Am I Late To The Party?

Am I Late to The Party?…..

Phew! There’s a lot I have to share, but don’t know where to start from exactly. Aside from the fact that most of my security research, findings and side quests have been private these days, hesitation is one major reason I have barely been here in a while now.

Oh! By the way, this is a Not so serious post of acknowledgment and wrap of the previous year(2025). Let’s start from the least to the best. So…….shall we?

Is it really failure?

I quoted a post last year that got a lot of attention, and fortunately I got a shot at taking an assessment for a Senior Application Security Engineering role at Moniepoint. Those who know my grind well enough know how much I don’t joke with this specific role.

The first assessment involved a code review on Java Enterprise Edition and JavaScript Node.js. Minimum score to pass the assessment was a 50% score. I stupidly went for Java without getting the instructions correctly, thinking once I’m done, I’d take the Node js, because I love to take on the challenging task first then to the easier one. Obviously, I’m more familiar with Node.js compared to Java, because I just concluded a side project with it as at that time.

The exam time was over and I was expecting to go crack the next code review. To my greatest surprise I saw the assessment result immediately I was done and (drum roll 🥁)……..I failed!

Sure y’all are familiar with that X slang, yes, everywhere first blurr!.

Men like Horses

I was still in shock and the adrenaline rush from the assessment was yet to wear off when I broke the news to Venom, and he said something remarkable that day while I was feeling like I just failed a once in a life time opportunity. He said “You took an assessment for a senior role and you had that score without junior level experience, you should be proud of yourself that the grind spoke”

This lightened me up. Showed how quick I was to undermine my years of growth because of one single moment. Before then, the last time I wrote or touched anything pure Java was 5-7 years back, and I wasn’t even serious with it then. Would I have had something different to say if I took the Node.js instead? We never can tell.

Weeks went by and I still couldn’t get over my loss, but you know how we roll. I was mad deep into code reviews of all forms right after that. Then one night, after angrily completing a graphQL lab, I removed my phone from DND and I saw a message from Genius about a job role for an AppSec tester. I was so reluctant to even forward him my CV. We rarely talk about how sick and draining job hunting is, especially when “Unfortunately…” is your daily breakfast, patiently waiting for you in your mail like cold noodles.

Light? Is that you at the end of the tunnel?

I applied and reached out to the person who made the post and he turned out to be one of my bosses in the field. He told me he had seen my work couple of times on his TL, and my security documentation on Vulnbank showed I’m good for the job.

Vulnbank? I did that documentation because I was bored, drained and needed a sense of direction, to be honest. Who knew the work I paid the least attention to would eventually give me good credibility to land a role. Yes, you read right. I landed the role.

So, learn to put yourself out there. Also, please no noise. Quality over quantity.

Is this it?

I didn’t know how much time I have spent to develop myself in the field till I was faced with more insane, and unexpected scenarios the real world has to offer at the job. I kept having this feeling of “I’m not new to this” sometimes when I see a curve ball. Thanks to bug-bounty for this anyway. Security goes beyond “Oh! I can hack”. Can you communicate with developers? Can you think outside the box? Can you act like an attacker? Do yo have what it takes to even think like one?

Also, personally, I feel apart from the pressure to deliver in time, and that your work is now critically monitored and every action must make significant sense, the grinding process is a lot more difficult than the job.

Do you love me?

I will randomly recall the days I barely had data subscription for the next task on my list and just smile. Days I’d do everything to avoid going out with my buddies, because I knew that little outing would be a great financial set back for my data plan, which in turn would affect my learning. Lost touch with a lot of people, lost myself in between the grind and all that. Typically I was actually a GHOST. The isolation was a coping mechanism and bit of trauma response actually, still trying to break that but can’t say.

Life started making more sense after this. Been hanging out more whenever I get the chance, truly present when I’m around people, doing things I’ve always thought were just dreams and this is just the start of it all, by His grace.

Life is unpredictable also. Let those who you care about know you care about them, while they’re still around. You can’t do life alone, let yourself be carried once in a while.

Cheers to 2026

Slowly moving into Hardware as the top of my list this year, getting my hands dirty on AI and Cloud also, working on being extremely cracked at mobile security too. Told myself I’m not setting unrealistic goals this year. If I’m only chanced to do just 2 things out this list, I’ll make sure I do them exceptionally well. After all, if you want a bigger pay, you need a bigger brain.

Happy hacking ✌🏽.