Interest in technology policy has grown significantly in recent years. As governments, regulators, civil society organizations, companies, and research institutions grapple with the social, legal, and political implications of digital systems, more students and early-career professionals are trying to figure out how to enter the field and what working in the field entails. That interest is encouraging, but based on my regular discussions with entrants into the space, it’s evidently a somewhat opaque field.

In this post, I try to offer some practical experiences and thoughts on what technology policy is and how to break into the space. I begin by explaining how my own educational and professional background have informed my entry into technology policy, and how technology policy differs from more general policy work. I then turn to questions about entering the field, including useful early entry points, the skills that I think matter most, and how technically fluent you need to be to work in this space. From there, I discuss what the work often looks like in practice and offer some reflections on career progression, including the shift from individual-contributor work into management. I conclude by providing some materials that people can explore to strengthen their ability to enter the technology policy space as individual contributors.

As a note at the top: my suggestions here are all based on my own experiences and in line with my own interests in digital privacy, cybersecurity, data security, national security, and the various associated topics I’ve written about over the past 20 years. It’s also reflective of my own career development and experiences. While I’ve tried to be general enough for the advice to be broadly helpful to people who are looking to come into the field of technology policy, my advice may be inclined towards my own professional interests in some places (and in particular with regards to recommended sources at the end of the post).

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