I’ve been spending time with early-stage fintech and SaaS teams (Seed–Series A), and I keep seeing the same pattern repeat:
security only becomes a priority when it blocks growth.
That usually shows up as:
- A large customer sends a long security questionnaire
- Sales stalls because SOC 2 or a pentest is suddenly required
- Founders realize no one actually owns security internally
- Engineers get pulled into security work without clear priorities
Most teams don’t ignore security — they’re just trying to move fast without adding heavy process.
For context on where this perspective comes from:
I work with people who’ve done hands-on security engineering at places like Yahoo, Rippling, and fast-growing startups, and who’ve studied security and privacy engineering at CMU. This isn’t theoretical — it’s based on securing real production systems.
What I’ve seen work better than one-off audits or checklist-driven security is treating security as an ongoing engineering responsibility, similar to reliability or infra.
In practice, that often looks like:
- Reviewing product and architecture changes before they ship
- Locking down cloud access and permissions early
- Making sure auth, roles, and data access don’t break as features grow
- Gradually preparing for SOC 2 instead of rushing later
I’m curious how other founders and engineers here are handling this today:
- Do you own security internally?
- Do you rely on consultants?
- Do you mostly react when customers ask?
Would love to hear what’s worked (or failed) for others.
