Taking on a New Tech Role During a Pandemic

We joined Fannie Mae during the early days of a looming global pandemic. Like all our colleagues, we are adjusting to working remotely but with the added layer of being new to Fannie Mae. Remote work has its perks, like less commuting time. With our added time at home, we've tapped into old hobbies, like playing piano, drawing, and gardening. But remote working also poses challenges that we're all learning to manage. Our new normal has meant not only juggling the demands of home and finding ways to stay connected, but also getting up to speed in the workplace.

For both of us, a deciding factor in taking our roles was the opportunity to help solve some of housing's biggest challenges while leveraging state-of-the-art cyber, cloud, data management, and analytical tools. Never more so than today, companies are only as strong as their ability to reach their audiences through their digital capabilities. Fannie Mae's quick adaptation to a remote workforce that is able to still serve our customers from home underscores many years of work toward strengthening our infrastructure, increasing our capacity to digitize the mortgage process, and painting a clear and urgent picture of where we need to go.

Since joining the company around the same time a few months ago, we've been learning what keeps the team so energized. Some of our first impressions are:

• Cybersecurity is critical to Fannie Mae's culture of innovation. Fannie Mae is accelerating its cloud migration and emerging technologies, with a focus on security. Security can – and should – accelerate the enablement of technology.
• There's power in partnerships. Fannie Mae is truly pushing the envelope in emerging technologies, including cloud, big data, and artificial intelligence. When business and technology teams include cybersecurity in conversations early, we can help the business get where it's trying to go.
• Our culture is resilient. Fannie Mae's employees have adapted to remote working quickly, continuing to drive the organization's priorities without losing momentum. The company is working closely with our customers to help cost-burdened homeowners and renters – impacted by COVID-19 – to remain in their homes during this difficult time.
• The tech tools in our toolbelt are nothing short of amazing. There are not many tools that technologists like to work with that Fannie Mae does not have, including containers, service mesh, data streaming, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Automated Security Testing, and Automated Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD).

We are looking forward to bringing our experience and enthusiasm to help protect the data of our colleagues, customers, homeowners, and renters during this unprecedented time, and beyond. By joining Fannie Mae, you too can have the opportunity to lead our industry forward, enhance your tech expertise, and build your career alongside some of the industry's leading tech professionals. Changing jobs during a pandemic may seem scary, but we'd encourage you to learn more about the tech opportunities at Fannie Mae. If this sounds like an environment where you'd thrive, check us out – we're hiring!

Nick Mistry, VP Cybersecurity Architecture, Cloud, & Vulnerability

Kathleen Memenza, VP Cybersecurity Threat, Engineering, Identity & Access Management

July 9, 2020