I always found that while I could probably spend 6-8 months studying to try to land a job at one of the big tech companies to do RE/security research/malware an

I always found that while I could probably spend 6-8 months studying to try to land a job at one of the big tech companies to do RE/security research/malware analysis or whatever you want related to that, I usually got more interested in reverse engineering something new and quickly got bored reviewing the details of binary search trees. Limits jobs at the big 4/5 as nearly every job that involves security research/RE will inevitably still have the standard leetcode algorithms whiteboard interview, but there's plenty of other stuff out there if you're willing to put together a decent portfolio. The few exceptions to that are being so famous you can make it to recognized teams, but that isn't a realistic goal for most engineers. If there's a company you really, really want to work for, you can responsibly disclose something to them and at least get an in-person. Skip the phone algorithms test and go right to the whiteboard! Heck yeah.