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> career milestones, side projects, things I broke on purpose

What I Believe

You cannot effectively lead a security organization if you have forgotten how to build one.

I bridge the gap between deep technical defense and executive-level business growth. From hunting threats in global SOCs to directing engineering strategy for 300+ enterprise accounts at Microsoft, I have spent my career proving that security leaders must stay close to the code.

I am an active speaker and educator, sharing frontline experience at industry events and as an Associate Instructor at Georgia Tech's Masters of Cybersecurity program. I believe in technical transparency, local data ownership, and making security accessible and effective.

Career

2021 – Present

Microsoft

Director, Security Engineering Dec 2025 – Present
  • Security strategy for U.S. Retail & Financial Services
  • 300+ Tier-1 enterprise accounts
  • Zero Trust architecture & XDR implementation (Azure Sentinel)
Previous roles at Microsoft
Director, Security Solutions Engineering — Retail & Consumer Goods Jul – Dec 2025
  • Led security solutions and engineering strategy for the Global Retail sector, aligning Azure's security roadmap with large consumer brands.
Director, Security Technical Sales Dec 2023 – Aug 2025
  • Directed technical sales strategy for the security portfolio, bridging complex engineering requirements and business-critical outcomes.
Director, Cloud Solution Architecture — Azure Security Jun 2021 – Dec 2023
  • Led Cloud Solution Architects and Customer Engineers to secure 300+ US Enterprise accounts across Retail & Consumer Goods.
2020 – Present

GT Georgia Tech

Associate Instructor, Masters of Cybersecurity
  • Created "Man-in-the-Middle" lab for real-world threat hunting
  • ML & cloud security environments
2014 – 2020

IBM IBM

Practice Manager, Security Intelligence
  • Scaled NA Security Intelligence to $10M P&L
  • Led 20 senior consultants across XDR & SIEM
  • Global SOC operations — US, Brazil, Poland, Costa Rica
  • 60+ analysts · 30% reduction in response times via AI automation
2009 – 2014

Threat Analyst — Blue Team

  • Deep-packet analysis & signature tuning
  • Foundational security plans for high-traffic environments

Projects & Labs

Sentinel × pfSense

Integrated pfSense firewall logs with Microsoft Sentinel for unified threat visibility across home and cloud.

sentinel pfsense security

IoT & Home Automation

Flashing Sonoff devices, Flipper Zero experiments, and Home Assistant with Caddy reverse proxy secured via Entra ID.

home-assistant iot diy

Digital Policy

Published analysis on international digital law, including Brazil's ECA Digital (Law 15.211/2025) on minor protection and online age verification.

privacy policy

Technical DNA

Languages

  • Python
  • Java
  • C / C++
  • Bash
  • PHP

Cloud & Infra

  • Azure
  • GCP
  • AWS
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • pfSense

Security

  • Microsoft Sentinel
  • IBM QRadar
  • Microsoft Defender
  • XDR / SIEM
  • IDS / IPS
github.com/renanfernandes