Do You Even Tech Anymore: Management & Leadership in Security?

When many people join the professional workforce and are asked, "What do you want to do?" or the dreaded "What's your 5-year plan?" they answer, "I want to be a manager," without any real clue on why or what a (good) manager does. This is long before...

When many people join the professional workforce and are asked, "What do you want to do?" or the dreaded "What's your 5-year plan?" they answer, "I want to be a manager," without any real clue on why or what a (good) manager does. This is long before they reached the nervous stage of being a manager, see their tech skills disappear, and fear they'll be forever irrelevant. :)
Security conferences have always had talks on "red team," and more recently "blue team" talks have become more frequent. However, there has really been a lack of talks addressing moving to management or leadership and what that really means (personally and professionally).
At Riot Games, the Security team has developed a security program based on feedback and self-service, across a truly hybrid infrastructure. This has not only involved collaboration and education external to Security, but also within the Security team itself as we have mentored younger and new colleagues so they also realise being that Security team in the corner is from a previous generation while also being able to do “cool” stuff, learn and improve.
In this talk, Mark will dive into where he has:
failed and succeeded as a leader
challenges and self-doubts of moving from an engineer to a manager and further
Trying to stay in-tune with your reports while not becoming a “1-1” machine
And probably more things :)
An attendee should:
- see some pretty cool video game art (not created by Mark, obviously)
- understand the challenges and benefits of moving from being an engineer to a manager
- learn about a self-service and feedback-driven approach to leadership
Disclaimer: There will be no cool exploits, 0days or buffer overloads in this talk.