What an Airport Ad, Phone Scams, and a College Elective Have in Common

"Jordan, look at that company. It'd be awesome if you work for them someday," my mom said to me as she pointed at a CrowdStrike ad at our local airport. Having a career seemed like light years away to my thirteen-year-old self.

"How do you know to hang up on this call?" my grandparents asked after the eighth phone call that day. Their real health care team called from unknown numbers all the time. The scammers knew that.

"Next time, you come to us," my dad said, shaking his head. I was a teenager who'd never known a world without the internet. I thought I could handle it. I gave the scammers what they asked for anyway.

"You don't have to code for that class? Aw man, we should've taken it with you," my friends sighed as we were comparing workloads for the quarter. Finishing college during covid was tough, but at least I looked forward to my cybersecurity elective.

My only goal after college was to be a software engineer. I didn't think much past getting the degree, landing the job, and shipping the features. After a year or two, I wondered if I'd chosen software engineering or just arrived at it.

When my dev manager told our team that everyone needed to champion a different area of expertise, I didn't have to think long. Security was the only one that interested me. What started as a team responsibility turned into the clearest direction I'd had since I started my career.

Then, I was handed an opportunity: a mass layoff. Instead of searching for the next SWE role, I chose to chase my first application security role. I joined and started attending WiCyS events. I enrolled in Syracuse University's Onward to Opportunity program and completed its CompTIA Security+ curriculum. I'm currently working towards the certification itself. I'm also completing AI Cyber Defense Ops through Just Hack Training where I'm learning to use AI as a force multiplier for security work while keeping the decisions human.

"I'd hire a developer over someone who doesn't know the SDLC nor speak dev any day," a Director of Application Security told me at a networking event. I picked up Tanya Janca's Alice and Bob Learn Application Security and am on the SWE to AppSec path now. AI is moving faster than legislation can follow, so the most reliable way to protect people and their data is to build security into the technology itself before it ships. That's the work I want to do.