On the lighter side of things , we ask the industry experts what makes them tick . . . .

Pete Lilley started his career as a food tester . Here ’ s what he ’ s learned since he got a taste for tech .

My interest in software and software engineering came before my career in cybersecurity . I had the opportunity to work on a project that was delivering a government-grade cryptographic device ; it was leading edge at the time , and integrated voice , fax and data into a single device . Back then – because of the high assurance requirements for government – we developed the application code in assembler . This project ignited my passion for software engineering but also gave me the introduction to cybersecurity that would deliver the most amazing 20 years in my professional career .

I often get asked why I pivoted away from a successful cybersecurity career and my answer is always the same : you never really leave cybersecurity . What I do today in data management has a huge component of cybersecurity because of the trust and assurance needed to run critical applications workloads for customers . In fact , I would argue that these last 10 years at the front line of data management and operations have only deepened my experience in the cybersecurity industry and given me an even greater appreciation of the challenges that application owners face in delivering reliability at scale .

What has been your most memorable career achievement ?

After more than 30 years in technology , there are many memorable achievements but one that certainly stands out is winning the Australian Business of the Year ( with Stratsec ) at the Telstra Business Awards in 2010 . It was the culmination of years of hard work building an amazing team of cybersecurity experts in the Asia Pacific region . What we could not know at the time was that it would set the foundation for the acquisition of our business by BAE Systems . Without that , I would not have gone on to found Instaclustr with my friends and colleagues Doug Stuart , Ben Bromhead and Adam Zegelin – the rest is history .

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