6 Questions with Carly Schneider
Security Engineer, Spotify
Carly Schneider (she/her) is a security engineer at Spotify. She is also working on a master’s degree in Computer Security. Currently, she enjoys thinking about security monitoring, security and usability tradeoffs, virtualization, and malware.
1. What do cybersecurity and crypto mean to you?
Cybersecurity is the study of securing computer systems. Securing these systems means ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability at the correct level for the specific system.
Crypto stands for cryptography, and it involves using math and logic. It is very useful because it helps keep the internet private and secure. Privacy and security are both cool, so, by inference, crypto is cool.
2. If you could wave a magic wand and solve one problem in tech, what would it be?
Ensuring everyone has secure access to the entire internet would be amazing. Giving unrestricted, accessible, and open information to people changes the world! Ensuring security keeps people safe and ensures they can take advantage of the information without fear. Unfortunately, the most powerless people tend to not have this access because of economic, social, and political realities. Safe access to information creates opportunities that can change lives.
3. What is a piece of advice that you have found especially useful?
My favorite reminder to myself is: mood follows action. I started telling myself this while climbing, because it can be scary! In the mountains, even when I am not feeling brave, I can decide to keep going, and I am often happy I did. I now use it everywhere. It is easy to go drink another coffee rather than tracking down the bug, just as it is easy to sleep instead of going to the gym. When things get hard or when something scares me and I do not want to continue, I remind myself that mood follows action.
4. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you deal with it?
I have a lot of trouble concentrating. This collides with the **ideal hacker** stereotype that requires you to stare at your computer and be productive for hours in a row. In reality, I am most productive when I leave my computer screen every 45 minutes. Understanding my strengths and applying them despite perceived or real pressure has helped me immensely.
5. What is your favorite source of inspiration?
I have a lot of animal pictures on my desktop.
6. What is your favorite book or movie?
My favorite book of 2019 is Exhalation by Ted Chiang. My favorite book of all time is Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers.
