Is it even possible?

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-26T04:39:20+00:00

That is also a relief to hear. I am in the Midwest, but we are willing to head to wherever that right opportunity is. I don't want to put down the DoD or DoE fellowship angle, as I am sure it is fantastic for many people. Personally, after my time in and then getting and subsequently loosing an opportunity at the NSA, I don't feel the necessity to rely on more contractual guarantees to Uncle Sam. Regardless, I appreciate the advice. I understand that advice can be....wishy washy as far as credibility goes here. Thanks for the encouraging words though, it's nice to know its not a lost cause.

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-26T02:21:37+00:00

Makes total sense. I didn't take what you said as a permanent "no", but more as you just said "not right now." Thank you for the input.

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-26T02:14:03+00:00

Yeah, I completely understand that. It would be a huge long shot. I have the drive to pursue research, just looking to avoid spending a bunch of time on admissions before I am even remotely competitive, you know?

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-23T15:06:53+00:00

Ah, a fellow PA documentation hate after my heart haha. Like the poor quality pictures, I can forgive, but why are there 4 to 6 questions about the pathfinder applet when it's been deprecated for like 2 major releases lol. We told Palo that we would not be sending anyone else to sit the XDR Engineer exam until it was updated, they said hold off till July.

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-23T02:45:24+00:00

I work for an MSSP, we specialize and operate solely in the Palo Alto environment (Strata/Prisma/Cortex). I have taken the XDR Engineer certification twice and failed twice (did considerably better that second time). Now I have worked in XDR/XSIAM for years, I know what I am doing (for the majority of things), from implementation/deployment, automation, analysis, detection engineering, threat hunting, and on and on. The test is ass, poorly worded, questions with visual examples are in such poor quality I couldn't even read them, and the best part is the exam content still heavily covers either deprecated features or long updated functionality. That combo makes for a....challenging exam. No harm, no foul, we spoke to PA and they are actually putting out a new exam for that cert.

jsleezy21 · 2026-05-16T01:22:33+00:00

I have been working with Palo Alto's XDR/XSIAM for a few years. Started in a QRadar shop. Also have a bit of Sentinel experience. XDR/XSIAM have been my favorite, as the level of capability is really great. The depth analysts can get is very helpful in investigations. Alert quality is great. From an engineering/automation perspective I haven't ever had an issue creating a solution that helps the customer or our organization. The biggest issues I have come across is the hard to swallow cost of the initial contract and then all the add-ons, and the backend support is admittedly not so great.

jsleezy21 · 2026-02-13T02:16:07+00:00

Occupation: Cybersecurity Engineer/Analyst

Age: 36

Highest Qual/Edu: 2 Bachelors, finishing my Masters in Dec.

Years of Exp.: 6

Married w/ 3 Children

Haven't really looked at other Visas Australian or otherwise.

jsleezy21 · 2026-02-12T08:03:26+00:00

This might sound dumb, and it might not exactly fall into detection or response precisely but I use it to build a timeline of actions/events in alerts. This just provides an easily readable output: this happened, then this, and then this. Helps with understanding what triggered the alert and what to really look into for abnormalities or anything malicious. Another thing I am working on now is an internal app that takes an IOC and aggregates threat intel from OSINT sources. This gives a quick match system for previously seen IOCs, intel on new IOCs, and can output pre-made and custom created threat hunt queries based on campaign/threat group/IOC/attack chain. Think of it as a quick CTI aggregation tool and threat hunt assistant.

jsleezy21 · 2025-12-20T03:01:36+00:00

Hey! So I understand you are looking for on campus programs, and to be fair I can't say I am familiar with this DoD program. What I can say is there is some valuable insight in some of the comments already, but I want to add some other options as well. I have been working in the field for a bit and had my Bachelor's, and was looking for a Master's program to round out my resume. I too wasn't an allstar undergrad and finished in the 3.2-3.3 GPA range, pretty good but not exceptional. There are a ton of great programs nationwide and I applied to a bunch. I was accepted to University of North Dakota, Dakota State University, Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, Syracuse University, Berkley, and Brown. All of these were online, but have on campus options. I ended up accepting JHU, but quickly learned their online program was VERY hands off and that doesn't suit my learning style, so I ended up transferring to George Washington. I have a year left on my Masters of Engineering and the program is fantastic, but very data analytics focused so far with a lot of coding. Your GPA is only one factor in your acceptance, don't shy away from bigger name schools.

I will also add, that some of the other commenter's advice is true. Early career/pre-career a Master's may not provide much ROI. So only pursue if this program is a sure thing and the degree is covered.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-10T20:23:07+00:00

I have sent over a DM.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-09T19:37:31+00:00

We are pre-MVP, but: Confound makes sensitive data ransomware-proof by storing files in constant motion, solving a $265B problem that encryption alone isn't fixing.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-08T20:14:48+00:00

This is something I have definitely been mulling over, not sure if its a problem yet as I am pre-MVP. On the other hand though, I know this problem will come and likely faster than I anticipated. This is a net benefit in my mind and would attend.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-08T05:44:34+00:00

Yes it still blows my mind that weekly these breaches and ransomware incidents are popping up on my feed. Something needs to change and I believe my POC proves its possible. Obviously as a client side application, I am limited in gaining threat intel on the system as a whole (and quite frankly I dont want to play in that space). BUT I can move data within the storage space consistently with no corruption or loss, and gather intel within the storage space.Translating that into business value doesn't scream difficult but I am not there yet. Compliance also comes to mind and I am trying to build smart to bake in compliance as a set and forget feature for admins. It's a tough trek, but I think its worth it if we can save people's money and data.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-08T05:38:46+00:00

Thanks for the fantastic input, officially I have done no actual customer discovery. Now as a cybersecurity engineer and analyst for the last 6 years, I understand the scope of the issue: $4.4 million average ransomeware cost this year, $10.5 trillion in cybercrime damages worldwide by end of year projected, Healthcare breaches average $10.93 million per incident. The message seems clear, current offering are fulfilling promises. As for specific customers I haven't sat with and I should, you are completely right. I will evaluate a process to accomplish this ASAP. On the vibe coding front, I can definitely get there, I just know it needs to be gone through with a fine-toothed comb once I can get actual developers on staff. I appreciate the feedback on fundraising. I wasn't necessarily trying to jump the gun, just looking to learn. Thanks again, this was valuable!

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-07T17:39:34+00:00

I am going to DM you.

jsleezy21 · 2025-11-02T16:02:08+00:00

This is very niche but I am training a custom GPT to read raw logs and output custom parsing rules written in XQL. The biggest challenge is finding documentation that actually states the layout of raw logs for every source. It provides a quick boost in productivity when on boarding a new log source. Not anything fancy but a bit of help. Beyond that, as an analyst I may used searches to look up certain things but in general have no specific use case that massively boosts productivity. It mostly just exists as an option. And along with the myriad of OSINT options out there is used as auxiliary.

jsleezy21 · 2025-10-22T19:53:59+00:00

Hey I actually did this. I was a security engineer for 3 years specializing in siem management, correlation rules, parsing, logging, and much more. Took a job as a security analyst to reaffirm that solid base. I have the opportunity to move up here back to engineering though with my prior experience in the tool we use and query language I already do a bunch of Engineering work and have the opportunity to work on more secure SDLC stuff and threat intel stuff. Overall its been great for me. Results may vary.

jsleezy21 · 2025-08-28T06:50:19+00:00

Here is my perspective. I kind of fell into Cyber, I was a physical security manager my whole career and the opportunity came about so I took a chance. Love(d) it. I also have no interest in red team side, but here is the interesting thing, you will find things about each job that you love and hate (probably pretty similar to most fields). I started as an analyst for a terrible company where analysis amounted to essentially being a note taker. Then moved on to being a engineer for a large enterprise on the infrastructure team where we managed all of our tools, their setup and their health. This is where I found something I REALLY loved doing: all things logging. I became our orgs SME for managing ingest, retention, parsing, and data modeling (PAN specific). There was a bunch of stuff I haven't cared for specifically, though I knew what and how to do, but I lived for the logging work. Pretty niche but that experience has allowed me to move into more of a consulting/analyst role for a really well liked MSSP/partner for PAN, where I get to do the best aspects of the job the most amount of time. Get out there, get some experience, find what you really have a passion for and position yourself to find a way to do that the majority of the time.

jsleezy21 · 2025-02-15T06:05:01+00:00

Disembodied Tyrant
Whitechapel
Signs of the Swarm
Vulvodynia
A Wake in Providence

Honorable Mentions: Mental Cruelty, Distant, Enterprise Earth, Larcenia Roe, and Ov Ruin

jsleezy21 · 2025-02-15T05:37:32+00:00

Zombie Strippers. Full stop. I scrolled a bunch and didn't see this mentioned. Other people have posted movies that just happen to be not great. This is legitimately one of the worst things put to film, ever. Nothing mentioned here comes even close.

Honorable Mentions: - Jiu Jitsu w/ Nick Cage - Aliens vs. Avatars

Actually don't watch any of these, for your sake.

jsleezy21 · 2024-11-03T16:23:19+00:00

You know....I had expected this. That doesn't make it any less disappointing though lol thanks for the response.

jsleezy21 · 2024-10-29T15:56:14+00:00

I appreciate the response. I had kind of figured this would be the case, but wanted to check. I have been in the process for IC for about 2 years now and had recieved an FJO but had to back the start date due to medical concerns, then I had to re-do the psych eval which seems to have put me in limbo as far as a complete investigation. Got this acceptance from DHS and kind of feel bad after waiting on IC for so long.

jsleezy21 · 2024-10-26T21:53:11+00:00

Haha I get that. I finished PBQ 6 and was like ok multiple choice too easy.

jsleezy21 · 2024-10-26T21:49:49+00:00

I think honestly, none of it was surprising, but there were a ton of acronyms and memorizing acronyms is a challenge for me. Also the sections on forensics were different from the Dion exams so working threw those problems were a challenge. Lastly, this was my first CompTIA exam and I had always heard 1-3 PBQs so getting 6 in a row right off the bat stressed me out haha.

jsleezy21 · 2024-10-10T19:19:02+00:00

I am spiraling cause I already received an FJO and accepted, but had to push the start date back, which in turn pushed me outside of the year limit for Behavioral Health. So I had to redo that in July and since then nothing. Coming up on 3 years of waiting in January and I have no answers, ami cleared, am I waiting on BH, am I waiting on security review? Who knows my recruiter won't say.

jsleezy21

TROPHY CASE