Episode Summary

Zero Signal hosts Conor Sherman and Stuart Mitchell sit down with Adam Arellano, former VP of Cybersecurity at PayPal and now Field CTO at Harness, to unpack the rise of agentic AI in software delivery and what it means for software engineers, security leaders, and the broader tech economy. They dig into real-world data on AI-generated code, the new attack surface created by agent skills, and how security and engineering teams can partner to ship faster while reducing risk.

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Guest Introduction

Adam Arellano is the Field CTO at Harness, focusing on AI for DevOps and automation, and previously served as VP of Cybersecurity at PayPal. In this episode he brings both security and engineering leadership perspectives to the rapid shift toward agentic coding and AI-augmented software delivery.

Referenced Links & Resources

• Adam Arellano – LinkedIn
• AI Coding Becomes a Risky Norm as Use of AI Coding Assistants Takes Off and More Than 80% of Organizations Ship Vulnerable Code – BusinessWire
• Generative AI Adoption and the Impact on Junior Employment – Harvard study
• Agent Skills in the Wild: An Empirical Study of Security Vulnerabilities at Scale
• GitHubArcanum-Sec/sec-context