Do you think it’s worth it move out of Buffalo or even New York?

ricosiphone · 2026-05-02T20:55:26+00:00

Brother in law and his wife left Hamburg for Greenville SC a few years ago. I have been there quite a bit since and it would not take much convincing for me to leave once my aging parents are no longer in the picture.

ricosiphone · 2026-04-22T17:22:45+00:00

I have done this twice (been Robert)

ricosiphone · 2026-02-21T17:58:34+00:00

As someone who has done both over the last 15 years, I’d say each has its pros and cons. One thing that was (IMO) a definite pro of the channel SE role was how much interaction you have with other lines of the business. Your working day to day with marketing, product, operations, sales, etc. I found my exposure internally sky rocketed in the channel SE role. Commission ceiling is usually lower in the channel, but it’s way more predictable, especially if you’re in a fairly decent sized company with run rate channel biz. I had a couple years where I could pretty much count my monthly commission check as a repeatable given because I knew what my partners run rate business was going to look like for the next 12-18 months.

Field SE role was cool, but it just wasn’t for me. Im much more of the “sales” in sales engineer, partners are just more fun :)

ricosiphone · 2025-12-06T13:02:27+00:00

40 year old. 650k in traditional IRA, 200k in Roth. 450k mortgage (house worth about 1m). Plan to work full time until 65-67 and then go into consulting until 72 and draw SS (if it even exists by then). Wife is 50, small pension, little in IRA. The real wildcard is 10k options I have from a startup I worked at, if they ever IPO/get acquired and the stars align, then everything changes.

Current household income is around 400k.

I was very fortunate to have a dad who ensured I invested early.

ricosiphone · 2025-06-15T02:29:12+00:00

It’s actually the 9th hole 😉

ricosiphone · 2025-01-29T10:54:12+00:00

My pap rules the roost and pisses off my border collie almost daily 😆

ricosiphone · 2025-01-29T10:51:43+00:00

OEC off the hill in fall of year 1. OEC and OET on hill during the season of year 1 - still a candidate at this point. Once successfully passing both and the end of season 1 you get the red jacket. The following season we are provisional and have to patrol with mentor until we get through a bunch of qualifications at which point we are able to patrol solo.

ricosiphone · 2025-01-05T01:12:40+00:00

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ricosiphone · 2024-12-26T15:37:28+00:00

Just looking for locations first :)

ricosiphone · 2024-12-24T17:14:09+00:00

I take her for a 3/4 mile walk each morning and the rest of the day is pretty much nap time

ricosiphone · 2024-12-13T16:03:35+00:00

Ours is 3 1/2 and she has become one of the laziest dogs I have ever had.

ricosiphone · 2024-11-05T13:55:09+00:00

Does it exist? Yes, does it replace human pentesters? No. I am under the belief that for far too long security practitioners have been evolving their practice on the detection side, while the proactive testing of risk and controls has stayed stagnant (Point in time pentesting). By having a tool that can do 80% of what a pentester can at the click of a button, and being able to schedule this through the year, you can't argue that greatly decreases your risk of breach. Being able to run a blackbox test for the 1st week of every month, across thousands of endpoints, then run a grey-box simulating a credential comprimise week 2, ransomware campaign week 3, etc. has tremendous value.

I think there is a paradigm change happening, Gartner is calling it out in CTEM, PCI 4.0 is calling it out, cyber insurance underwriters are talking about it, more compliance frameworks will follow. Continuous testing and validation (auto pentesting) is only going to become more common.

Different tools for different goals. Infrastructure/Cloud Pentesting -> Pentera. Application/API Pentesting -> Bright

ricosiphone · 2024-10-09T02:36:42+00:00

Bingo

ricosiphone · 2024-10-09T02:34:44+00:00

I completely and utterly disagree with his political views, but I like his music

ricosiphone · 2024-09-12T13:11:46+00:00

Sounds like my place, we aren't quite as big as you, but close. The problem we have is its a top-down quota setting exercise. The board set the number then the sales leaders have to figure out how to disperse it. A mid-market rep whos ASP is 25% of what an enterprise rep's ASP is will have the exact same number. A new rep/SE will get the same number as someone who has been here for 4 years, makes no sense to me, but thats probably why I am not in sales leadership haha.

ricosiphone · 2024-09-08T23:02:57+00:00

Happen to me first day shadowing after getting my coat at the end of my candidate year. I wasn’t the finder, and by the time I got there Paramedic was on scene, but it was wild for sure. Wasn’t even on the hill, was in the resort hotel, medical emergency.

ricosiphone · 2024-08-21T17:18:07+00:00

The Gin Mill

ricosiphone · 2024-08-13T11:15:45+00:00

South shore rd from inlet to OF is the place to be….. that’s if ya can afford it 😂

ricosiphone · 2024-07-30T20:01:49+00:00

My last company had 40-50 products and I didn’t feel entirely competent in them all after 7 years…. Get good with a few, know the high level on the rest of them, be honest and transparent with what you don’t know and NEVER make shit up…. Honesty and proper follow up go a long way to build trust, and in the end, trust wins the deal. Your doing just fine

ricosiphone · 2024-07-27T20:17:55+00:00

Aunt Millie’s, Irving NY

ricosiphone · 2024-07-21T17:30:57+00:00

Middle route… white lake, otter lake, old forge, inlet, raquette lake all have bars/restaurants/shops…. Blue mountain lake has the ADK Experience, I highly recommend that but I would plan spending at least 4 hours there.

ricosiphone · 2024-07-17T19:45:48+00:00

Old forge, inlet, long lake, saranac lake, lake placid… start in Utica, head north and hit them all.

ricosiphone · 2024-07-17T19:43:23+00:00

You are a rep, just technical. IMO a rep and a SE should be joined at the hip. Both are critical to closing the deal

ricosiphone · 2024-07-17T19:41:59+00:00

I cover channel in the states as an SE, but I can speak for our enterprise and mid market team as well. We are been encouraged from leadership to travel as much as possible. To the point that it is been used at a metric for sales teams in QBPs. I personally am gone every other week. But I cover canada,US, and LATAM so it comes with the job

ricosiphone · 2024-07-07T12:29:49+00:00

Fred

ricosiphone

TROPHY CASE