When you are looking for a job in tech, it can feel a little like the Goldilocks story.
For many, the biggest tech employers — the ones with tens of thousands of employees — are, well, just too big. Some tech professionals want to build something from the ground up or make an outsized impact right away.
But others find the startup world too small and scrappy, and miss the structure and resources of a larger company.
“Snyk is a very interesting company at a great size for me,” Ashok said. “We’re small enough to be nimble, but big enough to make an impact in a stable environment.”
But what showed Ashok that Snyk was the right fit wasn’t just the size; it was the company mission and product.
“Our mission — to secure applications by enabling developers to write faster code more securely — is such a refreshing change from the traditional model of ‘security checks always slow down developers,’” Ashok added.
Built In Boston spoke with Ashok about what it’s like to join Snyk and how an applicant can know if it’s “just right” for them.
Snyk is a developer security platform that makes it easy for development teams to find, prioritize, and fix security vulnerabilities in code, dependencies, containers, and cloud infrastructure — and do it all right from the start.
What is your role, and what attracted you to Snyk? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
As a distinguished engineer at Snyk, I span a different set of engineering leadership roles and disciplines. Most recently I focused on designing a cross-domain schema and data architecture for all of Snyk. Now, I’m moving to work on new use cases and technologies for our Snyk Container and Snyk IaC products.
When I saw Snyk’s demo, solving code security challenges right in the IDE within seconds (compared to the hours it would take traditional tools to discover in post-processing), I knew I had found the right fit. It really drove home how the right security product isn’t just invisible; it actually improves the lives of its users while still protecting their valuable software assets and customer data.
What’s your favorite part about working at Snyk?
Snyk has great people and great projects. As our customers and customer mix evolve, so are we. We’re developing as a mature, trusted enterprise partner, moving beyond our startup stage. Doing this, while still maintaining the fun and quirky nature of Snyk, is an interesting and rewarding journey to be on.
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
If you are thinking about it — take the leap! Prior to Snyk, I had only worked in large companies (15,000 to 250,000 employees). It has been a great learning experience for me to work at a company of this size. Further, I’ve shifted my area of focus as well. Historically, I was a computer networking and network security engineer, but now I’m not working in networking. I am learning something new every day. Don’t let fear of the unknown prevent you from making a move like joining Snyk!
