In an effort to foster the growth of the PA Hackers community and the individuals therein, PA Hackers is introducing Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). By appointing SMEs, we aim to give the members of PA Hackers access to knowledgeable, helpful experts in a variety of cybersecurity subject areas. SMEs will provide guidance and mentorship to members when called upon, and work towards the betterment of all members of the PA Hackers community.
PA Hackers aims to provide members with access to SMEs in the following subject areas:
- Pentesting/Ethical Hacking – @Gek
- OSINT – @the_wondersmith
- Linux – @ThunderHorse
- Programming and Secure Coding – @ThunderHorse
- Network Security – TBD
- Malware Analysis and Reverse Engineering – @clixo
- Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) – @zer0uid
- Digital Forensics & Incident Response – @MattM
- Privacy – TBD
- Cryptography – TBD
The members named above as SMEs have continually demonstrated their commitment to PA Hackers and their passion for their subject area.
Responsibilities and Expectations
The goal of PA Hackers Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) is to facilitate the growth of small sub-communities within PA Hackers by providing guidance and mentorship to members.
SMEs are not expected to know all of the answers. SMEs are not necessarily experts within the industry; they are experts within PA Hackers. They are expected to be community-minded individuals with deep knowledge of a subject area that are capable of quickly finding, understanding, and sharing answers to difficult questions. SMEs are expected to behave professionally, make new and existing members feel welcome in their channel, and serve as a leader in their sub-community
The responsibilities of each SME are as follows:
- Moderate the discord channel for their subject area.
- Ensure all questions receive a response within 24 hours.
- Frequently share articles, videos, a short write-up, or other media about their subject area in their discord channel.
- Once per year, SMEs are expected to propose a presentation topic for PA Hackers meetups. The SME’s proposal may or may not be accepted.
- For subject areas with a large interest from the community, SMEs will work with the vice president of PA Hackers to establish a semi-formal mentorship program.
SMEs are appointed by the PA Hackers Board of Leadership. This appointment may be revoked at the discretion of the board if the SME fails to meet any of these criteria.
Next Steps
Starting today, a number of new discord channels will appear. Please use these channels as a place to ask and answer questions, improve your skills, and engage with other members of PA Hackers who have similar interests. Introduce yourself to the SME and discuss what you’d like to learn or how you may be able to enrich the PA Hackers community.
You may have noticed that SMEs for all subject areas have not yet been named. If you’d like to take on the role of SME in one of these areas, or suggest another subject area, please reach out to @Thunderhorse.