Darktrace

Darktrace runs entry into its Sales Development Academy as a four-step process: resume screening, a short phone call to gauge interest, a video interview with the SDR manager, and a final panel interview with SDR leadership that includes a live role-playing scenario. The role-play in the final stage is the load-bearing element: the academy is built around cold outreach into security-buyer conversations, and the panel uses the scenario to test how a candidate handles one in real time. Preparation should be weighted toward role-play rehearsal against a buyer-persona objection set, not just standard behavioural answers.

Darktrace's formal entry-level pathway is the Sales Development Academy, an 18-month structured programme split into three phases: SDR onboarding in months 1 to 3 (classroom lectures on cybersecurity fundamentals, cold-calling and SDR tooling, plus role-play and peer shadowing), SDR skills mastery in months 3 to 12 (tailored coaching to individual gaps), and next-role readiness in months 12 to 18 (promotion preparation). Joiners must complete a minimum of 12 months in the SDR seat before promotion is considered; the firm states over 100 SDRs have moved on to Account Executive, Customer Success, Solutions Engineering, Sales Enablement and SDR Manager roles, with roughly 60% taking the sales/AE track. The 18-month minimum and structured promotion gates make this a slower-burn route than a 10-to-12-week summer programme: a candidate is committing the first 18 months of their career to a single track before optionality opens up.

Darktrace has been building cybersecurity around AI since 2013, founded by AI and cyber-defence researchers, and the early-careers footprint is unusually weighted to one side. The formal, dated programme is the Sales Development Academy on the commercial side; engineering, research and cyber-analysis entries route through individually-posted roles on the careers portal rather than a single named graduate scheme, with Software Engineering and Research roles concentrated in the Cambridge office and customer-facing roles in London and the international hubs. The practical consequence for an applicant: a candidate aiming at AI/ML, detection-engineering or cyber-analysis work needs to monitor the portal for individual postings as they appear, while a candidate on the commercial side has a defined 18-month pathway to plan an application against.

Yes. Darktrace has 5 student and graduate roles open right now, in graduate jobs.

Darktrace opened its graduate jobs on 5 Jun 2026. Dates are when the firm posted each programme, or when we first saw it on the firm's careers site.

Darktrace has student and graduate roles open in London, Munich, Paris and Toronto.

Applications to Darktrace go through the firm's own careers site, one application per posting, each expecting a CV and cover letter written for that role.