20 Years In Finance. Zero Right Answers. Hired Anyway | Guest: Sunil Karir
Source: YouTube · GRC Engineering Club · published Aug 16, 2026 · 57:06
BLUF: GRC engineer Shanil shares his pivot from 20 years in finance into cybersecurity, showing how immigrant work ethic, hustle, and technical awareness—not shortcuts—drive career success 0:39.
Key Takeaways:
• After a finance layoff, Shanil earned basic certs and applied to 10 jobs daily; a director hired him despite failing every technical question—because of his attitude 1:52
• Volunteering for an ISO 27001 project revealed GRC fit his audit background; mentor boss Paul taught him InfoSec and pushed continuous self-development 5:11
• Both hosts credit immigrant parenting—4 a.m. paper routes, family shops, "coasting is a luxury afforded to others"—for instilling discipline and the drive to outwork everyone 9:41
• Breaking in today demands technical awareness over cert collecting: read code, understand cloud, use AI wisely, and link GRC controls to continuous monitoring 29:28
• Certs add bargaining power only with real work—"do the work before it"—and apprenticeships, plus GDPR/privacy knowledge, beat chasing shortcuts like the CEH-to-six-figures myth 33:48, 54:20
Hard work, curiosity, and learning in public can carry anyone into cybersecurity—at 52, Shanil asks, "what's anybody else's excuse?" 35:57
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First 800 characters of the transcript
Welcome to another exciting edition of the Anti-Check Blocks podcast. I'm joined today by someone who I in my professional career I always seek out people like this. So, I think this is kind of faded, right? Like somebody who's been in the game for a bit. I want to learn. I want to hear some war stories and yeah, man, when somebody like Abdi says, "Hey, this guy has a wild story." I pay attention. I make space in the calendar and I want to sit and listen. Shanil, introduce yourself. Let the folks know who you are. If they don't, they've been living under a rock because you're pretty active, I feel on the Slack. But but for the two that haven't paid attention, let them know. >> Yeah. So, I'm I'm Shanil. I'm part of the uh IT GRC engineering club. So, when I got into it maybe a few months ag…