Rapid7’s Approach to Career Growth
Anyone who works in cybersecurity knows that their field changes faster and more aggressively than virtually any other industry.
That’s why Cathal O’Neill and his colleagues at Rapid7 describe constant new challenges in their day-to-day work at the cybersecurity platform provider. As cyber threats evolve and technology advances, the problems that need to be solved become increasingly complex.
What Does Rapid7 Do?
Powered by real-time threat intelligence and AI-driven insights, Rapid7’s cybersecurity platform helps organizations monitor, manage and reduce cyber threats.
“That pace can feel relentless, but it’s also what makes this industry such a unique place to grow,” O’Neill said.
In order to adapt with the evolving cybersecurity landscape, Rapid7 employees lean on management guidance and resources to navigate this transformative period. A dedicated People Development team has made this support accessible through dynamic, growth-focused programs. Moving away from traditional trainings, the team focuses on creating seamless, integrated experiences that thread common themes - such as core behaviors, skills, and frameworks. Programs are tailored to meet employees at each stage of their employee lifecycle, whether they are individual contributors, new people leaders, or senior leaders.
Rapid7 offers technologists everything they need to build a fulfilling career: complex, high-impact projects, ongoing support from leaders, and long-term career paths where employees can keep growing. And as employees build their careers, they get to refine the company’s vision of creating a secure digital world.
“We are reinventing how we work together to drive sharper value to our customers even faster — because in our industry, speed and predictive adaptability matter disproportionately,” Chief People Officer Katie Kulikoski said.
How Technological Transformation Is a Growth Catalyst for Rapid7 Employees
According to Cathal O’Neill, AI is changing Rapid7’s approach to product engineering from the inside out, unlocking new opportunities for innovation — and career growth.
O’Neill and his peers are integrating AI-driven capabilities directly into the company’s products, using threat intelligence and machine learning to surface and prioritize risk in new ways. Meanwhile, engineers are using agentic AI to autonomously write, test and iterate across a full development workflow.
“The best engineers are increasingly the ones who can direct and critically evaluate AI agents, not just write code,” O’Neill said. “The role of a software engineer at Rapid7 in 2026 looks meaningfully different from what it looked like two or three years ago.”
Technological transformation has been one of the greatest growth catalysts for team members like O’Neill. One of the clearest examples of this is the transformation of the company’s data architecture.
O’Neill’s team was operating on a tangle of services that didn’t scale and created data inconsistencies for customers. So, they decided to move to a data mesh architecture, which resulted in a major growth moment for everyone on the team.
“Engineers and managers had to collaborate across teams they’d never worked with before across the globe, communicate complex decisions across the organization, and hold a long-term vision under serious short-term pressure,” O’Neill said. “That kind of stretch, where the human challenges are as hard as the technical ones, is where I’ve seen the most transformative growth.”
Not only did this undertaking result in a strong foundation for Rapid7’s Command Platform, a centralized cybersecurity hub that unifies customers’ attack surface visibility, risks and threat response, but it also enhanced O’Neill and his colleagues’ confidence and expertise.
“Engineers and managers who were already strong came out the other side genuinely brilliant — more resilient, more capable and now the people we turn to as we innovate for the future challenges ahead,” O’Neill said.
How Rapid7 Supports Professional Development and Leadership Growth
In addition to access to cutting-edge technologies, Rapid7 employees say that their professional development is supported by empowering leaders and impactful resources, like Udemy courses.
A “learning in the flow of work” philosophy is central to Rapid7’s professional development programs, emphasizing the importance of rapid application that allows employees to apply new frameworks directly within the context of their roles.
What Career Development Programs Does Rapid7 Offer?
Rapid7 supports employee growth through Udemy courses, AI-integrated learning experiences, AI co-pilots, AI-informed skill pathways, regular career conversations with managers and the MLA Explore leadership development program for employees interested in management.
The People Development team is also integrating AI into the company’s learning ecosystem in the form of AI co-pilots and AI-informed skill pathways.
By embedding AI directly into the flow of the experience, Rapid7 empowers learners with the dedicated resourcing and application frameworks they need to drive measurable impact and confidently lead the future of work.
To anchor these opportunities, the people development team partners closely with managers to facilitate regular career conversations, ensuring they can connect their direct reports with the resources needed to achieve their career goals.
Rapid7's approach ensures that whether employees are scaling their influence through people leadership, or growing their deep technical expertise, there is a clear, supported, and high-impact path forward.
O’Neill’s Advice for Becoming an Effective Manager
- “Pay attention to what people bring energy to. What do they put their hand up for? What do they ask questions about, or are naturally inquisitive towards? That tells you so much about where people can grow.”
- “Be explicit about what the next level actually looks like. Vague encouragement isn't development.”
- “Create stretch opportunities that are genuinely stretching. A challenge that’s been quietly de-risked until it’s no longer uncomfortable isn’t developing anyone, even if it makes you as a leader feel better about it. Give people something that actually matters, then trust them with it.”
- “Build people up before the role exists. The managers who develop the best talent are thinking about career trajectory constantly, not scrambling when a position opens up. Promotion should feel like the inevitable next step, not a surprise.”
- “Finally, at scale, across distributed teams and time zones, you have to be deliberate about all of this. It doesn’t happen by accident. The investment you make in someone’s development compounds over time, and the engineers and managers who grow into your strongest people are almost always the ones who had someone paying close attention early on.”
How Rapid7’s Culture and Values Drive Employee Growth
At Rapid7, growth isn’t an opportunity — it’s a mindset that’s driven by the company’s core values: “Be An Advocate,” “Challenge Convention,” “Impact Together,” “Bring You” and “Never Done.”
Katie Kulikoski said these values are a barometer for how employees interact with each other and prioritize their work.
“Our industry is, by definition, one that is built on a foundation of curiosity, but it’s changing every day,” Kulikoski said. “We ‘Impact Together’ not just by figuring out where vulnerabilities exist, but by setting strategies for how to protect our customers in the future,” Kulikoski said.
At the end of each workday at Rapid7, transformation is “Never Done.” O’Neill said that those who embrace change for the business and themselves are the ones who will experience the most growth and impact.
“People who grow the most quickly here are the ones who treat uncertainty as an invitation rather than a blocker,” O’Neill said. “The ‘Never Done’ mindset isn’t just a value statement — in our domain, it’s the operating reality.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Rapid7 do?
Powered by real-time threat intelligence and AI-driven insights, Rapid7 is a cybersecurity platform provider that helps organizations monitor, manage, and reduce cyber threats. The company offers solutions like its Command Platform, which is a centralized cybersecurity hub that unifies customers' attack surface visibility, risks and threat response.
What career development opportunities does Rapid7 offer?
Rapid7 supports employee growth through a variety of integrated learning experiences and resources. This includes access to Udemy courses for skill-building, AI co-pilots and AI-informed skill pathways that embed learning directly into the flow of daily work, and regular career conversations with managers to connect employees to personalized growth resources. The company also offers a MLA Explore program, which helps employees transition into management positions.
