Many aspiring lawyers are tormented by the logic puzzle games included in the LSAT. Not Betsy Jorgensen. As a Technical Writer at CrowdStrike, Betsy has always been attracted to logic and order. “Keeping things straight has always been a joy of mine,” says Betsy.
Betsy’s path to CrowdStrike was non-traditional. After starting her career in professional theater, Betsy transitioned into law, where she worked in legal research, legal competitive intelligence and legal compliance with a focus on securities and data privacy. Then she found CrowdStrike.
“I was working to develop legal editorial software when I learned about CrowdStrike from a good friend of mine. They encouraged me to apply for the ontology team. While I didn't have a traditional cybersecurity background, my problem-solving skills and ability to learn quickly and voraciously were just the things they needed.”
Bringing Order to the Chaos
For the past five years, Betsy has supported CrowdStrike’s mission of stopping breaches through her expertise in ontology: the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being. It might sound esoteric, but in cybersecurity, ontology is the glue that connects complex systems together.
“At CrowdStrike, we refer to ontology as the CrowdStrike language that allows us to expand our systems securely across the cloud,” explained Betsy.
This work was initially done by engineers, but CrowdStrike soon realized that bringing in analytical specialists like Betsy could quickly bring order to the chaos. Their expertise could allow the company to continue growing and expanding into new areas, while keeping a common set of naming conventions across its many interconnected technologies.
One output of Betsy’s work is the CrowdStrike events data dictionary. Today, when a CrowdStrike customer gets a detection in the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform, that detection includes several fields called “events.” Customers use the events data dictionary to learn what each event means, ultimately enabling them to quickly triage and stop potentially malicious activity.
“I help turn internal information into customer-friendly information,” explained Betsy. “It’s a fun puzzle to solve.”
Preserving a Culture of Acceptance
Betsy’s unique way of looking at things helps her understand and connect with people as well. “I love people and knowing their complexities … it helps me deliver a great customer experience and a great employee experience.”
At CrowdStrike, Betsy teaches an ontology course as part of onboarding for new technical employees. She’s also a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community at CrowdStrike and helps run an employee resource group called ProudStrike.
ProudStrike gives LGBTQ+ CrowdStrikers a community to connect with each other, ask questions and get support. As president of the ProudStrike steering committee, Betsy has been a pioneer for the community and a go-to person for anybody seeking additional support.
“I have an open DM policy. If anybody needs to talk about anything, I’m here,” said Betsy.
With other companies, Betsy didn’t always feel comfortable being herself at work. That changed when she joined CrowdStrike. “Every person I’ve met at CrowdStrike has been incredibly accepting. I’m extremely out at work and I’ve always been able to be exactly myself.”
CrowdStrike has grown a lot since Betsy joined in 2019. Today, she works hard to preserve that culture of radical acceptance for every CrowdStriker across the globe. And through all of CrowdStrike’s growth and radical acceptance at CrowdStrike, the same mission unifies us all — stopping breaches.
“Every person deserves to feel safe, especially at work. We spend so much of our lives here. It’s very important to me that CrowdStrike remains a place where everyone can feel comfortable and be exactly who they are,” concluded Betsy. “I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep CrowdStrike the friendly and giving place it’s always been for me.”
Find out more about our people and culture at crowdstrike.jobs.
