Mind the Gap: Career Transitions in Security (Panel)
Josh Liburdi, Elle McKenna, Sarai Rosenberg, Andrew Kline
BSidesSF 2025 — Here Be Dragons · Day 2 · Main
Four security practitioners — a senior security engineer, a cloud security manager at Netflix, a security and IT leader at a 200-person startup, and a DoorDash security operations engineer — spent an hour covering career navigation, burnout, feedback, and the IC-to-staff-engineer transition with unusual candor. The thread connecting every topic: self-reflection and honest assessment of what you actually need, not what the industry's hierarchy suggests you should want. ---
AI review
Four experienced practitioners having an honest, candid conversation about career navigation in security — which is fine for a hallway track but not what I came to BSidesSF for. There is nothing here that could not be found in a well-curated Blind thread, and the security angle is largely incidental. If you are mid-career and adrift, it might help. If you know why you are in this field, skip it.