My Journey With Traceable Begins

Introduction

October 2023 marks the beginning of my journey at Traceable.ai. With over 25 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry, I have witnessed the rise and fall of countless cyber innovations. However, there are rare occasions when significant technological shifts demand drastic changes in how enterprise cybersecurity programs are operated and built. The emergence of cloud-native infrastructures, microservices-based application design, API-driven architectures, and generative AI are creating a tidal wave of change. After closely monitoring these tectonic shifts, I am confident that now is the time for cybersecurity to operate at an entirely new level of effectiveness. It is crucial to transition to a company that understands this vision.

My Job Opportunity Framework

Joining a new company is a significant decision. To evaluate potential positions, I developed a framework based on three specific criteria: The Market (Problem), The Product (Solution), and The People (Culture). By rating each criterion on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I ensure that any position I consider receives a grade of at least 4 stars in each category. Traceable.ai excelled in all three categories, making my decision quite easy. Let me explain my research and thought process on how I ended up at Traceable in more detail.

The Market (Problem)

Throughout my career, I have built companies in various cybersecurity markets, including NGWAF, CNAPP, RASP, SAST, DAST, SCA, and general runtime protection. However, none of these technologies adequately address the security challenges posed by modern APIs. API sprawl and API security are significant issues, with most enterprises lacking the ability to discover the full extent of their API deployments, fix API development issues, detect infrastructure attacks, or protect against API-targeted threats. The demand for solutions addressing these challenges is evident.The API security market currently faces several significant challenges:

1. API Discovery: Many enterprises struggle with identifying their existing APIs, including shadow APIs and those that have reached the end of their lifecycle but remain active, increasing enterprise risk levels unbeknownst to them.
2. API Security Testing in Pre-Production: Ensuring the security of APIs before deployment reduces costs and lowers risk levels. However, most application security vendors pay little more than lip service to these capabilities.
3. API Attack Discovery and Real-time Protection: Traditional web protection technologies lack the depth and visibility required to detect and protect against API-level threats. Operating at a higher level of abstraction, they do not capture the necessary data for comprehensive threat detection.
4. API Security Data Lake and AI Vision: As we move forward in the evolution of API security technologies, the breadth and depth of API context collected and the ability to analyze that data using modern AI-backed methodologies becomes increasingly essential.

Addressing these challenges requires innovative and effective solutions that adapt to the evolving threat landscape, providing robust security measures for APIs and their data. ******This market has a bright future, and I want to be part of it!

The Product (Solution)

My first interaction with Traceable left a lasting impression. The product impressed me with its ability to collect relevant API and security data from a wide range of sources, surpassing any other product in the market. By combining data from cloud infrastructure, raw packet data, API traffic, and integrations with proxies, API aggregators, and edge network technologies, Traceable creates the richest API security data set available. This comprehensive and intelligent approach allows for the discovery, inventory, tracking, and securing of APIs and API communications.Traceable's founders, with their background in application observability and instrumentation, possess a deep understanding of running APIs that surpasses that of their competitors. This foundation enables Traceable to provide solutions that connect API communications patterns, lines of code, and external API calls into a visual and easily consumed system. This innovation effectively addresses the challenges of API security testing depth.Furthermore, Traceable's extensive collection of rich data facilitates behavioral analysis, providing customers unparalleled insights. The depth of context surrounding API code and data stored in the Traceable security data lake creates an environment ripe for AI and ML-based behavioral analysis.Traceable delivers on what the market needs and has a platform vision for the future!

The People

While I typically discuss this aspect last, it is, in fact, the most important when considering new opportunities. Company culture played a crucial role in my decision to join Traceable. From my very first interaction with the team, I had a positive impression and a strong alignment of values. Traceable's leadership team exhibits exceptional strength, guiding the company toward success.The founders of Traceable, Jyoti Bansal and Sanjay Nagaraj, have impressed me from the moment I met them. They are top-tier technology visionaries and excellent businessmen with a track record of building remarkable companies. Having founded numerous successful ventures, including App Dynamics (on an IPO track before being acquired by Cisco for nearly $4 billion), they possess the expertise to steer Traceable to great heights. Furthermore, they have assembled an exceptional team of experts who work tirelessly to turn Traceable into a reality.On a lighter but no less important note, I employ a simple test to determine if an opportunity receives a perfect score for the people aspect. I call it the "Beer Test." The test asks a straightforward question: "Would I be happy to have a beer with these people daily?" While seemingly low, this hurdle is relatively high for me. Time is my most valuable asset and companies and teams often fail to measure up. However, I can confidently say that the team at Traceable passed this test with flying colors.Brilliance, empathy, leadership, and passing the “Beer Test” - We’re off to a great start!

The Decision to Join

Considering all these factors, I decided to join Traceable with great excitement and optimism for the future. The opportunity to contribute to a company revolutionizing API security is both thrilling and fulfilling. I joined Traceable because it aligns with my market vision and offers a solution that addresses the challenges of the API security buyer. The vision, mission, and unique features of Traceable's platform were compelling factors that attracted me to the company. The strong company culture and exceptional team further solidified my decision. I am enthusiastic about the opportunities and positive impact we can make together at Traceable.

About Traceable

Traceable is the industry’s leading API Security company that helps organizations achieve API protection in a cloud-first, API-driven world. With an API Data Lake at the core of the platform, Traceable is the only intelligent and context-aware solution that powers complete API security – security posture management, threat protection and threat management across the entire Software Development Lifecycle – enabling organizations to minimize risk and maximize the value that APIs bring to their customers. To learn more about how API security can help your business, book a demo with a security expert.