AI
Career Entry Without a Straight Line
Valentina Palmiotti left economic research, found a Chicago city-funded boot camp, spent months rewriting public exploits, then published her own and got hired. Natalie Silvanovich landed a co-op at BlackBerry in 2006 when the technical interviewer was sick and has been on Project Zero for 10 years. Kimberly Price started as a temp Microsoft recruiter, built OSINT skills through boolean candidate searches before the term existed, and ended up in security incident response. Ashley (Chian Shen) started at 17 in Taiwan’s HITCON community and joined an APT-tracking startup two months after a Mandiant talk sparked her interest in threat intelligence.
The Psychological Weight of Security Work
Valentina described spending months on research that produces nothing usable, and the pull to read a dead end as a sign of personal inadequacy. Eight years in, she reframes failed runs as knowledge gained.
“to be given the benefit of the doubt you have to be or show excellence.” — Valentina Palmiotti
Kimberly described getting contradictory feedback on assertiveness across performance reviews and responding by compartmentalizing: keeping personal context out of work entirely because sharing it changes how colleagues read her. Ashley said the same pressure led her to stop wearing dresses at work and suppress anything “soft,” until she recognized that performance was limiting her more than protecting her.
Why Conference Participation Pays Off
Ashley’s manager at Google saw her Black Hat presentation, found her on Twitter, and offered an interview. A talk generates inbound contact that attendance alone does not. Kimberly co-submitted her first CFP with a more experienced speaker, which improved both her confidence and her acceptance odds. Natalie joined the Black Hat review board and found her own past submissions were better than most of what she reviewed. She had waited for perfection before submitting anything. Her recommendation: send the imperfect draft now.
“The worst thing that can happen is you get told no,” — Natalie Silvanovich
Practical Steps to Build Relationships That Last
Natalie’s advice: follow up with one person you met at the conference. Send an email about their work or the talk, and make a point of staying in touch. Kimberly’s advice sharpens that: before sending the follow-up, know what you want from the relationship. Speaking skills? Strategic career guidance? A specific technical domain? State the ask. If the contact can’t help, they may say “I’m not the right person, but I can introduce you to someone,” which connects you into a network that routes useful contacts toward you.
Q&A
What well-meaning feedback have you received that wasn’t helpful? Kimberly described getting contradictory performance feedback, being told to be more direct in one review and then dinged for being too direct in the next, and said she spent the first half of her career avoiding women-in-security panels entirely. ▶ 36:25
Do you feel pressure to pursue technical roles to prove your demographic can, even when your real interest is elsewhere? Kimberly said don’t pursue a role your heart isn’t in, you have nothing to prove to anyone, and Natalie added that following genuine passion may be exactly what produces original work in that area. ▶ 38:10
Notable Quotes
to be given the benefit of the doubt you have to be or show excellence. Valentina Palmiotti · ▶ 14:39
the most stupid social engineering still work Chian Shen (Ashley) · ▶ 24:18
can happen is you get told no, Natalie Silvanovich · ▶ 29:40
Key Takeaways
- Indirect entry into security is normal; bootcamps, forums, and accidental recruiter roles all count.
- Months of unproductive research is not failure; reframing dead ends as knowledge gained is a skill.
- Submit an imperfect CFP now. The worst outcome is a rejection.