February 15, 2022 • 60 mins
Today we're talking with Regina Bluman, Security Programme Manager at Algolia! Join us as we learn about Regina's journey in to tech!
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Pj Metz (02:06):
Brandon Hi Brandon, you look great today I think your
computer's a little frozen
Sarah Guthals (02:13):
yeah sorry about that
Pj Metz (02:25):
ever been a part of in my whole life? You're not
reading it on your doctor sirOh, welcome to the podcast about
tech and their lives and peopleand see normally Brandon does
the intro so he actually knowswhat to say. I'm new at this
(02:47):
BIOS PJ bits with me this week,Dr. Sarah got holes over here
during me as CO hosts becauseBrandon's feeling a little under
the weather. There's someweather on top of him. And we
wish him a speedy recovery andlots of rest. He's fine. But you
know, sick. Yeah. Yeah, thatweather umbrellas will stop it.
(03:07):
I think that's honestly, the wayto go is an umbrella or
raincoat? I mean, I mean, helives in. Like, rain happens.
Weather happens. Yeah, likewe're blaming you now.
Sarah Guthals (03:24):
Just kidding. I hope you feel better random.
Pj Metz (03:26):
Oh, yeah, we're both sad. I mean, like, I'm sad. No,
but I get to hang out with you.
Sarah Guthals (03:30):
Sure. I get to do something today. This is great.
Pj Metz (03:34):
How have you been?
What's going on?
Sarah Guthals (03:36):
Oh, I've been great. I am taking a little
break from full time pneus ofcareers to do some fun things,
do my podcast with Chloe get tokind of come on eight bits. But
maybe start a special projectwith PJ on scary movies and
tech. It's gonna be fun. Yeah,so just kind of hanging out and
(03:57):
being a mom. Yeah, it's great.
Pj Metz (04:00):
It's fantastic. To be able to do stuff like that, you
know, to be able to take thattime off and to Yeah, because
you've been full time workingconstantly busy since 13 years
old. Honestly, honestly, I know.
I feel like our families havesimilar dynamics where we both
like just kind of startedworking young and just kept
going.
Sarah Guthals (04:22):
Yep, it's true.
It's true. So I'm reallyexcited. I'm gonna, you know,
appreciate this moment.
Pj Metz (04:28):
Heck, yeah. Good. Good.
Yes. earlier how I'm doing? I'mgood. I'm fine. We just started
the new fiscal year at GitLab.
Yesterday. So we are and ourorganization is that we're in
fiscal year 23.
Sarah Guthals (04:43):
Yeah. 2023. Yeah.
When I was at GitHub, they didthe same thing. It was February
1, and it was fy 23. It alwaysused everyone.
Pj Metz (04:55):
Always and honestly because I'm on the education
team. We also operate with theidea of semester all the time.
Oh, what's going on thissemester? Oh, what's going on
this quarter? Oh, what's goingon this FBI? And like, oh, it's
confusing, but as far as I can,I can do it.
Sarah Guthals (05:11):
You can. I believe in you. Yeah. In the
chat. Rihanna suggests theumbrella too. And you know,
raise green. So I agree. Manbetter.
Pj Metz (05:23):
Man, you're my favorite person that comes into stream
all the time. You're sosupportive of me. Everyone say
hi to my sister. Awesome. Well,yeah, we do have a show today.
Uh, we you are our co host.
You're not our guest. Your yourwork. And we are paying you
appropriately for that work. Iassume. Sue branded got that.
Checks coming in. I think that'sright. And it's it's a piece of
(05:48):
paper that says thank you. Andhe signed it. He did the
Sarah Guthals (05:54):
number one. So I think it'll be easy to find.
Pj Metz (05:58):
That's right. But yeah, we have a great show today. Um,
we have a guest today who isvery important in, in my life,
because when I started thisjourney of getting into tech, I
had two mentors. I had Brandon,I had Chloe and both of them
were giving me a lot of helpwith a lot of the things I
needed to learn things like getthings like just the the way
(06:19):
work is done in the developerworld. And this person on today,
was instrumental in me reallystarting to take seriously that
I could work in tech and that Icould be a part of tech. And I'm
very, very excited to have heron the show today. And I'd like
you all to please welcome,Regina. Ah.
Regina Bluman (06:45):
Hi, thanks so much for having me. God,
Pj Metz (06:48):
that's such a good sound. I have too many stupid
sounds that I've downloaded fromstream deck. And I don't get to
use them enough for Chinami
Regina Bluman (06:56):
like radio DJ and family guy who plays and
effects. It is.
Pj Metz (07:01):
It is honestly my inspiration is terrible.
American 1980s radio DJs. And Ithink I'm doing pretty good at
it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, they never should havegotten me the stream deck. Rash.
How are you doing?
Regina Bluman (07:20):
I'm really well thing. Oh, yeah. Well, you've
covered how you are. Very good.
Thanks.
Pj Metz (07:27):
Good, good. So there's people out there who don't know
you, which I find hard tobelieve. But how about you tell
us about yourself a quick introif you don't mind?
Regina Bluman (07:36):
Yeah, sure. So as PJ said, I'm I'm red. And my
name is Regina. But everyonecalls me red. I am American,
even though you can't tell fromthe accent. I've been in the UK
for 11 years, I think. And I ama tech convert. So I started off
(07:57):
my life, my career in marketing.
And yeah, now working incybersecurity. So me.
Pj Metz (08:05):
Fantastic. So that that tech convert, like you weren't
in tech, and then you switch totech. I wasn't in tech. And then
I switch to tech. Dr. G, youweren't in tech, and you switch
to tech, right?
Sarah Guthals (08:16):
Yeah, I switched in college. So I think people
don't often associate it withkind of a switch. But then I
also didn't focus exclusively ontech. It was like tech
education. So Oh, yeah. Butyeah, I didn't discover it until
I took one class. And I waslike, What is this?
Pj Metz (08:34):
It's always exciting that that one thing that like
sort of flips the switch for youthat makes you go, Oh, that's
neat. Yeah. What was that foryou? What was that, that thing
that flipped the switch for
Regina Bluman (08:43):
you. Um, so I went to a security conference.
So I, technically, I was stillworking in tech, because I
worked for IT companies, but Iwas in marketing. So I was very
hands off. I was not technicalin the slightest. I was doing
social media and, you know,organizing events and stuff like
that. So I wasn't doing the techside of it. And so I went to a
(09:06):
security conference, to just tryand get some more content, you
know, for blogs and stuff likethat. And there was three or
four speakers who spoke who kindof stuck in my head to this day.
And it was just the idea of howhow much security touched
everyone's lives and kind of theimpact that security has on
(09:28):
things. And so there was ajournalist is called Jeff White,
and he talked about someresearch that he did on
different types of ransomwarearound the world. So we we tend
to think of ransomware as youknow, being very generic across
the board. And he talks aboutdifferent attacks, and this has
(09:50):
stuck in my head forever. Hetalked about this one, basically
in Japan, and it was how theychanged And the viruses based on
the culture of the companiesthat they were attacking. So, in
Japanese culture, there's a lotof people who are very by the
rules, it's very kind of formaland it's, you know, the kind of
(10:14):
the inbuilt right and wrong is avery important thing. And so it
was a pop up, that would come upon some porn sites that
basically the the attackers arekind of taken over. And so it
didn't pop up and say that, youknow, we've got you on video,
and now we're gonna hold you toransom, or, you know, it didn't,
(10:34):
it just popped up and said thatyou're in an area, which is for
members only, and you haven'tpaid to be here. And so you have
to click this window, you haveto click this and pay to be in
this area, because you've you'veaccessed this and you shouldn't
be here. And that was it. It wasliterally just a pop up window.
It didn't do all people neededto do was close it, it wouldn't
affect their computer, it didn'tencrypt the files, but the sense
(10:57):
of like I'm in a place shouldn'tbe, they made loads of money
from worked. And that was justpassing the idea. Yeah, the idea
of the kind of personal side ofsecurity. Just hooked me. So
here I am.
Pj Metz (11:14):
Something amazing, the idea of like security being a
cultural thing, too, and howlike different attacks come from
different cultures. That's wild.
Yeah. Dr. G, did you find
Sarah Guthals (11:28):
the Japanese porn site? No.
No, I was looking for a similarstory, that I recently heard
about how these attackers werelooking for people who were
very, like high up in theirindustry, and inviting them to
(11:51):
be on like a board of some sort.
And, and what the hackers didwas actually hack a university's
server like email server and beable to send emails from the
university. And they actuallycreated like a page on the
university's domain. So theywere sending emails to the like,
high level professionals as thisprofessor, getting them to sign
(12:14):
up for this thing. And like, itall looked legit, because the
people that they were trying tohack were like, people who would
check domains and like, not justclick on random links. And so
they did this whole convolutedthing. But Reggie, actually, I
wanted to ask you, because Iknow you said, you know, you
were marketing, but not none ofthe tech stuff. But every single
(12:37):
marketing person I've workedwith at technical companies is
very technical, like, and Idon't mean, their writing code.
Because I don't think that's theonly way of being technical. But
the fact that you were at thissecurity conference, and the
fact that you were looking forcontent, you you understood kind
of who the technical audiencewas, you understood what the
(12:59):
company did. And were able totranslate that I think that that
is more technical than what alot of developers do, to be
honest.
Regina Bluman (13:08):
Yeah, I, I think you're right. And I, I've been
pulled up on this before, and Ineed to, it's something I need
to work on is I need to stopsaying that I'm not technical.
There's a lot of things I can'tdo that are techie. But I am
technically minded. And I thinkyou're right, there's a huge
(13:29):
element of people who are inmarketing. And there is, that
was one of the reasons why Ikind of got into security is
because I needed to understand,like marketing or sales, right,
and I need to understand what Iwas selling. And so I need to
understand who am I going totarget with this. And I think
bad marketing, you can stillstay very removed from what
you're what you're selling. Butgood marketing, whether that's
(13:54):
tech or cars or anything else,you have to understand who your
audience is, you have tounderstand why they're
interested in it. So you'reright. That's a really good
point. It's, and yes, there wasthe technical understanding.
Sarah Guthals (14:06):
Yeah. And I feel like you're, you know, skills in
in marketing and understandingwhether it's technical marketing
or not just understanding youraudience and being able to
deliver what, what would workfor them. I bet those skills are
huge insecurity, because that'skind of the whole point, right,
(14:26):
is being able to anticipatewhat, you know, a victim of a
hack or, you know, somethingmight be being able to
anticipate the actions of thehacker like, you know, I'm just
using hackers, but like, youknow, I feel like that that
understanding of how peoplethink and act is probably huge.
And you're here now. Yeah,
Regina Bluman (14:48):
it's, it's come in handy so much. Whether you're
trying to get a developer tounderstand why you need to do
things in a certain way, whetheryou're trying to get your mom to
understand how To do somethingthat you know, it's still
relating something, then youhave to learn how to translate
something in a way that makespeople care about it. Because as
much as I love security, I know,most people don't. So I can be
(15:12):
really excited about it. But ifI don't know how to make it
relevant to them, it's nevergonna land. It's never gonna go
anywhere. So yeah, it is it ismarketing. And it, it took me a
really long time when I was kindof moving across and the amount
of people who didn't get thatand to say that it's a
transferable skill. Andactually, you know, it is a
really good thing for me to havethis experience. There's so many
(15:35):
people who don't see it likethat. Yeah.
Pj Metz (15:39):
It goes, go ahead, Sarah.
Sarah Guthals (15:41):
I was just gonna ask like, I don't I don't know
the story of Reggie and PJ. So Iknow, PJ, you had your career
before that, too. Before whatyou're doing now. And education.
And like, you know, could y'allshare a bit more about about
what Reggie kind of shared withyou? Because I feel like those
skills prior to entering techare so critical. And I agree,
(16:04):
Reggie, I feel like some peoplejust don't get it. They're
wrong. Don't quote me. But like,yeah, what can you tell me a bit
more about that?
Pj Metz (16:16):
Oh, I think I'll take it, I'll take a stab at it. So I
was a teacher for 10 yearsbefore this, I wanted to be a
high school English teacher.
It's something I realized in mythird year of college, that was
what I really wanted to do. Andso that's just what I was going
to do forever. Um, it didamazing things. For me, I became
a really confident publicspeaker. And a lot of the skills
(16:39):
I developed as a teacher reallysharpened what is I think
inappropriately called softskills. I think that soft skills
are interpersonal skills. And Ithink interpersonal skills are
how we relate to each other, andall businesses, how you relate
to each other. Everything is howyou relate to other people. So I
got really good at that. And I,when I was thinking of
(17:02):
transferring, the first thing, Ithink that really made me
realize I could work in tech,because at first, I was learning
to code. And I was like, Oh, Ican build a website or an app
for my students that make me abetter teacher. One of the first
things that made me realize Icould be a great that I could be
in tech at all, was closereading a description of a
(17:24):
DevRel job for airtable. Andactually posted that clip on
Twitch a few days ago. But whatReggie did specifically is
Reggie was the first personoutside of my mentors, who I
felt like had to like me, likethey had invested time in me.
And they were like, well, PJ'sgot to succeed. Now I'm going to
make sure he succeeds. Becauseotherwise, like, that looks bad.
(17:44):
For me. i It's like the way youcan write off compliments from
your partner very easilysometimes. But yeah, read said,
Oh, I think you would probablybe really good at this. And
like, sent me a position for hercompany, and was like, I can put
you in contact with someone. Andthe fact that a person who only
saw what I had been sort ofdoing online where I was like
(18:09):
doing streams with Chloe andbuilding Twitter bots and sort
of that stuff, saw something
Regina Bluman (18:14):
in me and enough for me like
Pj Metz (18:17):
I should i bought it.
That's my that's my application.
Actually, I just send them alink to Shanaya bot and say it
is. But yeah, this realizationthat my skills and what I had
learned as an educator, were notonly useful in a new career, but
desirable in an employeecompletely changed the way I was
(18:41):
thinking about my job search.
And like I said, Reggie was oneof the first people outside of
my mentors who was like, Yeah,you can do this because even at
home, I was constantly like, Idon't know that I can do this.
And my wife was like, I mean,are you gonna be able to do
this? I was like, I don't know.
Like, this seems to be fine. Um,but yeah, absolutely. And that's
how I met. It was through Chloe.
Really? I think Chloe knew you.
(19:03):
Y'all were like, well,
Regina Bluman (19:05):
yeah, just on Twitter.
Pj Metz (19:08):
Real life.
Regina Bluman (19:10):
All I did was send the link.
Pj Metz (19:13):
It meant the world to me at the time. I remember
actually, I was looking throughour Twitter conversation that we
had when you were reaching outto me. And you were like, do you
have time today? I was like, Oh,I'm babysitting a national
English Honor Society meetingright now. But afterwards, I can
chat. And remembering that partof my job was like, working with
student groups that the studentgroups really ran themselves and
(19:35):
I was just there as an adult inthe room. So I have these times.
I was just like, I would justlet them kind of do work and
make sure that they were likeheaded in the right direction.
And there's value in and I justloved, I could talk teaching all
day. There's days I miss it, butlike other days, I get to string
with two awesome people andthat's way cooler than talking
about AP English.
Sarah Guthals (20:00):
So read you said that you moved to the UK 11
years ago? Yeah, I think so. Butyou didn't have an accent prior
to that. I know curious aboutthat.
Regina Bluman (20:13):
One and raised in Colorado. So I lived in the
States my whole life. And then Imet my boyfriend in the States,
whose English so I moved over.
And I think so I have a lot offriends who are American who
have been here for longer thanme, and they still have their
accent like 100%. But Colorado'sdead center in the US, it's a
(20:33):
very neutral accent to beginwith. So I didn't have like a
southern twang, or like a Bostonaccent or anything like that. So
I had a pretty neutral accent.
But then when I moved here, Ididn't work for an American
company. I didn't move here withfamily. So I didn't hear an
American accent. Like unless itwas my family at home. Everyone
(20:53):
I lived with everyone I workedwith is English. And so it just
kind of crept in. It was neverlike, I always felt you know,
the episode from friends whenAmanda comes back, and everyone
is like, oh, Amanda ring me onmy mobile. I'm forever paranoid
that I'm that person. Like, youknow, the person who likes
(21:14):
studies abroad, and they comeback and have an accent. But if
I actually try and do a Britishaccent, and it sounds horrible,
so I can, I can assure you thatthis isn't odd. But it's just
like I still say like banana andtomato and like it's still
(21:34):
there. It's just very weird. NowI just sound like a month.
Sarah Guthals (21:40):
I don't you know, cuz i. So I'm Latina. And my mom
and Grandpa are from Hawaii andSouth America. And so they speak
a very specific kind of dialectof Spanish. And then when I went
to school, it was more of like aSpain Spanish. And I even had
some teachers, I had someteachers that were Mexican and
(22:01):
some that were from Spain. Sothat I would do like a fail
every once in a while. But I youuse like voce with my family and
then who stay with us? Yeah. Andthen and then when I got to high
school, all of my friends wereMexican. And so my Spanish is
just like so confusing. And I'mlike you said like, I'm like a
(22:22):
mutt of the Spanish language.
And then I you know, I don'tspeak it every day all day
anymore. And so now I've gotthis, like, you know, I forget
verbs. And so then it's likesome English in there. And it's
just like a mess.
Pj Metz (22:33):
It's it's a U N accent.
Yeah,
Regina Bluman (22:37):
yeah, exactly. I had no idea until I moved here
and went to Spain for the firsttime how different Spain Spanish
was. And my boyfriend. We wereat dinner, and he said, you
know, graffia and I was like,yeah. Why have you got a lisp?
All of a sudden, were and I justpour into it. I was like, What
are you doing? It's not how youpronounce it. And then I was
(22:59):
like, Oh, all right. differentaccents. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh,
Mexican, Spanish. Like, that'swhat I would in it. I that's
what I grew up learning. SpainSpanish is like, I don't know
what, completely.
Sarah Guthals (23:16):
I've heard that American is different, too. It's
like a mixture.
Pj Metz (23:20):
I was in high school.
My my girlfriend for most ofhigh school was Colombian and my
mother is Puerto Rican. And whenour mothers would talk, it was
like, two completely differentlanguages. Like my mom would use
slang and have to like, oh,wait, what's the real word for
that? Like? Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Guthals (23:37):
So much trouble for saying God fool. In the
movie,
Pj Metz (23:43):
the TIC TOCs that are like when you're Spanish in the
Spanish class, like if you'reLatino and Spanish class and
like Cuomo said, He's saying carand the kids are like in
correcto. And say, DC se elcoche. Che? And he's like,
Sarah Guthals (24:00):
seeing my grandpa was like, No, it's the movie.
Pj Metz (24:08):
I've heard that an accent like falling into an
accent from people around you isrelated to empathy. And like, my
sister and I are the same. LikeI'll start pulling in accent
when I'm around people and mybrain is always like, don't do
it. They're gonna think you'remaking fun of them. Be careful.
But an accent can be reallyimportant to being understood
(24:28):
when you're in a new place. WhenI was in Korea for a year and a
half. I had to learn to say lonewords with an English and with a
Korean accent, which made mefeel terrible. The first time I
tried to order a hamburger overthere. The way you order things
is you say the noun of what youwant. And then you say just say
oh, which means give me please.
So a hamburger juicio meansplease give me a hamburger. So I
(24:51):
went to it. It was like mysecond month there. I went to a
what's called a latte. Lots ofRIA which is a fast food place
that does burgers. I said,cheeseburger just sale. And the
guy looked at me he wasterrified. And I was like, oh,
no, I said it wrong. What and Iwas like, um, cheeseburger, just
sale. And he was like lookingaround for the person that
(25:13):
spoke. And I was like, okay,just look at the menu and read
the because I could read theKorean. And so I looked them and
you I found it and I went, QiJabba juicio and he went, Oh,
Cheetah burger. And I was like,No, and that's when I realized,
if you're, if it's a loan word,especially saying it with the
(25:33):
accent actually helps make youunderstood better.
Sarah Guthals (25:39):
That's so fascinating. I also like my
husband can tell who I'm talkingto on the phone, depending on
how I'm speaking. Like, my, myvoice, like my, my, just
everything about how I speakchanges, depending on which
friend I'm talking to. And I'mnot conscious, I can now notice
it, but it's not conscious atall.
Regina Bluman (26:01):
I would just went back to Colorado a couple of
weeks ago, and I was there for10 days. And while I was there,
I could hear me becoming moreAmerican. When I was there,
again. It's crept back, I thinkit's back to whatever my accent
is normally now. But while I wasthere, I can hear me pronouncing
stuff. And I was like, Oh, Idon't normally say it like that
(26:22):
I was that definitely
Pj Metz (26:28):
rides when you're so this, this total career change,
like you moved into securityfrom marketing. That happened
two years ago, you said a yearand a half
Regina Bluman (26:38):
ago? Yeah, yeah, year and a half.
Pj Metz (26:41):
So what is something?
We talked earlier about howimportant our former careers can
be as far as skills related to anew career? What's something you
think you brought with you frommarketing securities that you
wouldn't have known otherwise?
Regina Bluman (26:56):
And
Pj Metz (26:59):
I put you on the spot.
This is a big no, actually, as Iwas asking this question, I was
like this a lot. So
Regina Bluman (27:05):
I think similar to what we talked about earlier,
in terms of the the ability tokind of understand your target
audience, and to be able to kindof frame things in a way that
they need to understand or thatwill hook their interest. And I
think that that bit of it is issuper important. But I think
(27:27):
probably more practically beenthe marketing side of things. I
had a huge amount of exposure todifferent vendors and different
companies and how theypositioned themselves. And now
kind of being the other side ofit. In terms of like the buyer,
the user of the tech, it's beenreally nice to kind of have that
(27:48):
understanding to say, Oh,actually, I know a company who,
who kind of positionedthemselves in this way, or I
know a company who offers that.
Because when you're this side,it's there's so many, you know,
there's so many companies, andthose new security companies
that are starting up all thetime, and they all have a
slightly different, you know,niche that they fit in
Pj Metz (28:08):
very hyper specific thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Regina Bluman (28:12):
And so it's kind of like you just can't see
because there's so manycompanies, whereas the fact that
I've been the other side, and Iknow, you know, I spent my job
was to understand theirpositioning and to understand
their selling points and docompetitor analysis. And, you
know, my job was to researchthese companies. And so to be
the other side of that, I thinkthat's really helped me kind of
(28:35):
understand what a good kind ofsecurity tech stack, I would
want to build a one to use.
Sarah Guthals (28:41):
I think it's so fascinating, because I feel like
too often, people who startedout as devs, and are still devs,
and didn't have like a differentcareer interest, forget that
they're a part of business in alarger capitalistic ecosystem.
And so I've often hadconversations where it's like,
(29:03):
you know, yes, I understand thattiny feature might be
technologically interesting, butthat's not going to sell. And
it's not that everything needsto sell, but it does, like, we
work for a company that is partof it. And I think like, like
understanding how to positionthings to customers, but then
(29:24):
also back to the rest of theteam, right? Like, that was
always part of my job as like anengineering manager was, was
saying, like, I understand thatyou're interested in this, how
can we dislike show the benefitto customers, and then weigh
whether our effort is worth thatamount of benefit, right, and
(29:46):
being able to frame it likethat? And so I feel like that's
a really good, kind of, I don'tknow, just perspective and we
had a question in the chat foryou too. Mostly, but do you feel
like you would be be successfulin your current career, your
current position, if you hadn'thad your experiences in
marketing or in teaching?
Pj Metz (30:08):
I absolutely wouldn't be.
Regina Bluman (30:11):
I mean, I I disagree with that. I know, I
know. I don't know, you see, butI think you would be you
obviously have the inclinationfor it, and you have the, you
know, those skills aren'tloaned. That's something inside
of you that you're very good atteaching that you're very
passionate about things. Ithink, yes, I probably would be
successful, but I'd probably bea dickhead. Like, I know, I
(30:35):
would be one of those people.
And there are security peoplewho think that they do run the
business and they think thateverything is is the security is
the most important thing. Andyou lose sight of of what else
is out there. If you've onlyever done one thing and not to
say that people who have had onecareer path our whole lives are
dickheads because someone willhear me say that and go Oh,
(30:57):
thanks a lot veg
Pj Metz (30:59):
clarification.
Regina Bluman (31:03):
Yeah, exactly.
But I think it absolutely helpscontribute to success to kind of
be able to see things fromanother side.
Pj Metz (31:13):
I agree that like, certainly, I could say I would I
would find a way to besuccessful. I believe that like,
what what I do is something Inot not that I always could have
done it. But my personality is abig part of what why I'm doing
well right now, I think. But Ithink about very specific things
(31:35):
like classroom management andpreparing lesson plans and
considering things like, Well,what do I want them to learn by
the end of? Or more importantly,what do I want them to be able
to do by the end of this? Andbecause I did 10 years of
thinking like that, that'singrained? When I create a
workshop or even just apresentation, what do I want
(31:58):
them to be able to do at the endof this is just the thought I
have while I'm working now. So Ithink I think of like the
specific skills I picked up as ateacher. And I know for me that
those skills are what I'mleaning on right now to do well
at this job right now. But Iagree with you that like, and I
agree with you to Sarah, the theperson who is kind of like hyper
(32:21):
focused on their job will oftenoverinflate the importance of
their specific work. And it'simportant to recognize you're
part of an ecosystem, you know,your finger is super important.
And it allows you to grabthings, and it allows you to
gesture and allows you to do alot. But it is a part of a body
and that body is a part of aperson. And we need to
(32:43):
understand that when you're on ateam. It is all in service of a
single goal. And whatever you'redoing to achieve that goal, it
has to work. Yep,
Regina Bluman (32:52):
yeah, yeah, there was one thing I learned. So they
said it to me on my first day atmy company, in our induction was
basically we find ways to sayyes, so security, our job is to
say yes to things, our job is tofind a way to say yes. And that
is completely counter to almosteverything that I learned kind
(33:13):
of when I was self studyinginsecurity and trying to skill
up. It was you know, securityshould lock things down. And
security shouldn't allow that.
And then to come to a companywhere they wouldn't look, we
want to allow things we want tosay yes to things. It's a
completely different mindset,but the attitude and the way the
relationship that we have withthe rest of the business, the
respect that we have within thebusiness and the weight that
(33:36):
that kind of carries that we arelistened to. And you know, if we
do say no to something, theyknow that it's a very serious
No, because we don't do it off.
And it's it's really important,I think, to understand, again,
especially I've definitelyworked places where security
teams are our business blocos.
And, you know, if you work for asecurity company, that's fine.
(34:00):
Security can be the mostimportant thing. But it's not
our job to run the business.
It's our job to facilitatebusiness safely. You know, it's
not our show. And I think nothaving I think I'd lost sight of
that self study. And I thinkit's very easy to think of
security as, as an allencompassing thing. And that's
(34:24):
super important. And that's onething I mentor, a group of kind
of career changes. And that'sone thing I always try and
enforced to them is it's superimportant to just remember that
it's very rare that you're goingto be in the position where you
get to call the shots like it'sit's not security space to do
(34:45):
that.
Pj Metz (34:50):
That idea of security being about saying yes, and I
think that's a really fresh wayof looking at it. It's security
really is about making sure thatThe right people, tools, actors,
whatever, have access when theyneed it. And it's not about
blocking everyone out, becausethen we could just pour concrete
(35:11):
walls over things and be like,that's great. But yeah, it very
Yeah, good, good security isabout letting the right people
in not just keeping the badpeople out. That's fantastically
your company. sounds dope.
Sarah Guthals (35:26):
I think that's a good point, too. Because it's,
it's like, the idea of like, Ifeel like I would trust a
security team thinking more oftrying to say yes, because it's
the idea of being able toeventually prevent things that
you're not expecting. Right. So.
So it's kind of like going withthe assumption. Like, I've
(35:47):
always liked, okay, I've alwayshated when I worked with other
developers, and they wanted togo with the assumption that
people were going to use thetechnology correctly. Right. And
so and so I always approachedit, because my mom, you know,
just retired from teaching, andshe was the, the most
technologically advanced teacheron her school site. And no, I
(36:09):
love her but no, like. And so,you know, I would always
approach things from thatperspective, like, you have to
understand that there are entireecosystems, these employees who
literally don't understand howemail works, literally say, you
know, my passwords not working,because they're using their
(36:30):
email password to unlock theirFacebook, like, you know, and
and, and so I would always tryto approach technology as like,
how do you make sure that peoplecan't do the wrong thing? And I
don't and it's not the can'tit's like, how do we assume that
they're going to try to do thewrong thing? And then we protect
them from that. Right. And itsounds like that's more of what
your company is thinking about?
Like, how do we assume anythingcan happen and still ensure
(36:54):
protection? You know, beyondthat?
Regina Bluman (36:56):
Yeah, it's, have you seen that? The video of I
think it's a tick tock of a UXdesigner, and kind of watching
someone put the the holes, the,like, wooden
Pj Metz (37:10):
scrapes, and they're like, Yes, that's right. Where
Regina Bluman (37:15):
it's yeah, it's exactly like that, like, you can
just not you can put best effortinto designing something
properly, but people will dowhat they've always done, and
they what they know how to do.
And if they're allowed to do it,they'll do it. And there's a
really big, I mean, there's ahuge trade off between trust and
security, right. So it's, youdon't want to alienate people
too much by saying, Look, wedon't trust you, at some point,
(37:37):
if you've hired them, if theyhave a job, you have to trust
them. But at the same time, youknow, there are people who are
corrupt, there are people whowill, you know, who can be
tempted to sell something from acompany or whatever. And so it's
always this balance. And, youknow, you won't always get it,
right, like, some things willhappen, and some things will go
(38:00):
wrong. But I think at the end ofthe day business, you know,
that's a risk that the businesshas to take, and if they want
things to be done, and if theywant productivity, you know,
something has to be sacrificed.
In an ideal world, everyonewould be, you know, on air
gapped devices, and no one wouldhave access to anything. And
(38:20):
wouldn't that be nice from asecurity perspective, then we're
out of a job. Like, that's notwhat we're here, for. We're here
to facilitate people doing theirjob safely and securely, and
we're there to keep people safe,we're there to keep the company
safe. We're not there to justshut people down and say, No,
you can't do what you want todo. Because if you stop people
(38:41):
from using tools that they want,if you stop people from using
platforms that they want,they'll leave and they'll go
somewhere else. And you knowthat that can't be our fault. We
can't not attract top talentbecause your security team is
unreasonable.
Sarah Guthals (38:54):
Or they'll like, they'll they'll they'll find a
way around it not becausethey're trying to be malicious,
but because it's a part of theirjob. And they're like, Well, I
don't have to do this, I'm gonnahave to do it on my personal
computer. Now, all of a sudden,you can't track anything is
they're doing it on a personalcomputer, because
Regina Bluman (39:10):
people will find a way to do what they want to do
Pj Metz (39:12):
exactly what Billy Joel was right? It's a matter of
trust. For those of you don'tknow, that's a Billy Joel song.
We're gonna take a quick, quickbreak. And we're going to be
right back after this word fromour sponsors. i If you're
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(39:33):
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Quick note that is read andStimpy background music and it's
(40:24):
totally copyright free and Ilove it.
Sarah Guthals (40:29):
I can't believe that that's copyright free and I
want it on everything now.
Pj Metz (40:35):
I double triple checked it because like, it's some of
the Ren and Stimpy backgroundmusic is also like Spongebob
background music. But like notall SpongeBob music is copyright
free. But those are just likethings from like the 40s that
the Ren and Stimpy team foundand we're like, oh, we'll just
use this in the background. Ilove it. I love it. Speaking of
(40:59):
copyright, free background musicsegue. Read, we've been talking
about security, we've beentalking about letting the right
person in. And we've beentalking about switching careers
and how skills in the past havecome to now what is a challenge
of of that switch? And what issomething that you felt you had
(41:20):
to like, overcome that maybe youdidn't expect while you were
changing.
Regina Bluman (41:25):
And so I think a big challenge was around trying
to get people to, like we weretalking about earlier trying to
get people to kind of appreciatethose transferable skills. And
so a lot of especially kind ofautomated screening software
kind of looks at my CV and like,right, she's head of marketing.
(41:45):
So that's a no. And it was justthat I never even kind of got
the chance to make my argument.
And you know, there's a millionthings that we can say about the
the annoyances and the perils ofautomated screening. But I know
from an HR perspective, youknow, they can be overwhelmed
with applications and you know,something's got to give. But
(42:06):
that was a really big struggle.
For me, it was kind of trying totrying to get people to buy into
that idea of just because Ididn't have a traditional
background, it didn't matter. Icouldn't, it didn't mean I
couldn't do the job. And selfdoubt was a huge thing as well,
I have like, the idea that Ifelt like I had so much to learn
(42:30):
and so much catching up to do.
And I still do the amount ofthings that people talk about
the history of cybersecurity,and people who are really big in
the scene in the 80s. And like Iwasn't, I wasn't born, like I
didn't know anything about it.
And I, I have this constantbattle between kind of trying to
(42:51):
feel like I have to catch up onon everything. And then just
focusing on where I want to goand what I want to do next. And
part of it is like, Am I missingout on something? What if there
is an area that I really wouldlike that I don't know about
yet, part of it, I worry thatthere's gaps in my knowledge,
and so I'm not. So for example,you know, I work for a software
(43:12):
company, we have a hugedevelopment team. I'm not great
with software development,because I've never done it
before. And so that's a huge gapin my in my skill set is the
whole dev SEC ops thing. It'snot something that I've been on
this side of before. I've beenon either side before. And so
(43:33):
the self doubt of maybe I don'tknow enough to do this may be I
need to study more. And I spentyears studying before I made the
leap across. And I still havethat now where I think you know,
I need to learn this or I needto learn more about this before
I'm comfortable doing thisproject or before I'm
comfortable telling someone whatto do I need to go and read this
(43:53):
entire book on networking. Andit's just, I think I'll always
have that. And part of it's ahealthy thing. And I think part
of it is good. But it was a hugehurdle. Before I started
applying for jobs and similaryou said, you know, EJ that it
was it was this, like I didn'treally think I could do it. It
(44:13):
was an interest, but I didn'treally know that I could do it.
So that was a huge, a hugebattle as well. I think
Sarah Guthals (44:23):
I you know, I it's so funny because I come
from I got my bachelor's,master's and PhD in computer
science. The reason I stayed wasbecause by the time I was done
with my bachelor's, I felt likeI did still didn't know
anything. And I was like, I gotthis opportunity because I was
already working with a professorwhose research area was in
(44:44):
computer science education tostay and I was like, great. Now
I can learn what I don't know.
Right? And during grad school, Istarted a company teaching kids
how to code and again I lovedthat side of it right? My whole
dissertation was always around?
How do you incorporate novicesnot just teach them semantics.
(45:05):
And when I applied for my firstfull time job, like, that wasn't
my own startup. I was told bythe recruiter, I don't have the
right skill set to be anengineering manager at GitHub.
And luckily, I was eight monthspregnant, needing a full time
job and said, I'm no, you'rewrong, I need this. Here's
(45:28):
exactly why being a PhD studentwas a skill set that's similar
to being an engineering manager,having the startup these are the
things that I did to, you know,and I had that confidence,
because I was pregnant, like,let's not have confidence in
myself, it was like, I needhealth insurance, I need this
job, you're going to give it tome. And luckily, she like passed
(45:50):
on my resume to the hiringmanager, who was like, Oh, I
definitely see how these skillstransfer. Um, but like, I feel
you so much rich, because I havethis more traditional
background, and like, you know,doctor in front of my name,
whatever, whatever. I don't knowanything. Like, That's literally
how I feel like, every singletime I enter into a room of
(46:11):
people, I'm like, I haven't Idon't know anything about
security, like, at all, youcould tell me anything. And I'm
like, please, because I knownothing. You know, I barely know
about web development, right?
Because all the things that Iworked on, were more client
based applications and, andeducational applications. And
so, you know, I've, I've beenlucky enough to find dev role
(46:34):
and kind of I can, I can learnanything fairly quickly. But I,
my skill is being able to knowenough to help the other person
get what they need out of myteaching, right? Like, that's
where I feel like I have skill.
So anyways, all I wanted to saywas, I feel you because as
(46:57):
someone with that moretraditional background, I'm 100%
right there with you. There's noway I could possibly know
everything in tech, and everysingle time I consider doing a
job switch, I purchase anddownload a bunch of textbooks to
my Kindle.
Pj Metz (47:14):
Yeah, that's right. It can be such a motivating factor,
you know, it can be really goodto, to feel to know where your
gaps are. Because first off,knowing where your gap in skill,
your skill and knowledge gapsare, is such an important part
of learning that we don'taccurately teach in the
(47:35):
education system. We don't teachkids to recognize when they
don't know, and how, what thenext step is. So recognizing
those gaps is huge. Both of youare already like, well, I need
to learn and so you set out totry and learn it. And that's
exactly what should be done. Soit can be motivating. But it is
very, very difficult. At thesame time, in emotional labor,
(47:58):
you're constantly having to feellike you should be there. I just
learned the other day, peoplearound me had been saying, Oh,
we're talking about shiftingleft today. Oh, we got to shift
left and make sure we'reshifting. And I would just get
like, totally left ship, forsure, man. And I think I was at
an education conference. And mymanager was talking to someone
(48:19):
said, you know, we're shiftingleft, we're making security more
of a focus at the beginning andoutlawed and when is that what
that means? And she was like,
Sarah Guthals (48:27):
yeah, and then I never heard it before. Just
saying
Pj Metz (48:30):
it's brand new. Right?
And it's like, it's about makingsecurity a focus earlier in the
development process. Don't buildthe app, make it work, and then
go. And now how do we make itsecure? make security a part of
it? While you're building?
Right?
Sarah Guthals (48:43):
Yeah, that's my philosophy with inclusion on on
technology, you do
Pj Metz (48:48):
not build a product?
And then say, Now, how do weinclude others? Nope. Yeah. At
the beginning, at the beginning,um, but that that's, it's so
exciting to, to have thatknowledge of where you're
lacking and to be able to use itto get better. But absolutely,
it is difficult and it takeslabor, real emotional labor to
(49:10):
get through that.
Sarah Guthals (49:13):
Or to decide I don't need to know this, because
we're not all going to knoweverything in tech. So to
decide, you know, what, I amgood at this part. And I, I can
learn that. And I might want to,like you said, Read you like I
might want to explore somethingbecause maybe I like it more.
But if I decide, You know what,I never need to know how to do
(49:34):
that. Yeah, so okay.
Regina Bluman (49:37):
Yeah, I, I have a mentor who I work with. And she
has been fantastic for kind ofkeeping me on track because
every time I speak to him, like,Oh, I just got a book on this.
Or I spent a load of money on acoding course and she's like, so
why are you doing coding course?
Like, because I might need toknow one day. Like, no, you
don't need to know. So I hatelike I'm horrible at codeine, I
(50:00):
know this is a target audience,but I hate codeine. I tried so,
so many times to learn, I havespent a lot of money on boot
camps. And I am not a coder. Andshe, it's so nice to have
someone to kind of bounce thatoff of and say, Look, these are
my career goals. This is where Iwant to go. Do you think this is
(50:21):
valuable for me to learn or not?
And she's like, nope, drop it.
Don't learn that learn thisinstead. And that has been so
nice to have, because otherwise,I would just like, you know,
I've got a million textbooks,which I've probably never even
opened half of them, justbecause I think I need to know
them one day.
Sarah Guthals (50:41):
Yeah, I learned.
I didn't like to code all day.
Like, I could not be in a jobwhere I only coded all day every
day. It's just, like monotonousfor me. Yeah. And I love making
stuff. I love writing code, butfor very specific purposes. And
that's why I love, you know, DevRel in general, because it's,
(51:04):
you know, you can you can findthe motivation behind it. But
I'm with you.
Pj Metz (51:08):
Yeah, if I had to actually build real apps, I
don't know that I could do it.
And that's why I only buildTwitter bots over and over and
over and over and over again, togo there.
Sarah Guthals (51:16):
I do think we could all do it. We could. But I
don't think the motivationsthere. Like,
Pj Metz (51:22):
I think that's important, right? Yeah. Like why
you're doing something is justas important as what you're
doing. And if it's for themoney, and that's enough to
sustain your motivation. Totallyfine. Do it for the money. If
it's because you're superpassionate about building the
best Knucks j s like app, do itwhatever it is that works for
(51:44):
you. Your motivation is veryimportant. Yep. Yeah.
Absolutely. Read you are youwere talking earlier about how
like, you were like, Oh, I wasdoubting myself. And I couldn't
get that first step out ofmarketing into it. Because there
was a lot of like, well, that'snot transferable. Once you got
there, you found there was a lottransferable. And now you're a
huge advocate for it. You didpoint to me, you were like, sort
(52:07):
of like you, I honestly, I feellike I am more likely to be
given the benefit of the doubt,based on a few things. One, I'm
a dude. Like, I get an automaticbenefit of doubt, too. I'm
really like, loud and like, Idon't let people not take notice
of me. And I think that thosethings came together. And I
(52:28):
think there's opportunities thatcome my way that don't come
everyone's way. And so that'swhy I always feel strange saying
I could do it. So can youbecause I recognize that there's
an immense amount of privilegethat came my way. Like, yes,
there was opportunity, and I didwork but like, I don't feel
qualified to say things like,Oh, I did it and so can you I'd
(52:51):
rather say things like here'sexactly what I did. Here's what
I know and I hope this can helpbut I it's it's it's terrible
the sort of the way that a lotof women and and people of color
and minorities in Tech have aextra almost target on their
(53:14):
shoulders, especially if they'rereally visible online about it.
Yeah, I'm, I'm fairly insulatedon Twitter. I follow a lot of
people with the same ideas andlove and care. But I know that
it's a warzone out there. Canyou speak to that experience, or
I feel unqualified to speak tothat experience, but I felt like
I wanted to bring it up ifthat's okay.
Regina Bluman (53:34):
Yeah, of course.
I say various, you know, yes,I'm a woman so I'm slightly more
inconvenience, possibly. But I'mEnglish speaking as my first
language. I'm white. I'mstraight. I have long you know,
blonde hair. I'm like, ablebodied. I'm not diverse, like I
am, you know, I'm not that kindof token diversity hire. But for
(53:56):
the security industry, I stillam. And I'm incredibly fortunate
that my network on Twitter,that's how I found my job. So I
didn't to be very clear, Iwasn't offered a job on Twitter,
I was sent up. So basically, howI kind of made the move is I was
in I was head of marketing. So Iheaded up a department for big
(54:20):
MSP. They restructured and Ididn't like the way that they
restructured I thought it wasbad for the business. And so I
kind of made my argument andsaid, Look, I would do it
differently, and they didn'tlisten to me. So I went alright,
I'm gonna go because I don'twant to be over a department
that is running away I don'tagree with and so I handed my
(54:40):
notice in and I startedinterviewing elsewhere. And I
just was like, my heart is notlike I've talked about moving
into security for long enough.
Everyone hates interviewing. Soif I'm going to be interviewing,
like screw it, I'm just going todo it. So I handed my notice and
without any job to go to in themiddle of COVID. It just started
and like, why not, I'll justchange careers as well. And so I
(55:04):
put something out on Twitter andsaid, Look, I've had my notice,
and I'm looking to move intosecurity. But I've been active
on Twitter for a few years, Ihad a good network on there. And
I had loads of people send melinks to, you know, to jobs and
stuff like that. And that waspart of the reason. You know, as
soon as I saw that, you werelooking, I was like, great
people have done that for me. Soof course, I will do that as
often as I can for other people.
But I had a had a few messages,had a guy messaged me and said,
(55:29):
Look, we're hiring for thisrole, we think you'd be great
for it. We're looking, you know,we're open to people from non
traditional backgrounds, we'relooking for someone who kind of
has additional experience beyondjust traditional security. And I
went through the full interviewprocess, like it wasn't like,
Oh, you've been hired becauseyou're a Twitter person. But I
had messages from people going,oh, you know, you only got the
(55:53):
job, because you're diversity,how you got the job, because
you're visible on Twitter. Andyou've taken a job from someone.
And the thing is, it is veryhard for people to break into
security. And there are peoplewho are more qualified than me
on paper. And they are lookingfor jobs, and they are
struggling to find jobs. Andthat is absolutely true. But
that doesn't mean that I don'tdeserve the job that I got, I
(56:16):
went through the same interviewprocess that everyone else did.
I had to sell myself, I had tosell my skills I had to I had to
do the same thing that everyoneelse did. I do deserve it. But
it doesn't mean that otherpeople don't deserve it.
Sarah Guthals (56:30):
But what is even more qualified on paper mean,
like, I mean, because some ofthe skills that you have aren't
probably on paper. And yeah. Youknow, maybe they didn't even get
the interview, which is a shame,but we can't have every job
interview everyone, right. Soit's like, I just I always like
(56:51):
to push back on, like, what's onpaper. That's why I talk about
having a PhD not to rub it inpeople's faces. But to just be
like, That is a thing that's onpaper, that gives me privilege,
for sure. But that does not meanthat I am more qualified than
then people for every job orevery job in tech or whatever.
Regina Bluman (57:10):
Yeah, yeah, you're you're so right. Like,
every job has differentrequirements. And every you
know, every business is lookingfor different people. There are
some people who, you know, buythe book, and that's the so you
know, look at regulatedindustries at a bank, they need
people who have absolutely notolerance for any variation on
(57:31):
security controls at all. Theyneed someone who has lived and
breathed security for theirwhole lives. And that is all
they do. Like that, that worksfor them. And they are more
qualified than me to have thatjob. Where I am works for me,
and it's a good fit. For me,it's a good fit for the
business, hopefully.
Pj Metz (57:48):
And it was for seems to be going well, for you to be
honest. Yeah,
Regina Bluman (57:52):
I they, I love it. And it just it was one of
those things where it was likeI think I am incredibly, like I
said, I was incredibly fortunateto have the network that I do
have online. And I try again,the group of, of kind of cross
skilled people that that I workwith, it's something I try and
(58:14):
say to them is it's not the onlyway to break into the industry,
it doesn't mean that because Iwas active on Twitter, you have
to be active on Twitter. Andthat's the way to do it. It
doesn't mean that you have to bea LinkedIn thought leader. And
that's the way to do it. Likedifferent things work for
different people. Thank you.
And, yeah, it's just it's verydifferent. Depending and I know,
(58:39):
it's, I know, it's very easy forme to say from the comfort of my
job and comfort of my home, it'seasy for me to say the right
thing will come along becauseother people have more desperate
needs than than I did at thetime. I was in an incredibly
fortunate position where I couldhave my notice and without
something to go to. In the UK,we don't have at will
(59:00):
employment. So we havecontracts. So I had a three
month notice period, I knew Ican even if I freelanced for
three months, you know, I knewI, by the end of three months, I
knew I would land on my feet.
But if I had kids, if I had amortgage to pay, you know, if I
had all of these things, there'sno way I would have had the
confidence to do that. There'sno way I would have had the
freedom to do that. And so whathas worked for me, definitely
(59:23):
isn't going to work foreveryone. So yeah, I don't want
to say that, you know, becauseI've because I've done it like
you said PJ because I've done iteveryone can do it. But find a
way because there is a way it'sjust not a cookie cutter
approach.
Pj Metz (59:42):
And normally we end the show it's asking you to give
some advice but you went aheadknock that out of the park
without us even asking a wrench.
Thank you. Thank you so much forcoming on and being a part of
this podcast. You are anabsolute absolute absolutely
amazing person. Dr. Gubbelsthank you for jumping in and
chat with you
Regina Bluman (01:00:06):
read and good.
Thanks for having me.
Pj Metz (01:00:09):
Absolutely. And we will catch everyone else next time on
eight bits.
Brandon Hi Brandon, you look great today I think your
computer's a little frozen
Sarah Guthals (02:13):
yeah sorry about that
Pj Metz (02:25):
ever been a part of in my whole life? You're not
reading it on your doctor sirOh, welcome to the podcast about
tech and their lives and peopleand see normally Brandon does
the intro so he actually knowswhat to say. I'm new at this
(02:47):
BIOS PJ bits with me this week,Dr. Sarah got holes over here
during me as CO hosts becauseBrandon's feeling a little under
the weather. There's someweather on top of him. And we
wish him a speedy recovery andlots of rest. He's fine. But you
know, sick. Yeah. Yeah, thatweather umbrellas will stop it.
(03:07):
I think that's honestly, the wayto go is an umbrella or
raincoat? I mean, I mean, helives in. Like, rain happens.
Weather happens. Yeah, likewe're blaming you now.
Sarah Guthals (03:24):
Just kidding. I hope you feel better random.
Pj Metz (03:26):
Oh, yeah, we're both sad. I mean, like, I'm sad. No,
but I get to hang out with you.
Sarah Guthals (03:30):
Sure. I get to do something today. This is great.
Pj Metz (03:34):
How have you been?
What's going on?
Sarah Guthals (03:36):
Oh, I've been great. I am taking a little
break from full time pneus ofcareers to do some fun things,
do my podcast with Chloe get tokind of come on eight bits. But
maybe start a special projectwith PJ on scary movies and
tech. It's gonna be fun. Yeah,so just kind of hanging out and
(03:57):
being a mom. Yeah, it's great.
Pj Metz (04:00):
It's fantastic. To be able to do stuff like that, you
know, to be able to take thattime off and to Yeah, because
you've been full time workingconstantly busy since 13 years
old. Honestly, honestly, I know.
I feel like our families havesimilar dynamics where we both
like just kind of startedworking young and just kept
going.
Sarah Guthals (04:22):
Yep, it's true.
It's true. So I'm reallyexcited. I'm gonna, you know,
appreciate this moment.
Pj Metz (04:28):
Heck, yeah. Good. Good.
Yes. earlier how I'm doing? I'mgood. I'm fine. We just started
the new fiscal year at GitLab.
Yesterday. So we are and ourorganization is that we're in
fiscal year 23.
Sarah Guthals (04:43):
Yeah. 2023. Yeah.
When I was at GitHub, they didthe same thing. It was February
1, and it was fy 23. It alwaysused everyone.
Pj Metz (04:55):
Always and honestly because I'm on the education
team. We also operate with theidea of semester all the time.
Oh, what's going on thissemester? Oh, what's going on
this quarter? Oh, what's goingon this FBI? And like, oh, it's
confusing, but as far as I can,I can do it.
Sarah Guthals (05:11):
You can. I believe in you. Yeah. In the
chat. Rihanna suggests theumbrella too. And you know,
raise green. So I agree. Manbetter.
Pj Metz (05:23):
Man, you're my favorite person that comes into stream
all the time. You're sosupportive of me. Everyone say
hi to my sister. Awesome. Well,yeah, we do have a show today.
Uh, we you are our co host.
You're not our guest. Your yourwork. And we are paying you
appropriately for that work. Iassume. Sue branded got that.
Checks coming in. I think that'sright. And it's it's a piece of
(05:48):
paper that says thank you. Andhe signed it. He did the
Sarah Guthals (05:54):
number one. So I think it'll be easy to find.
Pj Metz (05:58):
That's right. But yeah, we have a great show today. Um,
we have a guest today who isvery important in, in my life,
because when I started thisjourney of getting into tech, I
had two mentors. I had Brandon,I had Chloe and both of them
were giving me a lot of helpwith a lot of the things I
needed to learn things like getthings like just the the way
(06:19):
work is done in the developerworld. And this person on today,
was instrumental in me reallystarting to take seriously that
I could work in tech and that Icould be a part of tech. And I'm
very, very excited to have heron the show today. And I'd like
you all to please welcome,Regina. Ah.
Regina Bluman (06:45):
Hi, thanks so much for having me. God,
Pj Metz (06:48):
that's such a good sound. I have too many stupid
sounds that I've downloaded fromstream deck. And I don't get to
use them enough for Chinami
Regina Bluman (06:56):
like radio DJ and family guy who plays and
effects. It is.
Pj Metz (07:01):
It is honestly my inspiration is terrible.
American 1980s radio DJs. And Ithink I'm doing pretty good at
it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, they never should havegotten me the stream deck. Rash.
How are you doing?
Regina Bluman (07:20):
I'm really well thing. Oh, yeah. Well, you've
covered how you are. Very good.
Thanks.
Pj Metz (07:27):
Good, good. So there's people out there who don't know
you, which I find hard tobelieve. But how about you tell
us about yourself a quick introif you don't mind?
Regina Bluman (07:36):
Yeah, sure. So as PJ said, I'm I'm red. And my
name is Regina. But everyonecalls me red. I am American,
even though you can't tell fromthe accent. I've been in the UK
for 11 years, I think. And I ama tech convert. So I started off
(07:57):
my life, my career in marketing.
And yeah, now working incybersecurity. So me.
Pj Metz (08:05):
Fantastic. So that that tech convert, like you weren't
in tech, and then you switch totech. I wasn't in tech. And then
I switch to tech. Dr. G, youweren't in tech, and you switch
to tech, right?
Sarah Guthals (08:16):
Yeah, I switched in college. So I think people
don't often associate it withkind of a switch. But then I
also didn't focus exclusively ontech. It was like tech
education. So Oh, yeah. Butyeah, I didn't discover it until
I took one class. And I waslike, What is this?
Pj Metz (08:34):
It's always exciting that that one thing that like
sort of flips the switch for youthat makes you go, Oh, that's
neat. Yeah. What was that foryou? What was that, that thing
that flipped the switch for
Regina Bluman (08:43):
you. Um, so I went to a security conference.
So I, technically, I was stillworking in tech, because I
worked for IT companies, but Iwas in marketing. So I was very
hands off. I was not technicalin the slightest. I was doing
social media and, you know,organizing events and stuff like
that. So I wasn't doing the techside of it. And so I went to a
(09:06):
security conference, to just tryand get some more content, you
know, for blogs and stuff likethat. And there was three or
four speakers who spoke who kindof stuck in my head to this day.
And it was just the idea of howhow much security touched
everyone's lives and kind of theimpact that security has on
(09:28):
things. And so there was ajournalist is called Jeff White,
and he talked about someresearch that he did on
different types of ransomwarearound the world. So we we tend
to think of ransomware as youknow, being very generic across
the board. And he talks aboutdifferent attacks, and this has
(09:50):
stuck in my head forever. Hetalked about this one, basically
in Japan, and it was how theychanged And the viruses based on
the culture of the companiesthat they were attacking. So, in
Japanese culture, there's a lotof people who are very by the
rules, it's very kind of formaland it's, you know, the kind of
(10:14):
the inbuilt right and wrong is avery important thing. And so it
was a pop up, that would come upon some porn sites that
basically the the attackers arekind of taken over. And so it
didn't pop up and say that, youknow, we've got you on video,
and now we're gonna hold you toransom, or, you know, it didn't,
(10:34):
it just popped up and said thatyou're in an area, which is for
members only, and you haven'tpaid to be here. And so you have
to click this window, you haveto click this and pay to be in
this area, because you've you'veaccessed this and you shouldn't
be here. And that was it. It wasliterally just a pop up window.
It didn't do all people neededto do was close it, it wouldn't
affect their computer, it didn'tencrypt the files, but the sense
(10:57):
of like I'm in a place shouldn'tbe, they made loads of money
from worked. And that was justpassing the idea. Yeah, the idea
of the kind of personal side ofsecurity. Just hooked me. So
here I am.
Pj Metz (11:14):
Something amazing, the idea of like security being a
cultural thing, too, and howlike different attacks come from
different cultures. That's wild.
Yeah. Dr. G, did you find
Sarah Guthals (11:28):
the Japanese porn site? No.
No, I was looking for a similarstory, that I recently heard
about how these attackers werelooking for people who were
very, like high up in theirindustry, and inviting them to
(11:51):
be on like a board of some sort.
And, and what the hackers didwas actually hack a university's
server like email server and beable to send emails from the
university. And they actuallycreated like a page on the
university's domain. So theywere sending emails to the like,
high level professionals as thisprofessor, getting them to sign
(12:14):
up for this thing. And like, itall looked legit, because the
people that they were trying tohack were like, people who would
check domains and like, not justclick on random links. And so
they did this whole convolutedthing. But Reggie, actually, I
wanted to ask you, because Iknow you said, you know, you
were marketing, but not none ofthe tech stuff. But every single
(12:37):
marketing person I've workedwith at technical companies is
very technical, like, and Idon't mean, their writing code.
Because I don't think that's theonly way of being technical. But
the fact that you were at thissecurity conference, and the
fact that you were looking forcontent, you you understood kind
of who the technical audiencewas, you understood what the
(12:59):
company did. And were able totranslate that I think that that
is more technical than what alot of developers do, to be
honest.
Regina Bluman (13:08):
Yeah, I, I think you're right. And I, I've been
pulled up on this before, and Ineed to, it's something I need
to work on is I need to stopsaying that I'm not technical.
There's a lot of things I can'tdo that are techie. But I am
technically minded. And I thinkyou're right, there's a huge
(13:29):
element of people who are inmarketing. And there is, that
was one of the reasons why Ikind of got into security is
because I needed to understand,like marketing or sales, right,
and I need to understand what Iwas selling. And so I need to
understand who am I going totarget with this. And I think
bad marketing, you can stillstay very removed from what
you're what you're selling. Butgood marketing, whether that's
(13:54):
tech or cars or anything else,you have to understand who your
audience is, you have tounderstand why they're
interested in it. So you'reright. That's a really good
point. It's, and yes, there wasthe technical understanding.
Sarah Guthals (14:06):
Yeah. And I feel like you're, you know, skills in
in marketing and understandingwhether it's technical marketing
or not just understanding youraudience and being able to
deliver what, what would workfor them. I bet those skills are
huge insecurity, because that'skind of the whole point, right,
(14:26):
is being able to anticipatewhat, you know, a victim of a
hack or, you know, somethingmight be being able to
anticipate the actions of thehacker like, you know, I'm just
using hackers, but like, youknow, I feel like that that
understanding of how peoplethink and act is probably huge.
And you're here now. Yeah,
Regina Bluman (14:48):
it's, it's come in handy so much. Whether you're
trying to get a developer tounderstand why you need to do
things in a certain way, whetheryou're trying to get your mom to
understand how To do somethingthat you know, it's still
relating something, then youhave to learn how to translate
something in a way that makespeople care about it. Because as
much as I love security, I know,most people don't. So I can be
(15:12):
really excited about it. But ifI don't know how to make it
relevant to them, it's nevergonna land. It's never gonna go
anywhere. So yeah, it is it ismarketing. And it, it took me a
really long time when I was kindof moving across and the amount
of people who didn't get thatand to say that it's a
transferable skill. Andactually, you know, it is a
really good thing for me to havethis experience. There's so many
(15:35):
people who don't see it likethat. Yeah.
Pj Metz (15:39):
It goes, go ahead, Sarah.
Sarah Guthals (15:41):
I was just gonna ask like, I don't I don't know
the story of Reggie and PJ. So Iknow, PJ, you had your career
before that, too. Before whatyou're doing now. And education.
And like, you know, could y'allshare a bit more about about
what Reggie kind of shared withyou? Because I feel like those
skills prior to entering techare so critical. And I agree,
(16:04):
Reggie, I feel like some peoplejust don't get it. They're
wrong. Don't quote me. But like,yeah, what can you tell me a bit
more about that?
Pj Metz (16:16):
Oh, I think I'll take it, I'll take a stab at it. So I
was a teacher for 10 yearsbefore this, I wanted to be a
high school English teacher.
It's something I realized in mythird year of college, that was
what I really wanted to do. Andso that's just what I was going
to do forever. Um, it didamazing things. For me, I became
a really confident publicspeaker. And a lot of the skills
(16:39):
I developed as a teacher reallysharpened what is I think
inappropriately called softskills. I think that soft skills
are interpersonal skills. And Ithink interpersonal skills are
how we relate to each other, andall businesses, how you relate
to each other. Everything is howyou relate to other people. So I
got really good at that. And I,when I was thinking of
(17:02):
transferring, the first thing, Ithink that really made me
realize I could work in tech,because at first, I was learning
to code. And I was like, Oh, Ican build a website or an app
for my students that make me abetter teacher. One of the first
things that made me realize Icould be a great that I could be
in tech at all, was closereading a description of a
(17:24):
DevRel job for airtable. Andactually posted that clip on
Twitch a few days ago. But whatReggie did specifically is
Reggie was the first personoutside of my mentors, who I
felt like had to like me, likethey had invested time in me.
And they were like, well, PJ'sgot to succeed. Now I'm going to
make sure he succeeds. Becauseotherwise, like, that looks bad.
(17:44):
For me. i It's like the way youcan write off compliments from
your partner very easilysometimes. But yeah, read said,
Oh, I think you would probablybe really good at this. And
like, sent me a position for hercompany, and was like, I can put
you in contact with someone. Andthe fact that a person who only
saw what I had been sort ofdoing online where I was like
(18:09):
doing streams with Chloe andbuilding Twitter bots and sort
of that stuff, saw something
Regina Bluman (18:14):
in me and enough for me like
Pj Metz (18:17):
I should i bought it.
That's my that's my application.
Actually, I just send them alink to Shanaya bot and say it
is. But yeah, this realizationthat my skills and what I had
learned as an educator, were notonly useful in a new career, but
desirable in an employeecompletely changed the way I was
(18:41):
thinking about my job search.
And like I said, Reggie was oneof the first people outside of
my mentors who was like, Yeah,you can do this because even at
home, I was constantly like, Idon't know that I can do this.
And my wife was like, I mean,are you gonna be able to do
this? I was like, I don't know.
Like, this seems to be fine. Um,but yeah, absolutely. And that's
how I met. It was through Chloe.
Really? I think Chloe knew you.
(19:03):
Y'all were like, well,
Regina Bluman (19:05):
yeah, just on Twitter.
Pj Metz (19:08):
Real life.
Regina Bluman (19:10):
All I did was send the link.
Pj Metz (19:13):
It meant the world to me at the time. I remember
actually, I was looking throughour Twitter conversation that we
had when you were reaching outto me. And you were like, do you
have time today? I was like, Oh,I'm babysitting a national
English Honor Society meetingright now. But afterwards, I can
chat. And remembering that partof my job was like, working with
student groups that the studentgroups really ran themselves and
(19:35):
I was just there as an adult inthe room. So I have these times.
I was just like, I would justlet them kind of do work and
make sure that they were likeheaded in the right direction.
And there's value in and I justloved, I could talk teaching all
day. There's days I miss it, butlike other days, I get to string
with two awesome people andthat's way cooler than talking
about AP English.
Sarah Guthals (20:00):
So read you said that you moved to the UK 11
years ago? Yeah, I think so. Butyou didn't have an accent prior
to that. I know curious aboutthat.
Regina Bluman (20:13):
One and raised in Colorado. So I lived in the
States my whole life. And then Imet my boyfriend in the States,
whose English so I moved over.
And I think so I have a lot offriends who are American who
have been here for longer thanme, and they still have their
accent like 100%. But Colorado'sdead center in the US, it's a
(20:33):
very neutral accent to beginwith. So I didn't have like a
southern twang, or like a Bostonaccent or anything like that. So
I had a pretty neutral accent.
But then when I moved here, Ididn't work for an American
company. I didn't move here withfamily. So I didn't hear an
American accent. Like unless itwas my family at home. Everyone
(20:53):
I lived with everyone I workedwith is English. And so it just
kind of crept in. It was neverlike, I always felt you know,
the episode from friends whenAmanda comes back, and everyone
is like, oh, Amanda ring me onmy mobile. I'm forever paranoid
that I'm that person. Like, youknow, the person who likes
(21:14):
studies abroad, and they comeback and have an accent. But if
I actually try and do a Britishaccent, and it sounds horrible,
so I can, I can assure you thatthis isn't odd. But it's just
like I still say like banana andtomato and like it's still
(21:34):
there. It's just very weird. NowI just sound like a month.
Sarah Guthals (21:40):
I don't you know, cuz i. So I'm Latina. And my mom
and Grandpa are from Hawaii andSouth America. And so they speak
a very specific kind of dialectof Spanish. And then when I went
to school, it was more of like aSpain Spanish. And I even had
some teachers, I had someteachers that were Mexican and
(22:01):
some that were from Spain. Sothat I would do like a fail
every once in a while. But I youuse like voce with my family and
then who stay with us? Yeah. Andthen and then when I got to high
school, all of my friends wereMexican. And so my Spanish is
just like so confusing. And I'mlike you said like, I'm like a
(22:22):
mutt of the Spanish language.
And then I you know, I don'tspeak it every day all day
anymore. And so now I've gotthis, like, you know, I forget
verbs. And so then it's likesome English in there. And it's
just like a mess.
Pj Metz (22:33):
It's it's a U N accent.
Yeah,
Regina Bluman (22:37):
yeah, exactly. I had no idea until I moved here
and went to Spain for the firsttime how different Spain Spanish
was. And my boyfriend. We wereat dinner, and he said, you
know, graffia and I was like,yeah. Why have you got a lisp?
All of a sudden, were and I justpour into it. I was like, What
are you doing? It's not how youpronounce it. And then I was
(22:59):
like, Oh, all right. differentaccents. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh,
Mexican, Spanish. Like, that'swhat I would in it. I that's
what I grew up learning. SpainSpanish is like, I don't know
what, completely.
Sarah Guthals (23:16):
I've heard that American is different, too. It's
like a mixture.
Pj Metz (23:20):
I was in high school.
My my girlfriend for most ofhigh school was Colombian and my
mother is Puerto Rican. And whenour mothers would talk, it was
like, two completely differentlanguages. Like my mom would use
slang and have to like, oh,wait, what's the real word for
that? Like? Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Guthals (23:37):
So much trouble for saying God fool. In the
movie,
Pj Metz (23:43):
the TIC TOCs that are like when you're Spanish in the
Spanish class, like if you'reLatino and Spanish class and
like Cuomo said, He's saying carand the kids are like in
correcto. And say, DC se elcoche. Che? And he's like,
Sarah Guthals (24:00):
seeing my grandpa was like, No, it's the movie.
Pj Metz (24:08):
I've heard that an accent like falling into an
accent from people around you isrelated to empathy. And like, my
sister and I are the same. LikeI'll start pulling in accent
when I'm around people and mybrain is always like, don't do
it. They're gonna think you'remaking fun of them. Be careful.
But an accent can be reallyimportant to being understood
(24:28):
when you're in a new place. WhenI was in Korea for a year and a
half. I had to learn to say lonewords with an English and with a
Korean accent, which made mefeel terrible. The first time I
tried to order a hamburger overthere. The way you order things
is you say the noun of what youwant. And then you say just say
oh, which means give me please.
So a hamburger juicio meansplease give me a hamburger. So I
(24:51):
went to it. It was like mysecond month there. I went to a
what's called a latte. Lots ofRIA which is a fast food place
that does burgers. I said,cheeseburger just sale. And the
guy looked at me he wasterrified. And I was like, oh,
no, I said it wrong. What and Iwas like, um, cheeseburger, just
sale. And he was like lookingaround for the person that
(25:13):
spoke. And I was like, okay,just look at the menu and read
the because I could read theKorean. And so I looked them and
you I found it and I went, QiJabba juicio and he went, Oh,
Cheetah burger. And I was like,No, and that's when I realized,
if you're, if it's a loan word,especially saying it with the
(25:33):
accent actually helps make youunderstood better.
Sarah Guthals (25:39):
That's so fascinating. I also like my
husband can tell who I'm talkingto on the phone, depending on
how I'm speaking. Like, my, myvoice, like my, my, just
everything about how I speakchanges, depending on which
friend I'm talking to. And I'mnot conscious, I can now notice
it, but it's not conscious atall.
Regina Bluman (26:01):
I would just went back to Colorado a couple of
weeks ago, and I was there for10 days. And while I was there,
I could hear me becoming moreAmerican. When I was there,
again. It's crept back, I thinkit's back to whatever my accent
is normally now. But while I wasthere, I can hear me pronouncing
stuff. And I was like, Oh, Idon't normally say it like that
(26:22):
I was that definitely
Pj Metz (26:28):
rides when you're so this, this total career change,
like you moved into securityfrom marketing. That happened
two years ago, you said a yearand a half
Regina Bluman (26:38):
ago? Yeah, yeah, year and a half.
Pj Metz (26:41):
So what is something?
We talked earlier about howimportant our former careers can
be as far as skills related to anew career? What's something you
think you brought with you frommarketing securities that you
wouldn't have known otherwise?
Regina Bluman (26:56):
And
Pj Metz (26:59):
I put you on the spot.
This is a big no, actually, as Iwas asking this question, I was
like this a lot. So
Regina Bluman (27:05):
I think similar to what we talked about earlier,
in terms of the the ability tokind of understand your target
audience, and to be able to kindof frame things in a way that
they need to understand or thatwill hook their interest. And I
think that that bit of it is issuper important. But I think
(27:27):
probably more practically beenthe marketing side of things. I
had a huge amount of exposure todifferent vendors and different
companies and how theypositioned themselves. And now
kind of being the other side ofit. In terms of like the buyer,
the user of the tech, it's beenreally nice to kind of have that
(27:48):
understanding to say, Oh,actually, I know a company who,
who kind of positionedthemselves in this way, or I
know a company who offers that.
Because when you're this side,it's there's so many, you know,
there's so many companies, andthose new security companies
that are starting up all thetime, and they all have a
slightly different, you know,niche that they fit in
Pj Metz (28:08):
very hyper specific thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Regina Bluman (28:12):
And so it's kind of like you just can't see
because there's so manycompanies, whereas the fact that
I've been the other side, and Iknow, you know, I spent my job
was to understand theirpositioning and to understand
their selling points and docompetitor analysis. And, you
know, my job was to researchthese companies. And so to be
the other side of that, I thinkthat's really helped me kind of
(28:35):
understand what a good kind ofsecurity tech stack, I would
want to build a one to use.
Sarah Guthals (28:41):
I think it's so fascinating, because I feel like
too often, people who startedout as devs, and are still devs,
and didn't have like a differentcareer interest, forget that
they're a part of business in alarger capitalistic ecosystem.
And so I've often hadconversations where it's like,
(29:03):
you know, yes, I understand thattiny feature might be
technologically interesting, butthat's not going to sell. And
it's not that everything needsto sell, but it does, like, we
work for a company that is partof it. And I think like, like
understanding how to positionthings to customers, but then
(29:24):
also back to the rest of theteam, right? Like, that was
always part of my job as like anengineering manager was, was
saying, like, I understand thatyou're interested in this, how
can we dislike show the benefitto customers, and then weigh
whether our effort is worth thatamount of benefit, right, and
(29:46):
being able to frame it likethat? And so I feel like that's
a really good, kind of, I don'tknow, just perspective and we
had a question in the chat foryou too. Mostly, but do you feel
like you would be be successfulin your current career, your
current position, if you hadn'thad your experiences in
marketing or in teaching?
Pj Metz (30:08):
I absolutely wouldn't be.
Regina Bluman (30:11):
I mean, I I disagree with that. I know, I
know. I don't know, you see, butI think you would be you
obviously have the inclinationfor it, and you have the, you
know, those skills aren'tloaned. That's something inside
of you that you're very good atteaching that you're very
passionate about things. Ithink, yes, I probably would be
successful, but I'd probably bea dickhead. Like, I know, I
(30:35):
would be one of those people.
And there are security peoplewho think that they do run the
business and they think thateverything is is the security is
the most important thing. Andyou lose sight of of what else
is out there. If you've onlyever done one thing and not to
say that people who have had onecareer path our whole lives are
dickheads because someone willhear me say that and go Oh,
(30:57):
thanks a lot veg
Pj Metz (30:59):
clarification.
Regina Bluman (31:03):
Yeah, exactly.
But I think it absolutely helpscontribute to success to kind of
be able to see things fromanother side.
Pj Metz (31:13):
I agree that like, certainly, I could say I would I
would find a way to besuccessful. I believe that like,
what what I do is something Inot not that I always could have
done it. But my personality is abig part of what why I'm doing
well right now, I think. But Ithink about very specific things
(31:35):
like classroom management andpreparing lesson plans and
considering things like, Well,what do I want them to learn by
the end of? Or more importantly,what do I want them to be able
to do by the end of this? Andbecause I did 10 years of
thinking like that, that'singrained? When I create a
workshop or even just apresentation, what do I want
(31:58):
them to be able to do at the endof this is just the thought I
have while I'm working now. So Ithink I think of like the
specific skills I picked up as ateacher. And I know for me that
those skills are what I'mleaning on right now to do well
at this job right now. But Iagree with you that like, and I
agree with you to Sarah, the theperson who is kind of like hyper
(32:21):
focused on their job will oftenoverinflate the importance of
their specific work. And it'simportant to recognize you're
part of an ecosystem, you know,your finger is super important.
And it allows you to grabthings, and it allows you to
gesture and allows you to do alot. But it is a part of a body
and that body is a part of aperson. And we need to
(32:43):
understand that when you're on ateam. It is all in service of a
single goal. And whatever you'redoing to achieve that goal, it
has to work. Yep,
Regina Bluman (32:52):
yeah, yeah, there was one thing I learned. So they
said it to me on my first day atmy company, in our induction was
basically we find ways to sayyes, so security, our job is to
say yes to things, our job is tofind a way to say yes. And that
is completely counter to almosteverything that I learned kind
(33:13):
of when I was self studyinginsecurity and trying to skill
up. It was you know, securityshould lock things down. And
security shouldn't allow that.
And then to come to a companywhere they wouldn't look, we
want to allow things we want tosay yes to things. It's a
completely different mindset,but the attitude and the way the
relationship that we have withthe rest of the business, the
respect that we have within thebusiness and the weight that
(33:36):
that kind of carries that we arelistened to. And you know, if we
do say no to something, theyknow that it's a very serious
No, because we don't do it off.
And it's it's really important,I think, to understand, again,
especially I've definitelyworked places where security
teams are our business blocos.
And, you know, if you work for asecurity company, that's fine.
(34:00):
Security can be the mostimportant thing. But it's not
our job to run the business.
It's our job to facilitatebusiness safely. You know, it's
not our show. And I think nothaving I think I'd lost sight of
that self study. And I thinkit's very easy to think of
security as, as an allencompassing thing. And that's
(34:24):
super important. And that's onething I mentor, a group of kind
of career changes. And that'sone thing I always try and
enforced to them is it's superimportant to just remember that
it's very rare that you're goingto be in the position where you
get to call the shots like it'sit's not security space to do
(34:45):
that.
Pj Metz (34:50):
That idea of security being about saying yes, and I
think that's a really fresh wayof looking at it. It's security
really is about making sure thatThe right people, tools, actors,
whatever, have access when theyneed it. And it's not about
blocking everyone out, becausethen we could just pour concrete
(35:11):
walls over things and be like,that's great. But yeah, it very
Yeah, good, good security isabout letting the right people
in not just keeping the badpeople out. That's fantastically
your company. sounds dope.
Sarah Guthals (35:26):
I think that's a good point, too. Because it's,
it's like, the idea of like, Ifeel like I would trust a
security team thinking more oftrying to say yes, because it's
the idea of being able toeventually prevent things that
you're not expecting. Right. So.
So it's kind of like going withthe assumption. Like, I've
(35:47):
always liked, okay, I've alwayshated when I worked with other
developers, and they wanted togo with the assumption that
people were going to use thetechnology correctly. Right. And
so and so I always approachedit, because my mom, you know,
just retired from teaching, andshe was the, the most
technologically advanced teacheron her school site. And no, I
(36:09):
love her but no, like. And so,you know, I would always
approach things from thatperspective, like, you have to
understand that there are entireecosystems, these employees who
literally don't understand howemail works, literally say, you
know, my passwords not working,because they're using their
(36:30):
email password to unlock theirFacebook, like, you know, and
and, and so I would always tryto approach technology as like,
how do you make sure that peoplecan't do the wrong thing? And I
don't and it's not the can'tit's like, how do we assume that
they're going to try to do thewrong thing? And then we protect
them from that. Right. And itsounds like that's more of what
your company is thinking about?
Like, how do we assume anythingcan happen and still ensure
(36:54):
protection? You know, beyondthat?
Regina Bluman (36:56):
Yeah, it's, have you seen that? The video of I
think it's a tick tock of a UXdesigner, and kind of watching
someone put the the holes, the,like, wooden
Pj Metz (37:10):
scrapes, and they're like, Yes, that's right. Where
Regina Bluman (37:15):
it's yeah, it's exactly like that, like, you can
just not you can put best effortinto designing something
properly, but people will dowhat they've always done, and
they what they know how to do.
And if they're allowed to do it,they'll do it. And there's a
really big, I mean, there's ahuge trade off between trust and
security, right. So it's, youdon't want to alienate people
too much by saying, Look, wedon't trust you, at some point,
(37:37):
if you've hired them, if theyhave a job, you have to trust
them. But at the same time, youknow, there are people who are
corrupt, there are people whowill, you know, who can be
tempted to sell something from acompany or whatever. And so it's
always this balance. And, youknow, you won't always get it,
right, like, some things willhappen, and some things will go
(38:00):
wrong. But I think at the end ofthe day business, you know,
that's a risk that the businesshas to take, and if they want
things to be done, and if theywant productivity, you know,
something has to be sacrificed.
In an ideal world, everyonewould be, you know, on air
gapped devices, and no one wouldhave access to anything. And
(38:20):
wouldn't that be nice from asecurity perspective, then we're
out of a job. Like, that's notwhat we're here, for. We're here
to facilitate people doing theirjob safely and securely, and
we're there to keep people safe,we're there to keep the company
safe. We're not there to justshut people down and say, No,
you can't do what you want todo. Because if you stop people
(38:41):
from using tools that they want,if you stop people from using
platforms that they want,they'll leave and they'll go
somewhere else. And you knowthat that can't be our fault. We
can't not attract top talentbecause your security team is
unreasonable.
Sarah Guthals (38:54):
Or they'll like, they'll they'll they'll find a
way around it not becausethey're trying to be malicious,
but because it's a part of theirjob. And they're like, Well, I
don't have to do this, I'm gonnahave to do it on my personal
computer. Now, all of a sudden,you can't track anything is
they're doing it on a personalcomputer, because
Regina Bluman (39:10):
people will find a way to do what they want to do
Pj Metz (39:12):
exactly what Billy Joel was right? It's a matter of
trust. For those of you don'tknow, that's a Billy Joel song.
We're gonna take a quick, quickbreak. And we're going to be
right back after this word fromour sponsors. i If you're
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(39:33):
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Quick note that is read andStimpy background music and it's
(40:24):
totally copyright free and Ilove it.
Sarah Guthals (40:29):
I can't believe that that's copyright free and I
want it on everything now.
Pj Metz (40:35):
I double triple checked it because like, it's some of
the Ren and Stimpy backgroundmusic is also like Spongebob
background music. But like notall SpongeBob music is copyright
free. But those are just likethings from like the 40s that
the Ren and Stimpy team foundand we're like, oh, we'll just
use this in the background. Ilove it. I love it. Speaking of
(40:59):
copyright, free background musicsegue. Read, we've been talking
about security, we've beentalking about letting the right
person in. And we've beentalking about switching careers
and how skills in the past havecome to now what is a challenge
of of that switch? And what issomething that you felt you had
(41:20):
to like, overcome that maybe youdidn't expect while you were
changing.
Regina Bluman (41:25):
And so I think a big challenge was around trying
to get people to, like we weretalking about earlier trying to
get people to kind of appreciatethose transferable skills. And
so a lot of especially kind ofautomated screening software
kind of looks at my CV and like,right, she's head of marketing.
(41:45):
So that's a no. And it was justthat I never even kind of got
the chance to make my argument.
And you know, there's a millionthings that we can say about the
the annoyances and the perils ofautomated screening. But I know
from an HR perspective, youknow, they can be overwhelmed
with applications and you know,something's got to give. But
(42:06):
that was a really big struggle.
For me, it was kind of trying totrying to get people to buy into
that idea of just because Ididn't have a traditional
background, it didn't matter. Icouldn't, it didn't mean I
couldn't do the job. And selfdoubt was a huge thing as well,
I have like, the idea that Ifelt like I had so much to learn
(42:30):
and so much catching up to do.
And I still do the amount ofthings that people talk about
the history of cybersecurity,and people who are really big in
the scene in the 80s. And like Iwasn't, I wasn't born, like I
didn't know anything about it.
And I, I have this constantbattle between kind of trying to
(42:51):
feel like I have to catch up onon everything. And then just
focusing on where I want to goand what I want to do next. And
part of it is like, Am I missingout on something? What if there
is an area that I really wouldlike that I don't know about
yet, part of it, I worry thatthere's gaps in my knowledge,
and so I'm not. So for example,you know, I work for a software
(43:12):
company, we have a hugedevelopment team. I'm not great
with software development,because I've never done it
before. And so that's a huge gapin my in my skill set is the
whole dev SEC ops thing. It'snot something that I've been on
this side of before. I've beenon either side before. And so
(43:33):
the self doubt of maybe I don'tknow enough to do this may be I
need to study more. And I spentyears studying before I made the
leap across. And I still havethat now where I think you know,
I need to learn this or I needto learn more about this before
I'm comfortable doing thisproject or before I'm
comfortable telling someone whatto do I need to go and read this
(43:53):
entire book on networking. Andit's just, I think I'll always
have that. And part of it's ahealthy thing. And I think part
of it is good. But it was a hugehurdle. Before I started
applying for jobs and similaryou said, you know, EJ that it
was it was this, like I didn'treally think I could do it. It
(44:13):
was an interest, but I didn'treally know that I could do it.
So that was a huge, a hugebattle as well. I think
Sarah Guthals (44:23):
I you know, I it's so funny because I come
from I got my bachelor's,master's and PhD in computer
science. The reason I stayed wasbecause by the time I was done
with my bachelor's, I felt likeI did still didn't know
anything. And I was like, I gotthis opportunity because I was
already working with a professorwhose research area was in
(44:44):
computer science education tostay and I was like, great. Now
I can learn what I don't know.
Right? And during grad school, Istarted a company teaching kids
how to code and again I lovedthat side of it right? My whole
dissertation was always around?
How do you incorporate novicesnot just teach them semantics.
(45:05):
And when I applied for my firstfull time job, like, that wasn't
my own startup. I was told bythe recruiter, I don't have the
right skill set to be anengineering manager at GitHub.
And luckily, I was eight monthspregnant, needing a full time
job and said, I'm no, you'rewrong, I need this. Here's
(45:28):
exactly why being a PhD studentwas a skill set that's similar
to being an engineering manager,having the startup these are the
things that I did to, you know,and I had that confidence,
because I was pregnant, like,let's not have confidence in
myself, it was like, I needhealth insurance, I need this
job, you're going to give it tome. And luckily, she like passed
(45:50):
on my resume to the hiringmanager, who was like, Oh, I
definitely see how these skillstransfer. Um, but like, I feel
you so much rich, because I havethis more traditional
background, and like, you know,doctor in front of my name,
whatever, whatever. I don't knowanything. Like, That's literally
how I feel like, every singletime I enter into a room of
(46:11):
people, I'm like, I haven't Idon't know anything about
security, like, at all, youcould tell me anything. And I'm
like, please, because I knownothing. You know, I barely know
about web development, right?
Because all the things that Iworked on, were more client
based applications and, andeducational applications. And
so, you know, I've, I've beenlucky enough to find dev role
(46:34):
and kind of I can, I can learnanything fairly quickly. But I,
my skill is being able to knowenough to help the other person
get what they need out of myteaching, right? Like, that's
where I feel like I have skill.
So anyways, all I wanted to saywas, I feel you because as
(46:57):
someone with that moretraditional background, I'm 100%
right there with you. There's noway I could possibly know
everything in tech, and everysingle time I consider doing a
job switch, I purchase anddownload a bunch of textbooks to
my Kindle.
Pj Metz (47:14):
Yeah, that's right. It can be such a motivating factor,
you know, it can be really goodto, to feel to know where your
gaps are. Because first off,knowing where your gap in skill,
your skill and knowledge gapsare, is such an important part
of learning that we don'taccurately teach in the
(47:35):
education system. We don't teachkids to recognize when they
don't know, and how, what thenext step is. So recognizing
those gaps is huge. Both of youare already like, well, I need
to learn and so you set out totry and learn it. And that's
exactly what should be done. Soit can be motivating. But it is
very, very difficult. At thesame time, in emotional labor,
(47:58):
you're constantly having to feellike you should be there. I just
learned the other day, peoplearound me had been saying, Oh,
we're talking about shiftingleft today. Oh, we got to shift
left and make sure we'reshifting. And I would just get
like, totally left ship, forsure, man. And I think I was at
an education conference. And mymanager was talking to someone
(48:19):
said, you know, we're shiftingleft, we're making security more
of a focus at the beginning andoutlawed and when is that what
that means? And she was like,
Sarah Guthals (48:27):
yeah, and then I never heard it before. Just
saying
Pj Metz (48:30):
it's brand new. Right?
And it's like, it's about makingsecurity a focus earlier in the
development process. Don't buildthe app, make it work, and then
go. And now how do we make itsecure? make security a part of
it? While you're building?
Right?
Sarah Guthals (48:43):
Yeah, that's my philosophy with inclusion on on
technology, you do
Pj Metz (48:48):
not build a product?
And then say, Now, how do weinclude others? Nope. Yeah. At
the beginning, at the beginning,um, but that that's, it's so
exciting to, to have thatknowledge of where you're
lacking and to be able to use itto get better. But absolutely,
it is difficult and it takeslabor, real emotional labor to
(49:10):
get through that.
Sarah Guthals (49:13):
Or to decide I don't need to know this, because
we're not all going to knoweverything in tech. So to
decide, you know, what, I amgood at this part. And I, I can
learn that. And I might want to,like you said, Read you like I
might want to explore somethingbecause maybe I like it more.
But if I decide, You know what,I never need to know how to do
(49:34):
that. Yeah, so okay.
Regina Bluman (49:37):
Yeah, I, I have a mentor who I work with. And she
has been fantastic for kind ofkeeping me on track because
every time I speak to him, like,Oh, I just got a book on this.
Or I spent a load of money on acoding course and she's like, so
why are you doing coding course?
Like, because I might need toknow one day. Like, no, you
don't need to know. So I hatelike I'm horrible at codeine, I
(50:00):
know this is a target audience,but I hate codeine. I tried so,
so many times to learn, I havespent a lot of money on boot
camps. And I am not a coder. Andshe, it's so nice to have
someone to kind of bounce thatoff of and say, Look, these are
my career goals. This is where Iwant to go. Do you think this is
(50:21):
valuable for me to learn or not?
And she's like, nope, drop it.
Don't learn that learn thisinstead. And that has been so
nice to have, because otherwise,I would just like, you know,
I've got a million textbooks,which I've probably never even
opened half of them, justbecause I think I need to know
them one day.
Sarah Guthals (50:41):
Yeah, I learned.
I didn't like to code all day.
Like, I could not be in a jobwhere I only coded all day every
day. It's just, like monotonousfor me. Yeah. And I love making
stuff. I love writing code, butfor very specific purposes. And
that's why I love, you know, DevRel in general, because it's,
(51:04):
you know, you can you can findthe motivation behind it. But
I'm with you.
Pj Metz (51:08):
Yeah, if I had to actually build real apps, I
don't know that I could do it.
And that's why I only buildTwitter bots over and over and
over and over and over again, togo there.
Sarah Guthals (51:16):
I do think we could all do it. We could. But I
don't think the motivationsthere. Like,
Pj Metz (51:22):
I think that's important, right? Yeah. Like why
you're doing something is justas important as what you're
doing. And if it's for themoney, and that's enough to
sustain your motivation. Totallyfine. Do it for the money. If
it's because you're superpassionate about building the
best Knucks j s like app, do itwhatever it is that works for
(51:44):
you. Your motivation is veryimportant. Yep. Yeah.
Absolutely. Read you are youwere talking earlier about how
like, you were like, Oh, I wasdoubting myself. And I couldn't
get that first step out ofmarketing into it. Because there
was a lot of like, well, that'snot transferable. Once you got
there, you found there was a lottransferable. And now you're a
huge advocate for it. You didpoint to me, you were like, sort
(52:07):
of like you, I honestly, I feellike I am more likely to be
given the benefit of the doubt,based on a few things. One, I'm
a dude. Like, I get an automaticbenefit of doubt, too. I'm
really like, loud and like, Idon't let people not take notice
of me. And I think that thosethings came together. And I
(52:28):
think there's opportunities thatcome my way that don't come
everyone's way. And so that'swhy I always feel strange saying
I could do it. So can youbecause I recognize that there's
an immense amount of privilegethat came my way. Like, yes,
there was opportunity, and I didwork but like, I don't feel
qualified to say things like,Oh, I did it and so can you I'd
(52:51):
rather say things like here'sexactly what I did. Here's what
I know and I hope this can helpbut I it's it's it's terrible
the sort of the way that a lotof women and and people of color
and minorities in Tech have aextra almost target on their
(53:14):
shoulders, especially if they'rereally visible online about it.
Yeah, I'm, I'm fairly insulatedon Twitter. I follow a lot of
people with the same ideas andlove and care. But I know that
it's a warzone out there. Canyou speak to that experience, or
I feel unqualified to speak tothat experience, but I felt like
I wanted to bring it up ifthat's okay.
Regina Bluman (53:34):
Yeah, of course.
I say various, you know, yes,I'm a woman so I'm slightly more
inconvenience, possibly. But I'mEnglish speaking as my first
language. I'm white. I'mstraight. I have long you know,
blonde hair. I'm like, ablebodied. I'm not diverse, like I
am, you know, I'm not that kindof token diversity hire. But for
(53:56):
the security industry, I stillam. And I'm incredibly fortunate
that my network on Twitter,that's how I found my job. So I
didn't to be very clear, Iwasn't offered a job on Twitter,
I was sent up. So basically, howI kind of made the move is I was
in I was head of marketing. So Iheaded up a department for big
(54:20):
MSP. They restructured and Ididn't like the way that they
restructured I thought it wasbad for the business. And so I
kind of made my argument andsaid, Look, I would do it
differently, and they didn'tlisten to me. So I went alright,
I'm gonna go because I don'twant to be over a department
that is running away I don'tagree with and so I handed my
(54:40):
notice in and I startedinterviewing elsewhere. And I
just was like, my heart is notlike I've talked about moving
into security for long enough.
Everyone hates interviewing. Soif I'm going to be interviewing,
like screw it, I'm just going todo it. So I handed my notice and
without any job to go to in themiddle of COVID. It just started
and like, why not, I'll justchange careers as well. And so I
(55:04):
put something out on Twitter andsaid, Look, I've had my notice,
and I'm looking to move intosecurity. But I've been active
on Twitter for a few years, Ihad a good network on there. And
I had loads of people send melinks to, you know, to jobs and
stuff like that. And that waspart of the reason. You know, as
soon as I saw that, you werelooking, I was like, great
people have done that for me. Soof course, I will do that as
often as I can for other people.
But I had a had a few messages,had a guy messaged me and said,
(55:29):
Look, we're hiring for thisrole, we think you'd be great
for it. We're looking, you know,we're open to people from non
traditional backgrounds, we'relooking for someone who kind of
has additional experience beyondjust traditional security. And I
went through the full interviewprocess, like it wasn't like,
Oh, you've been hired becauseyou're a Twitter person. But I
had messages from people going,oh, you know, you only got the
(55:53):
job, because you're diversity,how you got the job, because
you're visible on Twitter. Andyou've taken a job from someone.
And the thing is, it is veryhard for people to break into
security. And there are peoplewho are more qualified than me
on paper. And they are lookingfor jobs, and they are
struggling to find jobs. Andthat is absolutely true. But
that doesn't mean that I don'tdeserve the job that I got, I
(56:16):
went through the same interviewprocess that everyone else did.
I had to sell myself, I had tosell my skills I had to I had to
do the same thing that everyoneelse did. I do deserve it. But
it doesn't mean that otherpeople don't deserve it.
Sarah Guthals (56:30):
But what is even more qualified on paper mean,
like, I mean, because some ofthe skills that you have aren't
probably on paper. And yeah. Youknow, maybe they didn't even get
the interview, which is a shame,but we can't have every job
interview everyone, right. Soit's like, I just I always like
(56:51):
to push back on, like, what's onpaper. That's why I talk about
having a PhD not to rub it inpeople's faces. But to just be
like, That is a thing that's onpaper, that gives me privilege,
for sure. But that does not meanthat I am more qualified than
then people for every job orevery job in tech or whatever.
Regina Bluman (57:10):
Yeah, yeah, you're you're so right. Like,
every job has differentrequirements. And every you
know, every business is lookingfor different people. There are
some people who, you know, buythe book, and that's the so you
know, look at regulatedindustries at a bank, they need
people who have absolutely notolerance for any variation on
(57:31):
security controls at all. Theyneed someone who has lived and
breathed security for theirwhole lives. And that is all
they do. Like that, that worksfor them. And they are more
qualified than me to have thatjob. Where I am works for me,
and it's a good fit. For me,it's a good fit for the
business, hopefully.
Pj Metz (57:48):
And it was for seems to be going well, for you to be
honest. Yeah,
Regina Bluman (57:52):
I they, I love it. And it just it was one of
those things where it was likeI think I am incredibly, like I
said, I was incredibly fortunateto have the network that I do
have online. And I try again,the group of, of kind of cross
skilled people that that I workwith, it's something I try and
(58:14):
say to them is it's not the onlyway to break into the industry,
it doesn't mean that because Iwas active on Twitter, you have
to be active on Twitter. Andthat's the way to do it. It
doesn't mean that you have to bea LinkedIn thought leader. And
that's the way to do it. Likedifferent things work for
different people. Thank you.
And, yeah, it's just it's verydifferent. Depending and I know,
(58:39):
it's, I know, it's very easy forme to say from the comfort of my
job and comfort of my home, it'seasy for me to say the right
thing will come along becauseother people have more desperate
needs than than I did at thetime. I was in an incredibly
fortunate position where I couldhave my notice and without
something to go to. In the UK,we don't have at will
(59:00):
employment. So we havecontracts. So I had a three
month notice period, I knew Ican even if I freelanced for
three months, you know, I knewI, by the end of three months, I
knew I would land on my feet.
But if I had kids, if I had amortgage to pay, you know, if I
had all of these things, there'sno way I would have had the
confidence to do that. There'sno way I would have had the
freedom to do that. And so whathas worked for me, definitely
(59:23):
isn't going to work foreveryone. So yeah, I don't want
to say that, you know, becauseI've because I've done it like
you said PJ because I've done iteveryone can do it. But find a
way because there is a way it'sjust not a cookie cutter
approach.
Pj Metz (59:42):
And normally we end the show it's asking you to give
some advice but you went aheadknock that out of the park
without us even asking a wrench.
Thank you. Thank you so much forcoming on and being a part of
this podcast. You are anabsolute absolute absolutely
amazing person. Dr. Gubbelsthank you for jumping in and
chat with you
Regina Bluman (01:00:06):
read and good.
Thanks for having me.
Pj Metz (01:00:09):
Absolutely. And we will catch everyone else next time on
eight bits.
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