See It To Be It Spotlight

I got into cyber…after starting as an intern working as a software developer for SAIC (now Leidos) one summer. After my first summer, I returned as an intern, and I was asked to support a project out of the Intelligence Community (IC) organization. The project allowed us to not only explore a diverse range of technologies but also encouraged all engineers to innovate and think outside of the box to create solutions. It was my first exposure to the cyber world, and I have not looked back.

For me, a positive cyber mindset is…one that accepts that each day will be an adventure; providing you the ability to innovate and challenge yourself to create solutions to tackle the cyber and technical engineering challenges facing the cybersecurity mission space.

The skill that set me up for success is…my curiosity of understanding how things work and why they do not work as intended. I always wanted to understand why my code would work one way and then why in other cases it would not work. Technology is changing the cyber domain each day and having the ability to stay curious and ask questions helps with solving the problems that lie ahead.

What I thought I wanted to be when I grew up…was a lawyer, but an 8 AM political science college class changed my mind. I took a computer science course where we had to deliver various software programs and projects. I found myself diving in, spending late nights working on getting my code to work. I was fascinated and frustrated with why things did not work when something was wrong. I quickly realized that 8 AM classes were not for me and that I enjoyed the problem-solving challenges that came with late-night coding sessions. I can say that 25 years later, it worked out.

I would tell my younger self…do the hard work now to set yourself up for the future! Be sure to really learn the discipline you are studying and understand the foundation of it. Sometimes, we seek easy buttons to learn a topic and while that can work for a while, it’s not sustaining.

You are the CEO of your career. Be bold and confident in your ideas, thoughts, and actions. Believe in yourself. Invest in you! Always seek and be open to new opportunities, be willing to lean in and take on challenging technical roles, learn new technologies, find mentors to learn from, and continue to challenge yourself and grow. There is no path to success without failures along the way so remember to give yourself grace and stay resilient; a parked car goes nowhere. Keep Driving!

The quote I live by…”Seek Clarity.” At times when everything is moving in so many directions, I have to remind myself to be still and seek clarity for whatever question or challenge may be before me.