ARenhard's comments

This is excellent, and a great reflection for what you'd be like to work with.

It pretty specifically says you need not know anything in security directly when going into the hiring process.

I'm working semi hard at solving this problem right now, but up in Seattle.

Here's what I can tell you and your friends to help until I am running the awesome company that will solve some of these issues:

Interviewing is hard. For both the candidate and the interviewer. With engineers, it's even more difficult. They have to assess a culture fit, a character match, a specific set of already acquired skills, the ability to learn new skills, the ability to solve problems not yet known to anyone...and all in some consistent fashion. It's very difficult to extract hard data out of an interview that isn't a question and an exact answer. So, think from your interviewer's perspective. The best thing you can do is help them get the data they need to extract from you. If the question they ask is too specific, help them see what you do know, how you would find answers to what you don't, what you think the answer would be, how you would reason about it, etc.

I would highly not recommend selecting a company based on their interview process...you might not like the narrow pool you're left with.