Our company

We empower you to outsmart attackers

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Inside Out Security

Security that starts on the inside

Stairwell believes in forging a future in which any security team, regardless of size, sophistication, or resources, can be empowered to defend against every attacker.

The team behind Stairwell, including security leaders and engineers from Google and Mandiant, is singularly focused on making that future a reality. Security is currently practiced as a linear process, but ideally it is circular, continuous and should always be building on itself. And, it should always start by looking at what’s most important to an organization, which is their own internal data. Good security starts with a deep understanding of the assets, software, and files inside your environment.

That’s why we start inside out.

Our leadership

Mike Wiacek

CEO and FOUNDER Creative Determination

Mike is passionate about security and building out a team culture that is collaborative, honest, and dedicated to helping our customers outsmart attackers. Earlier he was a co-founder and CSO of Alphabet’s Chronicle and the founder of Google’s Threat Analysis Group.

Shel Sharma

VP of PRODUCT The Grokker

Shel has a quest for solving the biggest unsolved challenges in the cybersecurity industry. He believes that great products are built from a deep understanding of customers. Previously he built, managed, and marketed cybersecurity products for endpoint, network, and IAM security.

Eric Foster

VP of BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Strategic Scaler

Eric brings 25 years of cybersecurity experience and a history of successful strategic growth to Stairwell. With leadership roles at Cyderes and RiskIQ, and a commitment to innovative solutions, he’ll guide our go-to-market strategy and customer experience.

Our investors

Our ambitious vision is backed by some well-known investors with deep experience.

Our team members

Meet the people who are driven to go a step further to help make sure you’re always a step ahead.

Vinith Podduturi

SOFTWARE ENGINEER DeBuTeR (Design-Build-Test-Repeat)

Vinith is a versatile engineer with 13+ years experience in backend services, big data, networking, and endpoint security. He likes playing video games with his son, movies, chess, gardening, and DIY.

Christopher
Christopher Leyva

DESIGN LEAD Columbo

Leyva is our design detective meticulously pushing pixels around. He enjoys solving complex problems with beautiful and intuitive solutions. Other joys are his family and craft beer.

Kamaal Palmer

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Special K

Kamaal is a front-end developer who loves seeing new UIs come to light. When he’s not coding, he loves playing video games and watching sports (basketball, soccer, and volleyball), and playing with his two cats (Melo & Ash).

Udbhav Prasad

SOFTWARE ENGINEER UDP

Udbhav comes from Rubrik, where he built better backups. In spite of his love for watching and playing several sports, he’s lazy by nature, and is convinced that makes him a better software engineer.

Nate Walck

CLIENT PLATFORM ENGINEER Maker and Such

Nate is a lifelong maker/modder of all types of things. His love of learning has served him well throughout his career in technology. Previously, he has been a Sr. member of the CPE teams at Square, Uber, and Facebook.

Daniel Mayer

THREAT RESEARCHER Sourdough Maintainer

Daniel is a bread baker moonlighting as a malware reverse engineer. His dislikes include overproofed dough and VMProtected malware samples, but overproofed dough can get a pass because you can make pizza with it.

Bill Pentney

MACHINE LEARNING ENGINEER Chief Gradient Descender

Bill discovered BASIC on his family’s computer as a kid, and has been coding away ever since. He can be found bicycling all over San Francisco, making music, and performing odd culinary experiments.

Dylan Dow

DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER Bearded Scribe

In a world where coffee is fuel, onions are kryptonite, and the Oxford comma reigns supreme, Dylan fights the villainy of jargon to breathe life into the written word.

Kyle Hubbard

SOFTWARE ENGINEER WinDbg enthusiast

Kyle has been building security software products for over 10 years. He loves that there’s always something new to learn in the industry. When he’s not chasing his daughter around, he enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and cross-country skiing.

Greg Zemlin

SR. PRODUCT MANAGER The Handyman

Greg has spent his entire career in cybersecurity and he found his passion for product management early on. He always takes a user-first approach and strives to build products that customers obsess over.

Andy
Andrew Liu

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Booth Babe

Andrew loves tackling hard challenges and believes that people are the bedrock of any good team. In his past lives, Andrew started the machine learning infrastructure team at Scale AI and improved authentication at Google.

Alex Hegyi

CUST. THREAT HUNT ANALYST Prime Detective

Alex is passionately curious about it all: malware analysis, EDR, emulating threats, and hunting them. He loves to build all types of things from the ground up. When he gets the chance, he tries to catch the occasional F1 race.

Julie Simmons

HEAD OF LEGAL Zealous Advocate

Julie has spent the last decade supporting tech companies in the cybersecurity space by solving problems, spotting issues, and bringing parties to agreement.

Makayla Lepley

RECRUITER Joyful Achiever

Actor turned recruiter. Common connection? Understanding direction and appreciating talent! Makayla values diversity and is motivated to help build Stairwell’s culture by bringing innovative faces to the team.

Shoshana Abrass

HEAD of PRODUCT OPERATIONS Wears all the hats

Shoshana likes to figure out how things work and then re-engineer them to make them better. She started her career building computer systems, but now she optimizes work culture, communication, and process.

Anna Tiss

PEOPLE OPERATIONS SPECIALIST Chaos Tamer

Anna seeks finding the balance between people and operations, unlocking the full potential of teams, and is committed to creating a culture where collaboration is key.

Taylor Kaprive

SALES DEVELOPMENT REP. TK

Taylor thrives on collaborating with others to tackle intricate challenges. A former D1 athlete and healthcare professional, he possesses a blend of competitiveness and strategic thinking, with a knack for distilling and communicating complex ideas.

Teja
Teja Ambati

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Deft Defender

Teja believes that Ultron could have been stopped if Tony had installed Stairwell on his devices. Prior to Stairwell, he worked on audit trails and subscriptions at Clumio.

Valarie
Valerie Volcere

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Force Multiplier

Valerie is talented at helping tech leaders and teams thrive by providing operational support. She is enabling Dwellers on their mission to secure the world by solving everyday problems.

Michael
Michael Trinh

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Wave Breaker

Michael is a full-stack engineer prizing simplicity in work and adventure in life. Previously, he built Capital One’s cyber-ops platform, secured intel feeds on recon assets, and prototyped autonomous vehicles at MIT.

David
David Wyrobnik

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Infinite Learner

David is building Stairwell’s backend to support the company’s ambitious growth goals. When not coding, he is on the fencing strip, being walked by his cat, or climbing his next peak at a national park.

Tyler
Tyler King

HIRING & CULTURE CZAR Everyday Excellence

Tyler believes that people are the heart and soul of a company. His mission is to bring the most talented people to Stairwell while creating a culture that enables them to perform the best work of their careers.

Silas Cutler

PRINCIPAL REVERSE ENGINEER Resident Hacker

Silas is an experienced security researcher and threat analyst. His focus has been researching, deconstructing major supply chain and destructive attacks. Silas’ goal here is to stop cyber threats in their tracks before they cause harm.

Tuan Vu

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Problem Reducer

Tuan is a full-stack software engineer who is passionate about solving hard engineering problems at scale. He loves hiking, fishing, photography, and drinking around the backyard fire pit that he proudly built.

Dan
Daniel Muller

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Enigmatic Engineer

Daniel is the front-end team lead. With his colorful hair and hip single earring he is the cool older cousin of Stairwell, helping to keep things light and free of corporate energy.


Rory Wohl
Rory Wohl

HEAD of COMPLIANCE Acronym Adjudicator

Rory wants everyone to know that Stairwell practices what it preaches and has the (audited!) paperwork to prove it. ISO, SOC, NIST, CMMC, CIS, CSA, ENISA are all music to his ears.

Thomas Lyttelton

SOFTWARE ENGINEER Caffeine -> code converter

Tom’s a technology enthusiast who’s always enjoyed security, from early days of building alarm systems to an interest in cryptography. He’s lived globally and has experience from Palantir and Google.

Eric Ascencio

RECRUITER “E”

Eric believes that people are the most important aspect of a company’s success. Eric is on a mission to help hire the best talent to contribute to the success and growth of Stairwell.

Robbie Adams

SOLUTIONS ENGINEER Cosmic Dustbin

Robbie leverages his background in security engineering and leadership to help customers get the most out of their Stairwell experience. Insanely curious. People passionate.