Sayaan Alam: From 14-Year-Old Bug Hunter to Elite Pentester

Sayaan Alam started hunting bugs at 14. Today, he’s a Level 5 member of the Synack Red Team, one of the youngest researchers to reach that tier.

In this episode of WE’RE IN!, Sayaan walks through that journey and how he approaches real-world testing now: spotting patterns across complex environments, validating what’s truly exploitable, and adapting as AI changes how attacks scale.

How does someone go from a teenage bug bounty hobby to elite-level pentesting? What do AI chatbot vulnerabilities like SSRF and XSS look like in practice? How are researchers using tools like Synack’s autonomous red agent, Sara, to extend their own capabilities?

Don’t miss Sayaan’s take on growing up alongside an industry that’s changing faster than ever.