We Pwn the Night: Growing & Leading an 31337 security research team
Keith Hoodlet
BSidesSF 2026 · Day 2 · AMC Theatre 12
In this compelling talk, "We Pwn the Night," Keith Hoodlett, former Director of IML and Application Security at Trail of Bits, shares his groundbreaking experiment in cultivating an elite security research team. Faced with surging client demand, Hoodlett set an audacious goal in 2024: to expand his team by over 25% in 2025 and ensure every new hire discovered **zero-day vulnerabilities** within their first 45 days on the job. This presentation meticulously unpacks the innovative hiring, onboarding, and leadership strategies that not only met but exceeded this seemingly impossible target, resulting in every new researcher identifying significant, impactful zero-days.
AI review
A competent and honest case study on building security research teams, with three legitimately interesting zero-day disclosures tucked inside. The management content is better than average — specific, lived-in, and practical — but this is fundamentally a war story / leadership talk, not a research talk, and it should be judged as such.