Window Snyder
Chief Security Officer
Fastly
San Francisco, CA USA
“First of all, do you love it? Are you sure? Because if you don’t, [it can be] hard and discouraging. [But] it’s not hard to keep doing things you love.”
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By Roadtrip NationWindow Snyder
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
The daughter of software engineers, tech has always been in her orbit, but she wasn’t very excited about it as a child.
Began gravitating towards programming in high school, but didn’t study it because it was intimidating; with no women in sight, it felt like an exclusive club.
It wasn't until she started taking math and CS classes in college—and actually got to actually start problem-solving—that she realized her passion.
As technology evolved—and the concept of hacking along with it—one question began to drive her: what’s keeping people’s data safe?
Called to solve this question, she developed threat-modelling: a process of protecting data that became part of Microsoft’s best practices.
Keeping data out of the wrong hands would carry her into a stint at Apple, where she ensured not even Apple could access people’s data.
Her greatest triumph? Giving users control of their data. With personal lives increasingly stored online, she wants users—not 3rd parties—to have the reigns.
Admits tech has hurdles; it can be exclusionary of minorities and women. It’s also just hard work—but it’s less hard when you love it.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Career
Chief Security Officer
I am a co-author of Threat Modeling, a standard manual on application security.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Science
Technology
Problem Solving
Day to Day
I work to build technologies that keep malware off of your network, computer, or phone. At Fastly, I oversee our expanding security offerings through its global edge infrastructure platform. I spend a lot of time working with different teams to build security applications that will keep our users data safe.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for college students
Ask yourself, do I love this? If you don't, you should probably think of something else to do. Cybersecurity is really hard and it can sometimes be discouraging. The only time people talk about security is when it fails, so there are not a lot of kuddos in this job. You have to really love it.
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Myself:
"I don't belong here. "
Interviewed By
Life Hackers
Cybersecurity careers and pathways
