The Technical Trap

The session opens by asking the audience which skills make someone seem technical in the security field. Using a live exercise and an informal online survey, the speakers collected answers that ranged from scripting and patching systems to reading code, explaining how a control works, and using reversing tools. No shared definition emerged, and the open-ended responses showed the same spread, with coding and security domain knowledge appearing most often.

The speakers argue that these vague labels are not harmless. Words like "technical" and "engineer" work as gates in reviews, interviews and promotions, and they can slow careers over time. They tie the problem to unconscious bias such as affinity bias, confirmation bias and time pressure in hiring decisions. Their survey data suggested the harm falls more heavily on underrepresented groups.

For practitioners, the suggested fixes are concrete. Question what a label means and examine personal default assumptions, such as equating security with pen testing or Python. Leaders can avoid the word in reviews, track the work people are actually assigned, and break vague tasks into specific skills that can be trained and measured. Career ladders built on defined skills can help as well. The session closes with audience discussion of hiring experiences, contracting as an entry route, and entry-level job postings that ask for years of experience.