There are moments in a career where you can feel the window opening. The question is whether you have the nerve to climb through it.
I’m climbing through it.
I’ve accepted a position as a Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Assessor, and I want to be honest about what that means — because it’s not a clean, simple decision. It’s a leap of faith, and leaps of faith are uncomfortable by design.
What I’m Leaving Behind
Let me be clear about something first: I am not leaving a bad situation. Not even close.
The company I’m currently with has been a great place to work. The contractors I’ve worked alongside are sharp, professional, and genuinely good people. The government employees we support have been outstanding. The work has been meaningful. If you’re reading this and you’re part of that team — thank you. Genuinely. This one stings a little.
But staying in a good situation because it’s comfortable is its own kind of risk. I’ve learned that lesson before.
Where This Decision Was Born
To understand why I’m making this move, you have to go back to last year.
DOGE-related layoffs took my position. I found myself unemployed — not for the first time in my career, but never a pleasant experience regardless. When that happened, I gave myself two goals. Not ten. Not a list. Two.
The first: secure W2 employment. The second: earn my CMMC CCP and CCA certifications.
I landed the W2 job, just after I passed the CCP exam.Then, a couple of months later, I passed the CCA exam, cleared Tier 3 and became a Certified Cca. I set those goals during one of the more uncertain stretches of my professional life, and I hit both of them.
That matters — not just for the résumé, but for what it confirmed. When things got hard, my instinct was to build. To certify. To make myself more capable, not just more employable. That instinct is worth following.
Why Now and Not Later
CMMC is ramping up. The assessments are coming. The Defense Industrial Base is being held to a standard that has real teeth now, and the demand for qualified, credentialed assessors is only going to grow — until it doesn’t, because the supply catches up.
Here’s the honest calculation: I am more marketable at this moment than I will be in twelve months. The CCA is still a differentiator. The pipeline of assessors is still building. The organizations doing this work are still establishing their teams. If I wait for the perfect moment, I’ll wait myself right out of the window.
I’ve also gotten signal from the new organization that they want me leading assessments down the road. That’s not just a job offer — that’s a runway. That’s exactly the kind of professional trajectory I’ve been building toward.
I’ve Made This Call Before
Before COVID changed how everyone thought about work, I left a job that was genuinely good. It was remote and hybrid before that was really a thing — before those words even meant what they mean now. Most people would have stayed. The flexibility alone was worth holding onto.
I left anyway, for an in-office role that would force me to learn things I couldn’t learn from behind a home desk. It was the right call. The discomfort was the point. What I built in that role shaped the professional I am today.
I’m making the same kind of bet now.
What the Leap Feels Like
Scary. I won’t dress it up. Leaving people you respect, work you’re good at, and an environment that functions well — that’s not nothing. Anyone who tells you career pivots are easy is either lucky or not being straight with you.
But I’ve been here before. Not the same circumstances, but the same feeling. That specific mix of excitement and anxiety that shows up right before something significant. I’ve learned to pay attention to that feeling, because it usually means you’re standing at the edge of something worth doing.
CMMC is where I’ve invested. It’s where my credentials point. It’s where the mission is. And the mission — helping defense contractors get their security posture right, protecting the industrial base that supports national defense — that’s work I believe in.
So I’m going.
Not because it’s safe. Because it’s right.
And because Doug was built for exactly this kind of moment.
#CMMC #CCA #CareerPivot #DefenseContracting #Cybersecurity #DIB #DougWasBuiltNotBorn #LeapOfFaith