The application process was straightforward. Got a call from a recruiter within a few days of applying. The phone screen was casual and conversational. The recruiter was upfront that he wasn’t technical, but had a list of questions from the hiring manager.
The screen covered two areas:
1. Security Hardening
They asked specifically about DISA STIG experience, but the recruiter made it clear that hardening experience for any framework was acceptable, such as CIS Benchmarks, PCI, HIPAA, etc. I walked through a real project where I implemented CIS Benchmark Level 1 and Level 2 on Windows 10/11 devices via Intune during an SCCM-to-Intune migration for a financial services client. They also asked how I validated that hardening was complete.
What I didn’t know going in: this role is actually Tier 2 cloud support for Google’s public sector federal clients. Telos manages the Tier 1 and Tier 2 support functions on behalf of Google. The JD reads like a traditional Information Assurance/compliance role, but it's not. The day-to-day is cloud administration tickets, access troubleshooting, and GCP hardening. The IA/compliance piece is secondary. The JD should be clearer about that.
Outcome: Passed the phone screen. The recruiter said the resume was going to the hiring manager. Never got the chance to interview, and was told two days later they had already extended an offer to another candidate who interviewed the day after my screen. The timeline was tight enough that it felt like the role may already have been close to being filled before my screen time.
Overall: The recruiter was friendly and transparent throughout. The process itself was fine. The frustration is that the JD misrepresents the actual role, and the timeline gave no real opportunity to compete once I passed the initial screen. If you’re applying, go in knowing it’s a GCP Tier 2 support role embedded with a Google public sector team, not a traditional IA engineer position.
