External professional development for the SE

An SE’s time will primarily be consumed with the day-to-day of getting the technical win and accomplishing the company mission. However, it’s extremely important to recognize that the world continues to turn outside of your day-to-day. Technology continues to advance and hackers continue to hack. If you need any glaring examples of this, just look at the introduction of AI, ChatGPT, and how things are already changing as a result. We live in a dangerous cyber world.

The last thing an SE needs is to be left behind. While this can apply to concepts internally, it absolutely applies externally as well. We’ll discuss a few ways to keep up to speed with the dynamic nature of the industry in this section, as well as how that applies to your brand externally – that is, outside of your work organization.

Certifications

There are many varying opinions on certifications. Many people in the industry feel that certifications...