Why Mastering Compliance Creates a Competitive Advantage for Developers


This article was written by Glia, a partner of Digit 2024.

Glia, one of Estonia's 10 unicorns, is the leader and pioneer of Unified Interaction Management—redefining how companies interact with their customers. Glia’s ChannelLess® architecture unifies voice, digital customer service, and AI to eliminate dropped context, data silos, and frustration for customers and representatives. With Glia, customer interactions drive efficiency, loyalty, and revenue.

At the heart of Glia’s growth is a commitment to security, driven by a team of talented professionals with deep expertise and knowledge like Vahur Teller and Tom Välja, whose insights are shaping the future of secure software development. As they prepare to share their experience at Digit, here’s a glimpse of what the people attending can expect from their sessions.

Vahur Teller: Mastering Compliance for Secure Development

Vahur, who has worked as the head of the cybersecurity team in Glia for the last few years, brings over two decades of IT experience, with a specialized focus on security over the past eight years. His career spans infrastructure, tech leadership, and IT support, and has given him a unique perspective on the intersection of technology and human interaction, particularly in corporate security.

In his session titled "The Compliance-Savvy Developer: Mastering Regulatory Integration," Vahur will delve into the often-overlooked aspect of regulatory compliance in software development. His approach emphasizes bringing compliance requirements directly to development teams, transforming what is often seen as a regulatory burden into an opportunity to enhance product quality.

Vahur believes that when developers understand the "WHY" behind compliance requirements, they can integrate these controls more effectively into their projects, leading to more secure, maintainable, and customer-friendly products. His talk will offer practical tips and real-world examples, guiding participants on how to create a development process that not only meets regulatory demands but also gives their product a competitive edge.

Tom Välja: Building Security into the Development Process

Tom Välja, Engineering Manager at Glia, is a seasoned and well rounded technologist with years of experience in the Finance and Energy sectors. His aviation background has instilled in him a deep appreciation of secure and safe operations, emphasizing the importance of robust processes and redundancies.

In his workshop, "Threat Modeling: Securing Software at the Source," Tom will focus on the critical practice of Threat Modeling. This session is designed to equip software engineers with the knowledge needed to identify and mitigate risks early in the software development lifecycle and share a practical tool that can help accomplish this in real life. Participants will have the opportunity to be hands-on to create attack trees and threat model diagrams, which are essential for integrating proactive security measures into their projects.

Tom’s workshop is particularly valuable for those looking to embed security thinking into the core of their development process, reducing the reliance on external pressure (such as audits, CVEs, attacks etc.) to create secure software. By learning these techniques, developers can not only enhance security but also reduce costs and improve the overall quality of their software products.

Why attend these sessions?

Whether you’re a developer, a security engineer, or someone involved in the broader tech landscape, the insights shared by Vahur and Tom are invaluable. Their sessions are tailored to help professionals think ahead, anticipate security challenges, and integrate secure practices from the ground up.

Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how to approach compliance and security as integral parts of the development process. These sessions are perfect for anyone working with data, especially in sectors like health and finance, where security and compliance are critical. This is one key skill that differentiates most prized and senior engineers from those who are in the early stages of their careers.

Join us at the Digit Conference on October 4 to learn from Glia’s experts, and discover how you can bring security and compliance to the forefront of your development practices.

Since its founding in 2012 by Daniel Michaeli, Justin DiPietro, and Carlos Paniagua, Glia has grown remarkably. Glia has a team of 350 members, with nearly half of them working in Tallinn and Tartu and the headquarters in New York.