How an SRE became an application security engineer (and you can too!)

Presented at Diana Initiative 2020 Virtual, Aug. 21, 2020, 12:30 p.m. (30 minutes)

I made the leap from site reliability engineer to application security engineer late last year. What made it possible to move from security as a hobby to security as a job? A mix of research, workshops, meeting people, and focusing on the security-related parts of the job I already had. I’ll tell you what I studied, what I realized I already knew, and what was actually useful in the interview process (including links, a reading list, and other specifics). Slides with notes here: <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15-KXy1vYknYNdNN3vKLQNiwSGHsysg9AWhhOiaiAmY4/edit?usp=sharing>Blog post version with links here: <https://breanneboland.com/blog/2020/01/27/how-an-sre-became-an-application-security-engineer-and-you-can-too/>

Presenters:

  • Breanne Boland
    Breanne Boland is an application security engineer. Before moving into appsec, she was a site reliability engineer and an infrastructure engineer, working in healthcare and govtech. Prior to that, she was a professional writer, and she still considers finishing the docs the real sign that the work is done. She writes fiction and zines, embroiders, makes creatures out of clay, and reminisces about traveling. She lives in Oakland and can be found at twitter.com/breanneboland.

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