DefendEdge OC LLC

The DefendEdge SkillBridge program is an excellent opportunity for anyone genuinely interested in launching a career in cybersecurity. It is best suited for self-starters who take initiative and are not afraid to ask questions. Like many roles in the cyber field, this internship requires you to take ownership of your learning. Do not expect to be spoon fed. This company has a lot of intelligent people that are more than happy to assist, you just have to speak up and ask.

When I started, I had no hands-on cybersecurity experience beyond a few college courses. Over the course of the internship, I gained valuable knowledge and practical exposure that helped me confidently speak about my experience during job interviews.

While full-time employment with DefendEdge is not guaranteed, especially if you are not going above and beyond, the real value lies in the experience you gain. If you take full advantage of the opportunity, you will walk away with solid resume content and the ability to articulate your contributions and skills in a professional setting.

Learn what you need to, ask questions, and start mass applying.

As others have pointed out, this skill bridge is one of those where you get out of it what you put into it. Here are a few points to consider before signing up for DE.

You need to put in the work. This is a place where clocking in and doing the minimum and clocking out is an easy thing to do. I have seen a lot of people do it, and they are the ones that often complain that they were not given opportunities. They wanted to be GIVEN opportunities. That is not how life works, and not how this place works. You need to put in the work and ask the questions and dig for resources and push to get noticed.

With all that said, here is what to expect from DE.

You will go through a 3 week academy where you learn the basics of how to be a part of a Security Operations Center (SOC). There are many teams to choose from including weekday, night, and weekend shifts.

After you are assigned to one of these "hives", (you get to put in your preference, but the final decision is theirs) you will further learn the tools you need to be an effective member of the SOC and support the many clients DE caters to.

For a lot of people, this is where the skill bridge effectively ends. They clock in, do their tasks, and clock out. They get their 6 months or so of experience and leave feeling like they were not fully prepared for a job after DE or even how to get into a job. They did not use their time effectively. There are resources in the form of many many people who are more than willing to answer questions and show you their knowledge and skills while you have access to them. The tools you are allowed to use while at DE are powerful if you learn what you are doing. Otherwise they are a useless thing on the sideline.

Reading other reviews, I will agree with one small point. DE is a business, and is focused on running their business for the benefit of their clients and earning a profit. They pride themselves on training and preparing interns, but I wouldn't say their focus is getting you into a job after your skill bridge. That is on you. They give you the experience and a skillset to do a job, but finding that job is your responsibility. Do not expect to come in here and be spoon fed a position after DE.

As for being hired on to DE, they are a relatively small company of full time employees with a whole lot of interns. They cannot hire everyone they train, nor should they hire everyone. They push a lot of people through this program, and as I said, a lot of them aren't the standout people you would want to hire anyway. Your chances of being hired on at DE are not 0, but they are pretty close.

Instead of using this time to be frustrated that DE probably won't hire you, use the resources you have at your fingertips to learn the career field of SOC analyst and the people you work with to make connections for networking in the future. You are your best tool while here. Push and learn and grow. Don't expect them to do it for you.

meanwhile for me, coming from a completely different background my last 6 years of life, i would say this was overrall a great experience with great people. i enjoyed my last 6 months trying, and learning new things that i had never touched or dealth with.

When I started searching for a cybersecurity Skillbridge program, DefendEdge stood out and was the very first to respond among the other Skillbridge companies I reached out to. HR was great at answering my questions and was very accommodating. Despite not coming from a background in cybersecurity, they gave me everything I needed to know. I came looking for a SOC experience, but learned about the CTI (Cyber threat intelligence) route the first week in the internship, and had the opportunity to pursue that route. The directors were great and very knowledgeable. Everyone at the company was very friendly and had an open-door policy, making me feel very welcome to message them anytime. If you're looking for an internship that will give you hands on experience in SOC (or CTI), this is 100% recommended. It's not 'free labor' (since you are being paid by the military), it is exactly what you sign up for and it is what you make it to be.

The entire company is built off of free labor from SkillBridge interns. I realized that before even starting the internship, but figured being a slave for them would be slightly better than being a slave to the Navy. I even worked for a few weeks while I was on terminal leave when I could have been working a paid job. A few weeks before I left I told them I was leaving a week earlier than I was set to because I was on terminal leave. The day I finally left I started receiving passive aggressive emails from the HR lady.

I selected "Yes" for "Did you feel supported & valued" and "Would you recommend this company?" for a few reasons. I would only recommend this company to people who have no prior background in Cybersecurity. If you are self motivated, then this can be a good Skillbridge, however that is up to you to put in extra work. It was a place where it could be very easy to clock in, clock out and that was the experience. You could also ask questions, volunteer, take advantage of study resources available and gain a lot.

If you have a Cyber background, I doubt you would gain any new knowledge or that it would be more than an easy "transition" period. The most beneficial portion was becoming familiar with SOC tools. The tools aren't industry standard tools, but they are still experience in the field with a specific brand of tools. The company will "teach" you the basics of Networking and Cybersecurity fundamentals. Realistically the knowledge piece is glanced over, and they just teach you what is necessary for you to perform your function. If you desire to understand how things work or gain more knowledge, then it is up to you to ask questions. Most of the leads are very knowledgeable and more than willing to help out.

That being said, the other reviews are generally correct. The company structure is based upon free labor from the interns, who do a large portion of the leg work. You can take that as free experience or free labor. That is up to you. The team leads/mid level leadership, were exceptional individuals. They were extremely helpful and wanted to help me succeed. Most of the experienced interns were equally as helpful. They both were a wealth of knowledge and had created a very positive, growth oriented culture. I would recommend this internship to other's looking to break into Cybersecurity, specifically because of that group of people.

The interactions with upper leadership were minimal. Usually once or twice a week. Those interactions were usually not the best. The beginning of most "training" meetings consisted of a few upper leadership members yammering on about stats, metrics and getting irritated at the interns for not caring very much about either of those items. At times they even went so far as to berate interns for their lack of participation when it came to stats and metrics. Generally, it seemed that most interns didn't have much of a reason to care about stats or metrics. Post Skillbridge employment by them was close to 0%.

Ultimately, the internship is like everything else in life. It is what you make of it. With the factors listed above, I give the internship a 3/5. For your average skillbridge intern, I don't think it would be much more than your typical 9-5. For self motivated interns, I think it could be a very beneficial experience.

I attended this program back in early 2023.

While you do gain a bunch of experience from DefendEdge, you are pretty much guaranteed to not be offered a position. The accreditation they get you is not useful, they are low level, free certifications offered by FortiNet that are specific to those products.

I worked with an amazing team of people, however the vast majority of the work done at the company is done by Skillbridge interns. They are managed by fulltime "Hive Leads" but all analysts and SOC work is done by interns. It does feel like the company is taking advantage of the Skillbridge program.

They require you to work on whatever schedule they assign you to, this can be weekends, nights, etc, they meticulously track your work done and hours so they can accurately report to their customers but you are not paid.

While this was a great learning opportunity, the company is definitely taking advantage of the program, and you cannot expect any assistance in getting hired. I was there for 6 months back in 2023, and didn't have the HR rep reach out about sending my resume off until 6 months after my EAS when I was already hired elsewhere.

I was looking forward to this skillbridge! During the interview, it was presented as a great stepping stone into the civilian world. I, on the other hand, did not find it that way at all. Their SOC is consisted mainly of skillbridge applicants, who are rotating constantly. Their classes also are taught by other Skillbridge members. During my time it felt like a scheme to use skillbridge as free labor. They do NOT set you up for future positions. They claim they offer assistance but it’s at the bare minimum. If you actually want a stepping stone, do not do this skillbridge. I was so bummed about this program.

During the intake interview, this company will tell you they hire or find job placement for 80% of the Skillbridge personnel. They don't.

They do provide you with hands-on experience and work, but it is to solely benefit the company and they neither value growth or advancement of their people.

For instance, I requested every day for 3 weeks to take my tier 2 exam and never got to. I asked for more responsibility and was told to continue taking my assessments (yes, the same one I had been asking to take for weeks). I then requested to be moved to Project Management where the company Project Manager had agreed to take me in. We were ultimately told "no."

I then asked if I could participate in other company activities such as Cyber Threat Investigation. I was not told no, but you could tell it was not a favorable decision. I ultimate decided not to because I started poring efforts into searching for a job.

Speaking of job searching, this company posts once per month in an MSTeams channel about a job posting, where you notify Priscilla if you are interested or not. She will take your resume, and you will never hear anything about that opportunity again. The job search "help" that is offered is an AI resume builder that is periodically reposted. When confronted about needing help for job searching, there is no help provided.

Unless you are looking for a Skillbridge to just get away from your command while you out-process, stay away from DefendEdge.

"Cons: No hands on with widely used solutions and tools such as Splunk, WireShark, etc., since its products are Fortinet. Slim to zero chance of being hired after program completion. No job placement help.

Pros: An opportunity to get feet wet into cyber security and get hands on experience as SOC Analyst, which looks better than nothing on resume. Learn what you are doing, prioritize getting a certification before end of program, and start job hunting early and you will be ok"