Security Engineering & Operations Topics
Operational security practices, secure systems implementation, threat modeling, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, and security operations at production scale. Covers network security, endpoint security, secure architecture implementation, incident response mechanics, and security automation. Distinct from Security & Compliance (which addresses governance, compliance frameworks, and policy) and from Security Research & Innovation (which addresses novel techniques and research contributions).
Data Governance and Security Implementation
Designing and applying technical and operational controls to protect data across storage, processing, and integration points. Topics include data classification and labeling to identify sensitive data, database and application level access controls such as role based access control and attribute based access control, encryption at rest and in transit, key management, tokenization and masking, secure handling of credentials and API keys, audit logging and immutable trails, retention and secure deletion policies, monitoring and alerting, and integration of these controls with privacy requirements and incident response processes. Candidates should be able to discuss concrete implementation patterns, trade offs, tooling choices, and testing and validation approaches.
Security and Compliance Fundamentals
Comprehensive knowledge of foundational security principles, organizational practices, and compliance awareness that apply across engineering and operational domains. Candidates should understand authentication and authorization mechanisms, identity and access management including role based access control, the principle of least privilege, separation of duties, need to know patterns, and secure configuration hygiene. Technical controls such as encryption at rest and in transit, network security and segmentation, access controls, and audit logging should be understood along with how they map to compliance requirements and organizational policies. The topic includes basic incident response and reporting processes, threat awareness and threat modeling concepts, logging and monitoring fundamentals, and approaches to system hardening and secure deployment. It also covers policy foundations including what makes a strong security policy, introductory privacy and data protection concepts such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act, data retention and deletion practices, and common compliance frameworks and regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Candidates should be able to reason about tradeoffs between security and usability, explain how security choices interact with product design and user experience, and describe pragmatic ways to implement controls in engineering and operational workflows.