then your probably not a hacker anyway :). Leviathan has a hacker culture/feel all around. Likewise management understands that many hackers don't like to start work until 'the crack of noon'. Conferences: Leviathan encourages us to attend conferences and trainings. I spoke at several conferences while I was there, and Leviathan overed my trips to speak in Vegas which was awesome.

Cons

Location: The location doesn't have the best parking which can be difficult at times, but its not anything that can't be tolerated with a little patience :)

5.0
Dec 29, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Leviathan Security was an amazing experience for me. Everyone there was dedicated to the betterment of our customers' security. When I had a problem (and let me tell you I had more than a few) there were plenty of people with experience and intelligence that could help me work toward a solution. Everyone shared in victories and setbacks together. The company is owned by employees which inspires confidence in how it is run. That's not to say that everyone got their way or that everyone's opinion was valued as much as the C-level executives, but that the management took responsibility for their actions. This is a far cry from what I have read and seen elsewhere. Hours at Leviathan were easier than most competing firms because almost everyone had a family they wanted to go home to. Similarly, Leviathan didn't send their consultants to the client's worksite unnecessarily, travel was less than 25%, much less for employees who wanted to stay in Seattle. All of Leviathan's management were and still are excellent hackers. Taking orders from someone is a lot easier when you respect their skills and can fall back on their experience. Despite everyone's concerns, Leviathan is fiscally very conservative which means that everyone gets paid and the business isn't going to get sold to NCC Group any time soon. Leviathan's IP policy is the most liberal that I've found. Read it yourself. Leviathan encourages their employees to work on their side projects when they aren't fully utilized. Utilization was below 75% for consultants when I was there, which meant plenty of time for research. Researchers and managers were at around 100% utilization though unfortunately.

Cons

Leviathan's business side has always been a major issue for practically all former employees. I saw the lack of a mission statement as a mission statement itself: everyone should work toward their goals and benefit one another in the process. Others not so much. Because Leviathan is owned by employees, they are not very extravagant about their expenses. This is good for customers and good for everyone's salary, but celebrations were not as crazy as people expect startups to be. The turnover rate in the industry is fast and Leviathan doesn't have a silver bullet for it. Good people come and go. Leviathan's Mutual NDA can feel like a gag, but if you work in the industry you understand opsec well enough to expect it. The whole industry is worse off because of it. Security work for customers can sometime feel like a Sisyphean task with few victories and many shrugs. This can hurt morale. Leviathan does work for hire, which means any meaningful piece of software written during billable time is forfeit. Leviathan rarely attempts to convince customers that it is in their benefit to save valuable work. If you care about the software you produce, you are obligated to set it free. Obviously this is not true of research, only consulting.

4.0
Oct 19, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good people who take the time to mentor. Good diversity of security work (low level, back end, webapp, mobile). Exciting deeper security research work as well which can keep you interested if you want to back off the day to day security audit worktrain. Among consulting companies Leviathan has the best reputation among local security consultancies and is the right size where as an employee you get lots of individual attention and help.

Cons

Downsides of Leviathan are like any consulting company, its possible to get in a rut of doing the same type of security work week in and week out. This is one of leviathans strengths is that they actively pursue not just the dollar but interesting gigs to keep stretching people as employees and keep things fresh.

Viewing 25 - 27 of 32 Reviews

Glassdoor has 33 Leviathan Security Group reviews submitted anonymously by Leviathan Security Group employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Leviathan Security Group is right for you.