The Rise of the ‘Security-Native’ Developer: What It Means for Your Hiring Strategy

Businesses today are constantly evolving, and it is always a significant challenge to stay up-to-date with ever-changing market conditions. Not only must you continually assess the situation and respond with innovative measures, but you also need to maintain the overall security of the process while implementing the required transformation. As a leading staffing company specialising in the recruitment of developers, the Intellects Group is fully aware of the changing dynamics of the recruitment and hiring scene.

No longer can cybersecurity in companies be viewed as being distinct from development and attended to after the coding is done. This would require incessant testing and refinement, something that slows down the pace at which modern businesses innovate. This is where the Security-Native Developer steps up to the plate and saves the day.

Why are Security-Native Developers Needed?

Applications these days are built as well as hosted on the cloud instead of a business’s servers or data centres. This facilitates rapid scaling up, resulting in considerable cost savings. At the same time, you have to ensure that there are no security vulnerabilities. A Security-Native Developer’s expertise helps integrate the security aspects through every stage of the Software Development Life Cycle, all the way from design and coding to deployment and operations.

Security-Native Developers take a proactive approach towards security protocols by embedding these across the process of development, ensuring fewer vulnerabilities and security flaws later on. This ensures early identification and resolution of security vulnerabilities, leading to substantial cost and time savings. In a nut-shell, Security-Native Developers ensure enhanced product security and help in the emergence of a security culture in a business organisation. This is something that is very much required in these times of enhanced and multifarious security threats.

Impact of Security-Native Developers on Your Hiring Strategy

Software development and cybersecurity in companies have undergone a sea-change, with security no longer being looked at as a separate function by security teams who would typically come into the picture only at the end of the development life-cycle. These days, you have Security-Native Developers helping your business integrate security features from the very start of the development process, incorporating design and coding as well as testing and development.

This has led to a paradigm-redefining change in the way that a premier staffing company like ours now approaches the hiring and recruitment process for companies. Let us delve into this in some detail here

• Whole new skill-set requirement

We at the Intellects Group are aware that you need developers who are more than excellent coders, possessing the ability to deeply comprehend not just the basic tenets of security practices, but also a thorough knowledge of known vulnerabilities and the best and most advanced secure coding practices. Besides, they should be well-versed in threat modelling.

Not only should they be excellent at baking security into the very architecture of the application in question from the word go, but they should also be dyed-in-the-wool cloud security experts with intimate knowledge of things like cloud security best practices, serverless security and container security. Developers with a DevSecOps mindset who are well acquainted with automated security testing tools (like SAST/DAST/SCA) and managing vulnerabilities will be the new go-to people for companies. They will be expected to both thoroughly analyse security concerns and offer effective resolution, even as they help a business effectively manage an ever-evolving threat landscape.

• Expanded Job Descriptions

Premier staffing companies like ours are aware that the expectations from Security-Native Developers are far greater than those for developers hired in the past, as the former are expected to be adept at development, security, and operations. Not only would they be expected to integrate security measures into CI/CD pipelines, but they would also be called upon to work in tandem with security teams, briefing them about the modalities involved and not wash their hands off, once the release is accomplished.

We at the Intellects Group are, therefore, on the lookout for job candidates who are more than conventional developers, possessing the wherewithal to help implement DevSecOps practices and embed security tooling into the SDLC.

• Casting the net wider for sourcing better talent

Staffing companies like ours are now looking beyond the known talent pool of developers and often source candidates from places like cybersecurity forums and even security conferences. Often, the best people are sourced by networking with professionals with a security background.

• Developing a security-native mind-set

Apart from trying to obtain the best possible people from far and wide, it also makes eminent sense for companies to train and upskill the in-house team of developers and try to bring them up to speed with regard to making them well-versed with what is expected of security-native developers. This can be achieved by way of workshops and certifications, as well as inculcating a security-native culture in the developers working for the company.

• Offering an attractive remuneration

Given the premium placed on security skills, we always advise our clients to offer attractive remuneration to potential hires to ensure that the most talented people are recruited. With every organisation across scale and size looking to hire the services of Security-Native Developers, to help them protect their businesses from ever-new security threats, there is a huge demand for such specialists, creating a supply shortfall. Offering a handsome package, therefore, is one of the most effective ways of hiring such talent.

Summary

These are challenging times for businesses. You are required to not only be nimble in your response to ever-changing market situations, but also ensure that the security of the process undergoing the transformation is maintained. This is where Security-Native Developers come to the rescue with their proactive approach in embedding security considerations right through the development process, ensuring that there are very few vulnerabilities and security flaws to contend with later on.

The emergence of Security-Native Developers has transformed the way in which staffing companies now approach the hiring of developers on account of the new skillsets required and a much expanded job profile. This has led them to cast their net wider and offer optimal remuneration to attract the best available talent.

Want us to help your company make informed decisions when it comes to hiring developers?

Get in touch with the Intellects Group today and we will ensure that you recruit nothing but the best Security Native Developers

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Category: Staffing