Arica Willis

April 8, 2025

Reflection Paper #2

During my next 50 hours of my internship, my role expanded significantly as we transitioned from focusing solely on cybersecurity to incorporating software engineering practices. Initially continuing in my role as a cybersecurity engineer, I supported our team in migrating our database systems to PostgreSQL to enhance scalability, reliability, and performance. This transition required us to reassess our database security posture and adapt our previous strategies to the new environment, ensuring encryption, access control, and data integrity remained top priorities.

While working on transitioning our material, I worked closely with the backend team to integrate secure connections between our systems and the PostgreSQL setup. This then allowed an opportunity for the team to begin learning how to build and consume APIs using Java. Through this experience, I not only learned how to develop APIs but also began contributing code, designing endpoints, and ensuring they adhered to secure coding best practices.

My strong technical foundation and ability to quickly learn Java allowed me to step into a software engineering role alongside my cybersecurity responsibilities. I assisted in developing API routes that interacted with our PostgreSQL database, implemented input validation to prevent common attack vectors, and ensured the API responses were efficient and secure. Working in this dual role gave me a deeper understanding of full-stack development and how security must be integrated throughout the software development lifecycle.

This phase of my internship solidified my confidence in both cybersecurity and software engineering. I gained hands-on experience in database administration, API development with Java, and secure backend architecture. More importantly, I proved to myself and my team that my technical adaptability could meet the needs of a dynamic, cross-functional environment. These experiences are not only shaping my current contributions but also preparing me for a well-rounded career in cybersecurity and software development.