louismarquenet

Who am I?

 

My name is Louis I am French and 27.

 

What did I do before?

 

Life is a journey and it took me so long to know what I wanted to do. 

Let's sum up from right after high school: I started studying marketing for a year then quit, I passed a 2-year course in International Trade but felt like it wasn't for me. I traveled for a year by myself around the world. I needed to take a step back and think about what I really wanted to do. I wanted to travel and come back with a fluent English level. All of that discovering new cultures and living from small jobs or working as a volunteer for the experience.

 

Ding Ding: COVID.

 

Let's get back to studies, there is nothing else to do.

I went to this private school called Wild Code School and felt like it was for me.

A 6-month intensive PHP/Symfony course followed by a 6-month internship.

I finally for the first-time loved school, almost no lessons, a lot of projects. No more entire days spent sit on a chair listening to someone.

But wait, this school has just launched a cybersecurity course where the teacher used to be a Pentester. 

As I learned a bit of dev, that would make sense for me to now learn how to look for vulnerabilities on a web applications.

Back to school, for 6 months again where I spent most of my free time solving challenges online (such as HackTheBox etc..). I do not come from an engineer background and I have no degree but I knew this internship could lead to a job. I just needed to be ready for the technical tests.

I found the company, they trusted in me, I passed the tests then I got the position as an intern. 3 months later they gave me a job offer.

This was back in January 2022.

 

What I do now?

 

So, from January 2022 to December 2023 I worked as a Pentester (mainly auditing web apps) and also as a Security Trainer.

We gave cybersecurity courses about fundamentals, secure development awareness and many more.

I passed last year the OSCP certification from Offensive Security.
 In the end of December 2023, I have quit my job in order to become a Smart Contract Auditor / Security Researcher in 2024.

From January 2024 I do security contests on Code4rena.

 

How did I hear about Blockchain and Web3?

 

One day I watched some videos on YouTube and heard about web3 security. It sounded interesting for me but kind of mysterious. I needed to know more and more about the space.

Then I have read the books: Mastering Ethereum, How to Defi: Beginner and Advanced, and How an army of crypto hackers is building the Next Internet.

I watched a lot of interviews and was really interested into the space.

I started learning the basics of solidity and was straight interested into the security aspect.
 
 

Why I am looking for an internship?

 

This sounds like an amazing opportunity for me. I have just quit my job want to be a full-time Smart Contract Auditor or Blockchain Security Researcher.

I want to grind on Code4rena before applying for jobs but I know an internship would be the best way for me to step up and improve my skills.

As I have seen everywhere I worked, you can learn a lot by yourself but way faster when you are surrounded by people better than you.

Looking forward to hear from you soon.

 

Kind regards,
Louis MARQUENET.