Vikram Phatak
NSS Labs
Austin, TX USA
"Honor your own rhythm...everybody got started somewhere."
Career Roadmap
Vikram's work combines: Engineering, Technology, and Learning / Being Challenged
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
Even though I had always been interested in computers and intended to study that in school, I took what my dad said to heart and ended up majoring in economics. This didn't stop me from keeping my passion for computers as a hobby. I was a part of a lot of hacker groups online and spent a lot of time in the computer lab. A lot of how I got to where I am now working in IT is due to luck. I just kept following my interests after college until I figured out a way to make money doing what I love.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
University of California, Los Angeles
Graduate Degree
Economics, General
Temple University
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be an Information Security Analysts:
High School
Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life took a while to figure out
1.
His dad was a professor, and one night, while Vikram was playing with his computer, he overloaded the memory and broke the machine.
2.
He stayed up all night teaching himself how to fix the computer from scratch so his dad wouldn’t find out, and that was the beginning of his interest in information technology.
3.
When he went to college, he wanted to go into IT, but his dad told him that he didn’t want to become the stereotype of the IT guy who sat in the back of the office and didn’t have friends.
4.
Instead, he studied economics, but he spent all of his free time in the computer lab participating in hacking communities.
5.
While he was trying to break into the world of tech, he had to take some odd jobs to support his family, including washing dishes in the communicable diseases wing of the hospital.
6.
He says that having terrible jobs like that in his rearview mirror motivated him to work as hard as he could at his IT jobs because he never wanted to go back to that life.
7.
Says that his career in cybersecurity was by no means planned—he just followed something that he liked to do, he kept at it, and eventually he found a way to make money doing it.
8.
Now works as CEO of NSS Labs, which, among other things, conducts third-party assessments of network security products to help consumers buy the best software.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Parents:
You don't want to be the IT guy. He's the weird guy in the back of the room that no one cares about.
How I responded:
Even though I had always been interested in computers and intended to study that in school, I took what my dad said to heart and ended up majoring in economics. This didn't stop me from keeping my passion for computers as a hobby. I was a part of a lot of hacker groups online and spent a lot of time in the computer lab. A lot of how I got to where I am now working in IT is due to luck. I just kept following my interests after college until I figured out a way to make money doing what I love.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I got married young and had no money, so I worked odd jobs trying to make ends meat and work my way up the ladder.