IAM and IGA Basics

What they ask

For a junior identity role in the Cairo cyber practice you reach the technical interview after an HR interview and a psychometric test. The bar is deliberately introductory: they want to see that you understand identity concepts and can talk about them clearly, not that you have deployed a product.

Questions in this area, for example:

• Authentication versus authorization, with a concrete example of each.
• What do SSO, MFA and RBAC stand for, and what problem does each solve?
• What is IGA and how is it different from plain IAM? (Hint: joiner, mover, leaver processes, access requests, access certification campaigns, segregation of duties.)
• A contractor leaves the client but their account still works two weeks later. Which control failed and how would you design the process so it does not happen again?
• What is least privilege, and how would you explain it to a business owner who wants everyone to have admin?
• Walk through what happens when a user logs into a web app through a corporate identity provider.

What they look for

• Crisp definitions and the ability to connect them to a real scenario.
• Understanding that IGA is about lifecycle and governance (who should have access, proving it, removing it), while IAM covers the runtime (login, tokens, policies).
• Interest in the field: a question back about which platforms the team uses is welcome.
• Your background story: they asked how prior projects or coursework relate to identity work.