Episode 29

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Published on:

30th Apr 2025

Snyk’s Danny Allan on Making Security Developer-Friendly

Security often feels like a roadblock to developers, but what if it could be seamlessly integrated into the development process? As software delivery becomes increasingly automated and self-service, the traditional approach to security needs a major overhaul.

Danny Allan, CTO at Snyk, shares practical insights on transforming security from a bottleneck into an enabler of developer productivity. Drawing from his extensive experience at IBM, VMware, and Veeam, Allan discusses how security teams can shift left effectively without creating friction.

Key topics covered:

  • Building successful security champions programs that cultivate curiosity rather than relying solely on senior developers
  • Practical approaches to embedding security controls into development pipelines, from IDE integration to PR checks
  • Strategies for measuring security team success beyond just vulnerability counts
  • The role of pre-hardened containers and infrastructure-as-code scanning in platform security
  • How AI is transforming both code generation and security tooling, including Snyk's approach to vulnerability detection

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About the Podcast

Platform Engineering Podcast
Welcome to the Platform Engineering Podcast, a monthly exploration into the fascinating world of platform engineering. This podcast caters to professionals and enthusiasts passionate about the intricacies of platform architecture, cloud operations, and scaling DevOps practices. Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting in the realm of platform engineering, this is a must-listen show you don’t want to miss.

Each episode features in-depth interviews with seasoned platform engineers, cloud specialists, and DevOps teams. Their expertise and knowledge are crucial for thriving in this field. Tune in as they share their experiences, challenges, and successes, offering unique perspectives into the everyday workings and innovations of this domain. Let their intriguing anecdotes provide you with valuable lessons that can immediately enhance your business’s competitive edge.

Hosting the podcast is Cory O’Daniel, CEO of Massdriver. A software and operations engineer in Los Angeles, California, Cory has over two decades of experience in building startup brands and managing cloud operations. He created Bonny, an Elixir-based Kubernetes operator framework, and is passionate about AWS cloud, Kubernetes, and platform engineering.

Join Cory as he breaks down platform engineering with his expert guests.