A journey from students to cyber security professionals.
At Solis, we're passionate about helping the next generation of cyber security professionals develop their skills through meaningful, hands-on experience. Placements provide students with the opportunity to work alongside experienced practitioners, gain exposure to real-world cyber incidents and research, and apply their learning in a practical environment.
We're always proud to see former placement students return to Solis after completing their studies. In this blog, Priyra and Joey share how their placement experiences helped shape their final year at university, influenced their career paths, and prepared them for their new full-time roles within the business.
Priyra
Hi, I'm Priyra, and I have recently returned to Solis after completing my final year at university. I studied Computer Science at the University of Leicester and graduated with First Class Honours. Following my placement year with the team, I was delighted to return as a permanent member of Solis as an Associate DFIR Investigator. Looking back, the placement played a significant role in both my academic success and my career development.
Completing a placement year at Solis was a huge benefit, both professionally and academically. During my placement, I rotated between the Cyber Incident Management (CIM) team and the Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) team. This gave me exposure to real cyber incidents and allowed me to learn from experienced investigators while assisting with Business Email Compromise (BEC) investigations.
The experience had a significant impact on my final year studies. One of the biggest advantages was being able to apply my knowledge to my studies, particularly within my cybersecurity module. Having seen first hand how organisations can become compromised through weak passwords and poor authentication practices, I became interested in how authentication systems could be improved. This ultimately inspired my dissertation project, where I developed a graphical password authentication system. Rather than relying solely on traditional passwords, users selected images as part of the authentication process, while the system learned normal login behaviour over time to help identify anomalies, such as a malicious user or an automated bot attempting to gain access. Alongside the technical knowledge I gained, the placement also helped me develop stronger time management and organisational skills, which were invaluable during my final year.
Returning to Solis as an Associate DFIR Investigator has been incredibly rewarding. One thing that surprised me was how quickly I was able to settle back into the role and pick things up again after university. During my placement, I spent much of my time shadowing investigations and supporting the team. Now, I have the opportunity to take ownership of my own projects and play a much more active role in investigations.
Looking ahead, I am excited to continue developing my experience across a range of cyber incidents. I particularly enjoy working on Business Email Compromise investigations and keeping up to date with the evolving techniques used by threat actors. I am also keen to gain more exposure to ransomware cases, as I find the scale and complexity of these investigations especially interesting. My long term goal is to continue building my expertise, lead increasingly complex investigations and build confidence handling a wider range of cyber incidents while developing into a well rounded DFIR investigator.
Joey
After completing my placement year with Solis, I'm excited to be returning as a full-time employee in the Cyber Threat Research Labs (CTRL) team as an Associate Threat Researcher.
My placement year gave me invaluable industry experience and provided insight into how cyber threat intelligence and research operate in a real-world environment. Working alongside experienced researchers allowed me to develop both technical and professional skills that I was able to carry into my final year at university.
I recently completed a BSc (Hons) Computer Science degree at City St George's, University of London, achieving a First-Class Honours degree. A big benefit of my placement was the impact it had on how I approached my studies. Returning to university after spending a year in industry helped me become much more structured and organised in my work. I had a clearer understanding of how the concepts I was learning could be applied in practice, which made my final year both more engaging and rewarding.
The experience I gained during my placement also played a significant role in shaping my final-year dissertation project, where I designed and developed a scalable, automated vulnerability scanning and reporting tool. The project allowed me to combine academic research with practical security challenges, drawing on many of the concepts and experiences I encountered during my time at Solis.
I'm delighted to be returning to the CTRL team and continuing my career at Solis. In my role as an Associate Threat Researcher, I'll be focusing on identifying emerging threats, researching vulnerabilities, and helping provide actionable intelligence that supports both Solis and its clients.
Looking ahead, I'm keen to continue developing my expertise across the cyber security landscape. In particular, I'm excited to gain further experience in vulnerability research, attack surface analysis, threat intelligence, and the ways organisations can proactively identify and reduce cyber risk. I'm also looking forward to learning from the talented researchers around me and contributing to projects that help organisations better understand and defend against evolving threats.
Returning to Solis feels like a natural next step after such a positive placement experience, and I'm excited to continue learning, growing, and contributing as part of the team.
Final words
The return of Priyra and Joey highlights the impact that practical industry experience can have on both academic achievement and career development. Their stories demonstrate how a placement year can provide valuable technical knowledge, professional confidence, and a clearer understanding of the many career paths available within cyber security.
We are delighted to welcome them back to Solis and look forward to supporting their continued growth as they build their careers and contribute to helping organisations navigate an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.
