Inside the InfusionPoints Internship Program with Rachael & Aidan

What does an internship at InfusionPoints actually look like, and what can it lead to?

In this episode of Behind the Shield, Tanner Bailey sits down with former interns Rachael Smith and Aidan Fratcher, who are now full-time members of the InfusionPoints team, to talk about their journey from students to professionals in cybersecurity, compliance, and cloud.

They share how they first connected with InfusionPoints, what made the internship experience stand out, and what it was like to move through the rotational internship program across multiple teams. From shadowing engineers and SOC analysts to learning cloud operations and advisory work, this conversation gives an inside look at how interns gain real exposure to the business, technology, and culture behind the work.

Rachael and Aidan also discuss the projects their internship cohorts completed, including real-world automation concepts inspired by operational needs, and reflect on how those experiences helped shape their careers. The episode also dives into advice for students, career changers, and future interns on staying curious, continuing to learn, using AI tools wisely, and standing out in a fast-changing industry.

Whether you are exploring cybersecurity careers, interested in the InfusionPoints internship program, or just want a candid look at how early career talent can grow into impactful team members, this episode is packed with helpful perspective.

Chapters: 

00:08 Welcome and Episode Overview
00:37 Interns' Backgrounds and Interests
02:54 Application Process and Networking Tips
05:26 Infusion Points' Culture and Learning Focus
08:21 Day in the Life of an Intern
09:58 Rotational Program and Team Exposure
12:34 Real-World Projects and Automation Solutions
18:30 Cross-Department Collaboration and Crisis Handling
33:31 Advice for Aspiring Cybersecurity Professionals
42:52 Fun Questions and Closing Thoughts

What You'll Learn:

• How Rachael and Aidan found the InfusionPoints internship program
• What the application and interview process was like
• What a day in the life of an InfusionPoints intern looks like
• How the rotational program exposes interns to engineering, cloud operations, advisory, and security operations
• Real internship project examples and how they created value for the company
• Why culture, curiosity, and initiative matter in cybersecurity careers
• Advice for students and early career professionals entering the field
• A few fun closing questions, including favorite snacks, movies, and shows

InfusionPoints Links: 
https://infusionpoints.com/careers/InfusionPoints-Internship
Tanner Bailey, Senior Consultant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanner-b-37a50a132/
Rachael Smith, Consultant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-n-smith/
Aidan Fratcher, Consultant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanfratcher/

About Us:
InfusionPoints is a trusted cybersecurity, cloud engineering, and compliance partner helping organizations Build, Manage, and Defend secure, mission-ready environments in highly regulated markets.
We specialize in FedRAMP, FedRAMP 20x, DoD, and enterprise security frameworks, supporting organizations from initial authorization through continuous monitoring and optimization. Our team brings deep technical expertise and real-world operational insight to every engagement.
Through our independent, security-first approach, we integrate people, processes, and technology to deliver scalable, compliant, and resilient solutions. From strategy and architecture to operations and defense, we help customers move faster without sacrificing security.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Shield with Infusion Points. My name is Tanner Bailey, and I'll be our MC for this episode. Previously, we did an episode with uh Felicia Damon Damer and I introducing the internship program and kicking off this uh mini-series as a part of Behind the Shield. And um as our internship coordinator, I've brought on two of our former interns, now full-time employees, to join us today. I'm joined here in person by Rachel Smith and remotely by Aidan Fratcher. So uh welcome to the podcast, you two. Uh glad to have you. So uh as we're getting started, um just introduce yourselves, uh, where you're at here on the team, how long you've been with Infusion Points, and uh um what's your story before joining Infusion Points? So education, her work experience, uh, and a little one personal fun fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Yeah, sure. Uh so yeah, hey, uh my name's Aiden. I joined the Infusion Points advisory team in January of this year. Um, you know, and first I just want to say uh Tanner, thanks for having me on. I've been uh watching, binge watching our podcast episodes as they've been released, and uh I was eager for my shot to to get on here and have some discussion. Um so yeah, just eager to talk about the internship program. And um, yeah, I've been with Infusion Points for a little over a year now. Um and I was an intern uh with Infusion Points on the rotational uh program uh back in the summer of 2024, um, which seems like forever ago, but I feel like it went by in a in a breeze. So um yeah, just excited for the conversation and uh thanks for having me. Yeah, man, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Glad to have you.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Rachel?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yes, thank you, Tanner. So my name is Rachel Smith, and I am the new consultant on the advisory team here in Infusion Points and also a former summer 2025 intern. And um thank you for having me on, and I get excited when these drop every week and to see our fellow team members participate in these. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Awesome. Yeah, before we get into our QA, uh let's uh save those fun facts and hobbies for the end of the program. We'll talk uh business first and then we'll talk fun stuff afterwards. So um, for all of our listeners at home, uh the the purpose really for these three uh little mini-series episodes that we're gonna be dropping is really for you guys to just get no get to know former interns and get some insight into how they came about the Infusion Points internship, um, you know, what their application process was like, what it was like to be an intern, and um, you know, to also gather insights that they have. Um, you know, former interns are um just like every other professional, they have a lot of expertise and they've they've been around the block a lot longer than it might appear at first look at first glance. So um we're excited to get y'all's in insights and also talk about um you know what advice you have for future interns. So uh first question for you guys, um, and either one of you can answer first. How did you hear about the internship program and what was your application process like?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yes, so for me, my experience with the internship program was uh pretty interesting. I was an AppState student, and in 2022 at the AppState Cyber Summit, I actually got to interview with Gary and Jason at the event. And even though at that time I wasn't looking for opportunities, that conversation really stuck with me. And um, I could feel the culture of infusion points just through speaking with them. So when I returned to the 2025 Cyber Summit, interestingly enough, I actually um met Aiden and we discussed his internship experience. And from that point on, I knew I just wanted to be a part of this. So, and as for the application experience, very smooth. I had um plenty of contact. I discussed with Aiden, and then of course meeting you, and you really made the process smooth. So um excellent experience and highly recommend.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Awesome. So what we're hearing is attend the cyber summit if you're an App State student, um, and you know, reach out to former interns.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

I don't think I don't think I knew that you guys met at the cyber summit. I probably knew it and just forgot. Um, but that's awesome. That's a really cool story.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah, you know, uh Rachel, I remember you you coming up to the table at the Cyber Summit. And um, yeah, I remember telling uh team members, you know, we had a long discussion, and I remember telling Tanner, and Tanner was there and a few other members of our team as we were, you know, interacting with students, and I just remember looking at Tanner and the team, and I said, guys, we need to hire Rachel Smith. You know, she's she knows what she's talking about, she knows what she's doing, she's you know, she's gung-ho about infusion points and the things that we're doing, and you know, we should give this one some thoughts. So yeah, it was it was it's crazy because that's actually where I met Infusion Points as well, uh, is the AppState Cyber Summit. So if you're an AppState student listening, uh again, plug to to go to the summit, that's where you meet people, and that's you know, getting your name out there. But um, yeah, I met Infusion Points at AppState Cyber Summit as well back in 2024. Um, and you know, interestingly enough, there was you know a lot of companies there. Uh, there was a lot of organizations working in cybersecurity, compliance, cloud, uh, you know, various various areas of technology. And, you know, one thing that stuck out to me with infusion points is they they they gave students the time of day, uh, which is something that you know a lot of other other organizations um, you know, they they send people to these events, but you know, they're they're going to these events all the time, um, and they're always sitting behind these tables and and having this the same discussions with with various students. Um, and I think there's a little bit of um, you know, uh fatigue, I guess you will, uh, as they go to a lot of these events. And you know, as I was walking around talking to various organizations, and fusion points was really the one that stuck out to me that actually cared. They, you know, they wanted to hear my story. Um, and they were looking for, you know, they were looking for the the personality. They were looking past, you know, just what's on your resume, and they were looking for um, you know, who are you as a person? How do you learn? You know, how organized are you? Um, you know, do you have the work ethic? Uh, and do you have what it takes, you know, to be a m uh a member of the infusion points team? So I think that's really what what stood out to me with the the infusion points team when I first met you guys. And you know, my application process was uh reaching out to Tanner over and over and over again until he finally responded um and kind of you know let me follow through the the application process and um yeah, kicked off a few interviews and now it's been a year and two months and it it couldn't have gone uh couldn't have gone any faster.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So awesome. Yeah, um really glad to hear Aiden the that you felt the culture of what we're what our process is like in analyzing candidates. Uh and what you specifically said about the fact that we're not necessarily looking for like the perfect candidate skills-wise, because in our industry and in our um our work, there is no such thing as like a FedRAMP or a government compliance degree. Uh, you can get that experience, and you know, you know, AppState, for example, has been great in their programs about talking about government compliance frameworks or like control baselines, and uh that translates well to what we do. It gives you a lot of insight that'll put you ahead of other students um for degrees like that. But there's no FedRamp degree, was uh, you know, had a mentor of mine in the past say that. And that was amazing for me because I felt very out of my head when I first started my role and saying, I have to learn this FedRamp process because that's my job now, and there's no degree out there for that. So um, but yeah, and just glad to hear that that's trickling down in both of your experiences because that's something we constantly push for, is to say, reminders, guys, you know, we're not looking for somebody with five years of experience six months out of college. That's unreasonable. That's part of the problem with a lot of the application processes for your larger companies, and you get that personal touch here. So um that's awesome. And thank you guys both for your uh for the information and the insight. So we've talked about, you know, finding out about the internship, you know, learning where you uh learning what we were about and talking about first impressions. So uh now I want to know what a day in the life of an infusion points intern is like. Um for those of you at home that watched before, I was a high school intern, uh, but our internship program has evolved very much so from then. And um, you know, nobody wants to hear what my old process was like. They want to hear what the the current internship's like. So um, whichever one of you wants to go first, just talk about what a day in the life was like, what a week in the life of an intern was uh like, and what you learned during your internship.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, I could I can go first on that one, Rachel. Um yeah, my my internship was was back in 2024, uh over the summer of of 2024. Um, you know, I I actually think it was one of the first years that we uh rolled out the rotational program. Um and you know, kind of had had had changed the way we were viewing bringing uh interns into the organization to to learn and grow and you know potentially join the company full-time at the at the end of that period. Um Rotational program was something that I hadn't really seen. Um, you know, it's a lot of organizations hire interns, but you know, usually they're they're pigeonholed into a certain category or or space where they're working. Um whereas, you know, it was it was really appealing to me that that Infusion Points had this rotational program where you got to, you know, especially for students that are are still trying to figure out you know what what their skill set is and and and where they where they're strong at and where they're weak at and uh you know what skills they have and what do they bring to the table. Um you know that rotational program gave you flexibility to you know go hang out with the engineering team for a little while and see things that they're doing. And then, you know, we got to go hang out with the cloud operations team and see uh you know the work that they were doing and and contribute to some of the work that they were doing. Um, you know, and then the team that I'm on now, the the advisory team, we got to see how you know the compliance frameworks and how uh the assessments that we go through with our customers and uh you know the gap assessments and the advisory work that we do with with our customers, um, you know, kind of how that worked and how that functioned and um security operations, you know, was that last stop and and gave us really that that insight into what we do from a VNSOC perspective for our customers with 24-7, 365 days, eyes on glass. Um, and you know, uh, although this wasn't a requirement, I spent my time with the security operations team in person, and you know, I felt like that was a phenomenal experience because a lot of our sock analysts are in person um and uh you know they're sitting in the sock monitoring the glass. And you know, it it it was helpful to spend that period of the internship going in and and and shoulder surfing. I mean, that's what I was doing, you know. Uh when you're remote, you can always hop on calls and see what's going on. But you know, just being able to see them, you know, in a whole workday um and kind of what that looks like was was very helpful. Um yeah, I mean the internship experience for me was uh absolutely phenomenal uh experience. And you know, that's one of the main reasons that I loved it as much as I did. Um and I feel like I got so much out of it was because of the breadth uh of things that you got to experiment with and try and um you know different personalities across the team too. You know, you you talk to engineers and you talk to cloud ops and you talk to the advisory team, and you feel like you're talking to people that don't work for the same company at all. But then we all come together and we make this this team of uh of of these four departments that that work in tandem and and really deliver solutions for our customers. So um yeah, I can't say uh say more good things about the Infusion Points internship, but yeah, I feel like it gave me the the best experience I could have um as a student uh that was still trying to learn the industry and and learn what we do here at Infusion Points.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Awesome. Thank you, Aiden. Yeah, and um again for the for the listeners at home, uh like Aiden said, you know, um coming in person was something that he wanted to pursue. And for the security operations team, because of our security operations team just behind that wall, my finger's going off camera. Uh, but um the example and the takeaway for that should be whatever you want to put into the internship is what you're gonna get out of it. I'm not insinuating that if you're an intern from Montana that we're expecting you to commute for our security operations rotation, but uh if you have that option, then we highly recommend that. Or if there is something that you want to investigate further, there's something you want to learn about, the internship is not designed to say no. It's designed to say yes, to ask questions, to reach out to team members. Um, and even the team members that aren't directly involved with the internship program selection process or internship program design are all very passionate about helping teach the interns. And um, you know, Levi said something the other day, Levi's another one of our former interns, that there's nothing like telling one of our development guys or or gals that I want to watch you code and learn. They never hear that. They're told, you know, we need you to fix and figure out this solution or build this tool. Um, I don't need to know the details of how it works, but they love talking about how it works. And that curiosity is something we definitely want to cultivate in interns. Um, even if you never you choose not to pursue the development side of things in the future, that hunger is what we're looking for. Um yeah. And go ahead, Rachel. I want to take the thunder.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

No, um, Aiden did an excellent job of of summarizing the the rotational experience. But um, just to really elaborate on that, being able to see a company from like a perspective of every every department that's involved in the process is just so crucial to see how these teams have to collaborate to get those solutions out to customers. So being able to be a part of that from like Aiden mentioned, engineering to the SOC to cloud ops to advisory um was just an incredible experience, whether it was watching, like you mentioned, them code, um, watching them develop command center or how Terraform AWS services work, all the way to learning about alert monitoring and ticketing, and then moving into cloud ops, where you know, we experience compliance vulnerability scanning tools. And then, of course, advisory, the the one that I um fortunately landed upon. Um, we learn you know about compliance frameworks and documentation and and just all the aspects of cybersecurity that it's so important to understand all of the pieces that fit the cybersecurity puzzle. So that just an incredible experience and just grateful to have been a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Awesome. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Um Yeah, there was uh the one thing you mentioned that I that I wanted to emphasize and and park on for a second, because you know, to me it was a a huge part of the internship and um and and just gave me a plethora of of experience and and knowledge into like how things come together. Um and I remember, you know, when I was a student, it was I always wanted somebody to just tell me, well, what does your day look like? Like I understand, you know, you're doing this, you're doing this, but like, you know, you sit down at your desk in the morning, you log on, you know, you're you're gonna start your workday. What does that look like? Like I always wanted somebody to explain that to me. And I I felt like the Infusion Points internship and just the um the willingness of all of the engineers at cloud operations and security ops teams uh to like, yeah, let's hop in a call. Like I'll share my screen and you can see what I'm doing for three hours, four hours, like however long it takes them to do the task that they're doing, um, you know, was an awesome experience. You know, with with some other internships that that I was looking at back when I was a student, you know, it was, you know, you're gonna have this project, you're gonna work on this with an intern team. Um, and while that stuff was going on in the background, it was so amazing to be able to sit in on a call and genuinely do a a shoulder serve. Like, I mean, that's what it was. And, you know, combined with everything else that we were doing during the intern internship period, that was one of the one of the most valuable things I got out of that. And I think you make a great point that that our team, um, you know, now that I'm on the team, does a great job of of allowing that experience for interns. And um, you know, again, can't say enough about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah. Um, yeah, thank you for that, Aiden. Um, you mentioned like, you know, the internship, uh, like the back-end type stuff that is all about the internship and how that is combined and separate with your learning about the team and helping contribute to current projects. Um, and so to park on that aspect for a little bit, I want to make it clear to the audience that the reason that the internship is so it is what you make it by design, is because we don't want it to be an internship. You know, Aiden, you mentioned, you know, now that you're on the team, uh, I would clarify that to say now that you're on the team full time, um, because we we definitely treat the interns as not only you know resources that we're cultivating and teaching and investing in, but your measure of performance, if we were to give it a name at the end of the summer, is what did you invest in us? What did you know you what did you do provide to the team? Because we definitely believe there's value in a fresh set of eyes, new perspective. Um, and we you know we've seen that be proven by the projects that both of your teams did. Um so I would love to hear about the internship projects. And again, for further context for our listeners at home, uh at the end of each summer, the interns cohort, um, they will either you know do one team or split into some sub-teams, and they'll actually develop a proof of concept or a demo for some sort of solution for the team um to use. And when I say the team for the entire infuse points company to use or like a department to use. Um so um just uh considering uh an agent for yours, particularly for your team, I want you to give the context for what actually gave birth to the idea. Um, because I'm pretty sure most of our listeners will be aware of what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, yeah. So um, you know, like Tanner said, you know, every cohort of interns gets together and has the opportunity to really, I mean, it's it's really free range of of you know, find a problem and and build a solution. Um you have a lot of autonomy at Infusion Points, and you know, they do that by design. They want to see um how you know interns uh you know think about things and they want to see how we think about solutions and and where we see problems, um, you know, even being you know as so as new to the industry or as new to the concepts um you know as we we sometimes are coming from school. Um you know our our cohort um really was an awesome experience to see how our organization responded to it. Um but at the same time, um, you know, it's uh a crazy situation uh that happened in 2024 over the summer and um you know it it really affected globally um you know organizations and and and customers uh of ours as well, um really across the across the nation and beyond. Um I don't know if any of you guys uh are familiar with the CrowdStrike blue screen of death um situation that happened back in in 2024 and um that happened right at about the center point of my internship. And um, you know, a lot of our customers are are using uh CrowdStrike Falcon and a lot of our customers were using using CrowdStrike. And um, you know, uh a lot of our SOC analysts uh I wasn't in the SOC at that time, but recording the incident, you know, hearts drop when you're you're monitoring your sock and all of a sudden all these screens go blue and it's got the frowny face that you don't like to see. And um these are your customer environments, right? Like, you know, that's that's a big deal. Um so you know, it as an intern, you know, it was an incredible experience to watch all that unfold. Um, you know, watching folks getting up at one, two o'clock in the morning uh, you know, to come into the SOC and and respond and uh getting notifications out to customers um, you know, regarding the incident and and making sure that our customers and and the the parties that need to be involved um in the remediation strategy and the investigations um are there and are aware. Um, you know, and and I was late to the party. Uh being an intern, I I logged on probably later in the morning uh with with the folks that were that were banging the keyboards overnight, uh trying to get things uh fixed and getting customers notified. But you know, when I when I did get you know involved in this in the incident later in the day, it was um you know, it was eye-opening to see these bridge calls that were going on, to see the teams talking to each other and working together. Um you know, from there, uh took the lessons learned from watching our team respond to that. And our team took the action to put together uh what we thought was was solving a real problem that was identified during the incident there. And you know, that was notifying the customers. Um, you know, when when things happen, especially from a security ops perspective, you know, that's one of the first places you start uh to make sure that involved parties know what's going on and there's no um you know lapse of communication there. So um we took the experience of notifying our customers during the CrowdStrike event and we built out a a serverless AWS native um solution uh that you know tied a couple of AWS services together um that was basically able to automate the process of you know sending out these notifications in the event of a a extreme cyber incident. Um, you know, in the event that that a serious um incident is identified, you know, based upon the alerts that are being socked, uh is monitoring. Um it would kick off this this notification where it would pull a list of you know incident response team members um and any other parties on the customer side that need to be involved and then uh be able to basically send out a um a notification that was using pinpoint on AWS to be able to uh describe the incident what's going on how our team is responding to the incident um you know and just giving the information to the customer even at hours that you know they wouldn't necessarily be online or even awake you know uh we're talking again you know one two o'clock in the morning um so we really saw the pain point and the amount of time that it was taking to reach out to customers and let them know um and we took that as a an opportunity to to build something real um and that's what we did and um you know our our team took different roles as this thing came together. Um you know some of us were coordinating uh the work that was being done and focused on presenting it to uh to the company at the end of the the cohort.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Um some of us focused on uh you know more building out the solution um and and doing the the coding and and and the back work that that needed to be done to to build it out and uh you know it's part of finding our roles uh here at Infusion Points you know the folks that that were brought on full time it it it was a great experience in you know figuring out where your strengths are and and what people are are best at and uh you know what your interests are as well so um that was just uh at a high level kind of what we built um I think I probably went into too much detail but yeah the the context is great man I um you know for for folks that aren't aware of that that project aspect was you know I don't think that myself or Felicia can really take take uh credit for developing that you know um it was it was kind of a a perfect storm for your cohort to be involved and to be around with you know our SOC analyst calls Chad our director of security operations and says all the screens just went blue and I didn't touch anything I don't you know freaking out and then you know when we were able to figure out that like you know the whole world's freaking out you know planes are down everywhere and um you know thankfully we're able to basically confirm that there was uh no beyond availability going down for you know everything that CrowdStrike affected you know we were able to confirm our customers weren't affected um from a security standpoint but it was it was really amazing getting to watch you guys work and the nuance that you guys found in the problem that you saw you know um and you know more specifically I wanted to provide a little bit of context to what you were talking about that you you guys found that we still had to figure out a way to communicate the the context and the details to our customers without providing like sensitive data or um you know giving too much information if for some you know for some reason they um you know they didn't get the they didn't get the message or you know they gave us the wrong phone number or something like that. But it was really cool seeing you guys think about the nuance of saying well we need to get on the phone with customers and provide that you know context and not just like send an email or put a ticket in the system that might be down because CrowdStrike bricked everything. But being able to say they still need that context to feel like we're supporting them. But we also only have so many socket analysts at one point in time and a phone call takes time. So you guys were using automation in its best form to help support the human aspect as opposed to replacing the human aspect um and then you know allowing for any conversations or questions that come out of that automated notification um still reach a human on our end. So um and all that to say you know the the demo was really all's idea. We didn't at that time we were not requiring a project out of the internship program or from the cohort. We really just wanted you to give a presentation at the end of the internship and you know tell us what you learned, what what you enjoyed um as a sort of send-off to either your next semester before you came on full time um or you know um before you moved on to whatever was next in your in your life. So once you guys did that project and blew us all away, um Felicia, Gary and I got together and we're like, okay, that's going to be a standard requirement moving forward because that was awesome. And Infusion Point's got a lot of value out of it. It wasn't just because you guys learned and were able to do something we have something we needed out of it. And that's like the dream for every company that has an internship program is for it to provide value to both because it is very difficult to do.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

So um again probably rambling yeah go ahead Aiden yeah no you mean you make you make some great points and um yeah that was that was I mean that was it right like we wanted to automate something that we saw saw manual you know um 2026 and and even way before that you know we're seeing things shift to this whole everybody's using AI agents now and you know uh technology moves fast and you know we we didn't want to uh continue to rely on any kind of manual process um you know and you know we work in in federal federal environments and and our our SOC analysts are 24-7 eyes on glass um but you know because of the stringent requirements and because of the security behind some of these environments you know there really isn't a a whole lot of situations where we have 911 emergency everybody's got to get on um you know because these environments are so are so strong and so locked down um so you know it was it's very interesting um to see a situation that probably hadn't been handled you know a million times over um and then and then build something because of it um you know so we were really just trying to solve a problem at the end of the day and um you know it was also helpful to lean on team members in in infusion points that that have that direct cloud experience.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I mean when we were building the solution it's we're working with a a team of a team of guys that have experience in in AWS and just cloud platforms in general and some of the services we were using and you know you you have those ears you have those people to go talk to and say um you know have you used this service before uh you know how can we do this uh you know where's the issue with you know whatever the error is being thrown on whatever we were building at the time um so yeah I think it was a a phenomenal experience and uh Rachel I don't want to take away from from the project that you guys did because it was absolutely phenomenal as well so thank you Aiden yes um yours was a tough act to follow that's for sure and they did inform us as soon as we got here the standard is was high you know which is good because it's a challenge right that's the point of this and it's a learning experience which for my cohort we had an opportunity we were originally presented with updating the employee bios on the website and I know that we had spoken to you and Felicia about tackling that and thinking about you know automation forward we thought well maybe there's a way to automate this process so trying to transform that from a manual spreadsheet to essentially an automated workflow. And fortunately we had an awesome team of fellow developers who um were offered their assistance and their time to to walk us through kind of some ideas and we managed to brainstorm actually a few different solutions and using AWS, Microsoft tools and actually our own command center to formulate some potential solutions. And at the end of our project we were able to actually deliver multiple proof of concepts so that was really cool to be able to work with our team and Fusion Points team to come together and not only come up with a proof of concepts but also look into the business element of it. So you know who is it going to help? How much time will it save? We also look into pricing using AWS pricing calculator or any other types of tools that we could to look at it from not just you know the automation perspective but the business perspective as well. So that whole experience collaborating working as a team and not only trying to come up with a solution that's relevant in the tech industry but that business aspect was just an amazing experience and I will always be grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Awesome. Yeah and you know to to park on the the business aspect and that experience that you got um you know I don't want to undersell either aspect you know the customer facing side that Aidan was talking about that might, you know, to a lot of people be a little bit flashier versus you know maintaining the bios or you know I know your team worked a lot with like statement of work generation as well, which we don't have enough time to get into all that, but um specifically the experience that you talked about and the the knowledge that you gained about the business aspect of everything is you know something that here at Infusion points in general we're trying to you know continue to cultivate that within the team. You know, you may be an application developer for Command Center or you might be an advisor. Those are two opposite ends of the spectrum in the industry typically for you know how much customer engagement that you have. And yes to an extent the advisory team you know is m more than often going to be conversing with the customer in like calls or in person more than the development team might as an example. But we've always we our culture is very much focused on saying we're all consultants in the fact that we all have to think about things with customer success in mind. We succeed when our customers succeed and being able to talk with you guys and say hey why are you why do we need to respond to this in automated fashion we're not doing it just because it saves the SecOps team time. There's value in that the reason we need to do that is because our customers need to know what's happening. You know this all goes back to our vision, mission and values which we cover like day one with you guys in the internship. And again we can't take credit for everything the the the the benefit and the the value that has come out of the project was born out of that first rotational cohort that Aiden was on and then it's just evolved and moved forward and we're seeing where it's not just technical solutions, it's in back office solutions, it's cloud ops, it's advisory it's really everything. So um it's been really exciting seeing the internship grow um because it's you know it's it's not self-sustaining but there's aspects of its growth that are self-sustaining at this point which is really um really exciting and we're very proud of that.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

So okay so go ahead Aiden. Yeah I just have one more thing to add um you know on the on the culture piece uh that's one of the one of the things that with infusion points that that I absolutely just ate up when I was applying and when I got the position and when I went through my internship um you know I think any recruiter out there has been in an experience where they're sitting in an interview and the candidate is just telling them almost word for word what their core values are off the website. And I felt like you know when I was interning with a fusion points and this was reflected in my experiences on the day to day as an intern, you know, they they you guys wanted us to up to prove how we met those core values. You know how how are you scrappy? You know how how are you um humble you know how are you the ideal team player um you know the things that are are covered in the in interviews um but you know further extend into our experiences as interns is is really just uh picking up the core values that that we we hold true ourselves you know in our day-to-day with customers and and driving with that forward so awesome uh okay so now looking here at my our talking points uh we've talked about um you know we've done intros we've talked about background we've talked about you know your first impressions what it was like to be an intern um so now we're gonna get to the you know the questions that everybody wants to hear that's listening to this you know what advice do you have if you're looking at this industry whether you're somebody that is you know similar to you guys in age and stage in life where it's you know I'm moving out of you know collegiate programs whether it be grad undergrad and moving into this career or you're somebody that's wanting to move out of one industry into this cybersecurity industry um yeah what what what pieces of advice do you guys have?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I'll go ahead and start this one off. I'm gonna keep it pretty simple and just say keep learning and stay curious. I know um Gary tends to say always be learning and I try to keep that in the back of my mind on a daily and I would advise any future interns or any college students just always be learning and always be curious whether you decide to stick with cybersecurity or anything in life that's just extremely important especially with cybersecurity as it consistently evolves. So and also learn beyond immediate task. So if you are doing cybersecurity not just you know the the technical side but the frameworks learn more about what certifications are relevant. I know that we we tend to focus on the AWS certs. So um looking into those also AI as we spoke about automation and any other emerging trends try to stay on top of it stay informed and just stay knowledgeable.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Awesome yeah the always be learning as Gary calls it that is pulled directly out of our core values um and you're you know you're not reading from a script you're you're speaking our language so yeah um you know research you know certifications that are relevant um is a great point you know reach out to us if you guys have questions on like what certs to pursue uh AWS we're always going to plug those uh Compteya puts out a lot of really good certs um and there's even other things like you know project management or you know CISSP certs stuff like that um reach out to us and ask what would be relevant for you and what you're wanting to pursue um LinkedIn follow us on LinkedIn all that jazz um to like get to get in touch with us that's the best way to get a hold of us. Yeah Aiden what about you?

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Yeah I um oh gosh I've thought about this question so many times because I remember when when I was uh you know when I was a student I just remember you know always asking people like you know what advice do you have what advice do you have and um you know now that I've I've been working for over a year now with infusion points like I feel like I do have you know a little bit of of some some speak to on you know if I could go back and do it differently you know how would I do it. You know anybody that's looking for for a job right now in cybersecurity compliance, especially with minimal to no experience, you know, to to include students you know across the country and beyond you know it's there's with the AI revolution and with I'll call it the AI revolution um and the way that things have been moving with with agents and and what really is you know a lot of those entry level roles being replaced by you know bots or or or agents or or things that are able to to do the work of of that L1 analyst or of that um you know entry level advisory team member. You know like uh first thing I say is is is lean on the the that tooling. I think you know one thing that that helped me in learning um the the industry of cybersecurity and just compliance in general is um using chat use chat GPT use cloud code use claude you know use use the AI tooling that's available to you to help and assist you in in learning things. I think students nowadays um you know you like lean lean on those tools ask it questions um you know look at the sources that it's pulling the information from um you know use those things to your advantage especially when it comes to learning um you know because you're gonna learn faster than the than the person that's watching a a 10 hour long video on how to do something um so I'd say that's you know a big big piece of advice I'd give to anybody you know in school or just out looking for jobs in this industry. Other thing that I'll say is uh don't always be asking questions rapidly but always ask questions but save your questions for the right time. I think there's I guess a lot to unpack there. I'm not saying don't ask questions. I think asking questions is is one of the best things you can do. But you know something that I found myself doing you know uh earlier on in my career was you know a question would pop up in my head I'd you know ask it right away and you know sometimes you feel like you're um you're kind of rapid firing people and it it's like oh well you know you could ask Chat GBT that you could have Googled that. So you know I'd say if you have questions um you know try to figure out the answer on your own you know look for the solution um you know see use the resources you have available and try to figure it out um and if you still can't figure it out then I would say that that's a pretty good question at that point. So um you know use your tools try to find the answer yourself if you can't you know save the questions for for when you're in front of somebody that that can answer them for you and then um you know don't ever stop asking questions. The questions are are are the best thing you can do for yourself especially as a young person in um to just starting their career.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Yeah absolutely and I um I want to reiterate what you said about you know go to those tools. One thing that we've been talking about internally is like a lot of us have experience before you know most everybody out there has experience before this AI revolution as you put it and I think revolution is an appropriate word for it. It's it's changing essentially everything about how folks work uh in our industry and beyond but you you mentioned something like go to those tools um you know ask what is this something where I could apply AI? And you know we don't want to say that to get dependent on AI. That is absolutely not what we're like insinuating, but to get comfortable with those tools. You know, I think about it, you know, think about the value that AI provides. Recently we had a big snowstorm here in in Winston is like a a very odd metaphor but it's very very personal for me. My driveway was just you know covered in five inches of snow two sheets two inches of ice and you know the next morning I was just dreading going out there and shoveling snow. And I was you know texting Mike from our team about it and he said hey that snow's really powdery why why don't you just get your leaf blower and just blow the the powdery snow and I was like oh thank thank goodness he said that that's going to save me a bunch of time and my back's going to really appreciate it the next morning. But that's that's similar to how we need to be thinking about AI. You know you don't want to use AI to replace the human aspect the spirit of it um I know I saw a LinkedIn post um from Raj over at Fortrium that he mentioned like you can't replace the soul. So there there's the aspect of the problem solver that you can't solve with AI but like learning is a great example of how you can leverage AI you can leverage AI to do that research and pull resources down for you and you know it gives you the resources so you're gonna be able to tell if something's a bogus resource or not or if the you know AI made a mistake you know it's it's clearly not perfect. So um but I appreciate the the insight to like maybe I could Google that question. You know have confidence in yourself to gather information. And you know this is something all professionals you know my age everybody you know it's been around for 20 30 years in this space it's a skill that you consistently develop over time. But the earlier you think about it, the better you'll be at it earlier.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

So yeah thank you both for your insight um Tanner it's it's uh it's funny I'm I'm down here in South Carolina so I'm a little further from the office but um yeah we had we had snow as well in this last snowstorm and it's so funny that you're talking about the leap blower thing because that's exactly what we did and I had never done that before and I think that's a great analogy to to researching things figuring out how you can approach things differently than just the traditional method right like um you know someone someone told me a a quote most recently I think it was um you know saying that we do things the way that um they've always been done is the is the greatest threat. You know always be looking for a better or more effective way. I think it was a quote from Grace Hopper uh the US US Navy she I just that that quote resonates with me because it's you know don't always just say well this is how we've done it for 20 years. This is how we're gonna do it. You know always try to find a a better or more innovative way to do it. And I think you know the usage of of AI tools and agents um you know in today's world is is a is a great first place to start doing that.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Awesome. Cool well we are this one's starting to get a little bit of a long one here. So uh for in the interest of all of our viewers at home uh that don't want to watch this in one sitting uh or want to watch this in one sitting excuse me um we're moving into the the fun uh off the wall questions uh which neither one of these are too crazy uh so first question and I'll let either one of you answer first what is your go-to snack during the workday I'll go ahead and answer that Tanner whatever is readily accessible so that could be a banana a granola bar a cookie nice love that yeah what about you Aiden well I don't really eat snacks I've never really been a big snack guy um I actually don't eat during the workday I've I've operated with like like that as long as I can remember I just oh my lord yeah what a machine eat in the morning and then I function most of the day just uh you know on and off that and you know I've never been a big snack guy I usually try to wait for the meal but if I had to pick one it'd probably be goldfish I'll always I'll always eat a packet of goldfish. Awesome any do eat a department of or uh department of I'm forgetting the in the government entity if you work for the government we allow folks to take off for lunch.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Aiden is an exception uh there there's no violations of law here uh I was literally about to come in for the first time and make sure that that announcement was made yeah always need a disclaimer I guess

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Appearance from Caitlin, our podcast producer, for the first time. So yeah, we uh I I eat lunch every day, and Infusion Points does not stop me. So Aiden is an exception. Um but yeah, I love those answers. Those are those are great. Um yeah, I think for me, uh it's pretty similar to you know to Rachel's answer, you know, uh something that doesn't take a lot of thought or time to prep. Um, you know, uh pack of chips, uh popsicle out of the fridge, something uh something that's pretty easy. So um popsicle out of the fridge. What a snack. Or out the freezer, excuse me, not the fridge. Yeah, I'm yeah, I'm not drinking, I'd have a cup of juice, yeah. Um as you guys can tell, we've been filming a long time. Uh cool. Uh and then the last question, right now, because this changes over time, what is your favorite movie and or TV show? I'll go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

Uh so uh I'm a big TV guy. I w I watch a lot of TV, probably more than I should to get me in trouble. But um, yeah, I movies. I I think for the longest time it was Shawshank Redemption was my absolute all-time favorite movie. But I will say most recently I went back and I re-watched Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey. And that is a phenomenal movie that if any of the viewers watching right now have not seen, you are crazy and you need to go turn it on right now. Uh nice. Yeah, and most recently I've been watching The Last of Us on TV. Uh tuned into that. It's a pretty good show.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Actually, it's funny that you just said that. I I just um started watching The Last of Us as well, and it is a great show. Um, but other than that, and I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this back, it's more of a classic. Um, my favorite movie is um Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Oh, nice. Yeah. I watch that uh pretty often, especially around Thanksgiving. Um my family gives me a hard time. Oh, you're watching it again. Yes, yes, I am.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Don't don't yeah, don't don't take any grief. My my uh my sister watches uh Christmas with the cranks at least three times per holiday season. And um she you know, we give her grief too, but it it comes from a place of love. So um cool. Yeah, uh if I had to pick a favorite movie, you know, my mind always goes towards either The Empire Strikes Back or I I really do like Dune Part 2. I know it's fairly recent, but Dune Part 2 is cinematography. I'm a sucker for Han Zimmer music as well, so um, those are all pretty uh pretty good choices.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

So I hate to say it, I have not seen the Dune part two. Yeah, you you'll have to watch that. I think that is a mistake.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, it's mu it's uh it's uh it's got all the payoff that came with part one. So um it's not not that it's better than part one. Part one is very good, it serves its purpose, but part two's got all that uh catharsis. So but yeah. Um thank thank you guys for joining us. Uh Rachel Ed and we'll hope to have you guys on the podcast again. Um here in the coming weeks, we will have episode three in this internship mini series of Behind the Shield. Uh, it will not be me, MCing, uh, it'll be someone else uh MCing with a couple of our interns uh from a different department. So be on the lookout for that. And as always, you will find us behind the shield.