The Secure Developer

In the age of startups, diverse employee backgrounds are increasingly important for companies to be resilient and deeply innovative. People's prior experience helps their work in security both in expected and unexpected ways. Our guest today, Tad Whitaker, has one of the most interesting backgrounds we’ve yet to encounter. From working as a gold miner to a newspaper reporter to a private investigator, Tad’s journey to landing his role as a Engineering Manager at CircleCI has been very colorful. He is also a core member of the Bay Area OWASP leadership that hosts bi-monthly security meetups in San Francisco. Outside of work, Tad volunteers with several different organizations, including The Wall of Sheep at DefCon, Mission Bits, Telegraph Academy and the San Francisco Youth Baseball League. In this episode, Tad shares his interesting background with us and the different ways that have overlapped with current work in security. We also gain some insights into the structure at Circle, from how his team works to their relationship with the development team. The dynamic relationship between development and security is not one we encounter often, so it is refreshing to hear. Tad also walks us through compliance and how adhering to mandated compliance standards have helped and hindered his work.

Show notes and transcript can be found here