Editor’s note: Each week, the San Antonio Report publishes a brief synopsis of the weekly bigcitysmalltown podcast hosted by Robert Rivard, co-founder of the Report.
Jose Herrera was working as a third-generation gunsmith in his hometown of Laredo when he happened upon a new cybersecurity training program in San Antonio that he hopes will change the trajectory of his career.
Herrera is one of 15 students in the first cohort at NukuDo, a Singapore-based company that pays its students “approximately $4,000 a month,” per its website, once that student has been accepted into its 6-month cybersecurity training program.
Paying students instead of charging them tuition is radical enough — yet it’s not the only way NukuDo’s model differs from the typical cybersecurity bootcamp. After graduation, instead of seeking work directly with a company, students commit to working for those companies as NukuDo contractors for three years.
NukuDo pays them $66,000 per year, earning revenue “from the upcharge it collects from its partner companies,” explained Robert Rivard as he introduced Herrera and Michael Blair, managing director of NukuDo San Antonio on episode #70 of his bigcitysmalltown podcast.
Rivard noted that while preparing for the interview, he found a lot of people on social media searching for ways to expand their skills and move into careers with advancement opportunities.
“But the other thing I noticed is that people are also wary of schools or programs that they enroll in, and they wonder about your business model,” he said.
Blair called NukuDo’s model “a private sector solution to a private sector problem,” and described the gap NukuDo is trying to fill. A recent report out of the White House found a half a million unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S., he said, and at the same time, hundreds of people apply for every open role — but most aren’t qualified.
NukuDo training is “grounded in real world scenarios,” Blair said — including the skills necessary to earn industry-recognized certifications, such as the Certified Incident Handler Certification. Herrera just earned a perfect score on that exam, he noted.
NokuDo now faces its first test locally, Rivard pointed out: finding companies who will hire these students and agree to the three-year-contract. Blair said NokuDo is “very close” to placing Herrera and his 14 fellow students in jobs — but he also put out a call to companies seeking cybersecurity talent.
“If you have CEOs or CISOs or Chief People Officers who are listening today … I would ask them to reach out, because we are very close to being ready for folks to actually hire these individuals.”
NukuDo is also in the process of selecting, or “hiring,” in its parlance, its next cohort, Blair said. A cohort beginning in October is already full, according to the company’s website; applications are being accepted for a winter class.
NukuDo is highly selective, choosing “the most promising candidates” who make it through the company’s “comprehensive assessments,” per its website. Herrera, who has a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems from Texas A&M International University, took NukuDo’s online “challenge” after applying and found it “really fun.
“They gave me this tool called Wireshark and essentially told me, ‘hey, go find this needle in a haystack.'” After about an hour, Herrera found it, and was able to move on to the next phase of the application process, aptitude tests.
Successful applications typically have four core traits, Blair said: “They are highly logical, they have deep analytical aptitudes, they’re lifelong learners and they have soft skills.”
Listen to the full episode to learn how NukuDo chose San Antonio to open its first North American outpost — and hear more about Herrera’s background and what he thinks of San Antonio now that he’s here.
