About
Steve Zenone
I work in three areas that look unconnected from outside: leadership and cybersecurity, long-form personal writing and electronic music released as ZenOne.
They don't really need to connect. Security is my profession. Writing is where I work things out. ZenOne is the music. I probably bring the same habit to all three - I keep pulling at details until the explanation either holds up or it doesn't.
Professional
25+ years in security across Microsoft, Netflix and Meta, from engineering into executive security leadership.
- Helped create and build the Netflix Security Intelligence and Response Team (SIRT), and helped grow the wider Netflix security organization from 4 engineers to 100+.
- At Microsoft, I was Principal Security Engineering Manager for CodeQL, a tool for finding security issues in code. The program grew adoption from minimal coverage to more than 90% across Windows, Xbox, Office 365 and other Microsoft codebases.
- I was the first security officer at two healthcare startups. I built security and IT from scratch and led work on HIPAA compliance, HITRUST and SOC 2.
- Independent since January 2025, working in AI engineering and security research. I fine-tune and deploy language models in systems where multiple AI agents work together. My security research focuses on malicious instructions hidden in content those agents read, and on limiting what agents can access and do.
LinkedIn has the roles and the dates. I also take on a small number of security and AI engagements each year. My resume is available upon request.