Rippling hire Jeevan Singh talks Security Engineering and career growth on the Absolute AppSec podcast
Jeevan Singh joined Rippling as a senior security staff engineer in the fall of 2023. A month into his tenure, he made a guest appearance on the Absolute AppSec podcast, co-hosted by fellow application security experts Ken Johnson and Seth Law.
In the episode, Jeevan spoke about his passion for threat modeling, scaling the security programs he managed, and why he left a director role at Twilio to join Rippling as an individual contributor.
“Rippling is still hiring people like crazy,” Jeevan said. “It’ll be interesting to see how I can implement all the lessons I’ve learned over my decade on the security side at a place that’s moving really fast.”
Watch the episode below or on Absolute AppSec’s YouTube channel here.
The highlights:
- Breaking down security barriers: During Jeevan’s four years with Twilio, the company added thousands of employees after making several acquisitions (including Segment, where Jeevan previously worked). This created a siloed security system that left engineers confused about which vulnerability tickets to prioritize. As Director of Product Security at Twilio, Jeevan implemented a standardized program that ensured company leaders owned the risk of high-priority tickets.
- Reducing risk: Within one quarter, this streamlined system burned down half the company’s vulnerabilities. “When you have a simplified process with the right risk owners in charge,” Jeevan said, “it really helps quantify how much risk each of these risk owners is holding—and it gets them eager to actually reduce that risk within their org.”
- How engineers bought in: Jeevan stressed the importance of building rapport with engineers across a company to scale new security protocols. At Twilio, he used office hours, all-hands meetings, emails, and other touchpoints to teach developers how to address security vulnerabilities.
- The Rippling draw: As Jeevan rose through the ranks at a large company, he came to miss the technical problem-solving he enjoyed as a younger engineer. At Rippling, he saw an opportunity to bring more than a decade’s worth of security experience to a role promising more hands-on abilities. He also thought Rippling’s unique compound startup structure—consisting of different teams building multiple interoperable products at once—offered new, exciting security challenges.
- Mentorship without the paperwork: Transitioning from a directorship to an individual contributor role may sound unconventional. But Jeevan said it was the result of taking mindful stock of the work he enjoyed doing. “For folks thinking about making that switch, you don’t lose the fun side of the directorship,” he said. “What I really enjoyed was that mentorship piece. I still have that at Rippling… I just don’t have to write performance reviews.”
- Choosing passions over promotions: Jeevan closed the episode explaining that his move to Rippling was a way for him to prioritize his professional growth. “I was scared to go from a role with a lot of status to an IC role,” Jeevan said. “I had to ask my wife, ‘Am I crazy?’ What I realized is I don’t have to climb the corporate ladder. That’s not what’s meant for me… I want to solve security engineering problems.” He later elaborates that at Rippling, “I actually have the brain space to think about how to solve technical challenges, whereas as a director, I didn’t have that time.”
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