• GRC Engineer
  • Posts
  • ⚙️ The Technical Foundations Every GRC Professional Needs

⚙️ The Technical Foundations Every GRC Professional Needs

How to Build the Right Technical Knowledge Without Needing to Become an Engineer

Author

Ayoub Fandi
May 01, 2025

Ever sat in a meeting where engineers are discussing technical controls, and it feels like they're speaking a different language?

You nod along, jotting down terms like "IAM," "RBAC," and "API" to Google later, hoping no one asks you a direct question.

You're not alone. 

Many GRC professionals come from risk, audit, or compliance backgrounds with limited technical exposure. Yet, the most effective GRC practitioners today have developed a baseline technical understanding that completely transforms how they approach their work.

The good news?

You don't need to become an engineer. But understanding the technical foundations of modern technology-enabled companies will make you dramatically more effective at your job.

Let's explore how to build this knowledge without getting a computer science degree—and why it's becoming essential for GRC career growth in 2025.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Supply Chain Detection and Response tackles your core GRC challenge

Maintaining continuous visibility across hundreds of vendors. We provide factor-based security ratings, automated assessments based on threat intelligence, and response capabilities to address vulnerabilities before they trigger findings.

Our platform eliminates manual collection processes while delivering the documentation required for audit evidence. Explore how we can help your enterprise.

Why It Matters 🔍

The why: the core problem this solves and why you should care

The gap between GRC requirements and technical implementation is where security falls apart.

When you lack technical understanding, you're forced to:

  • Accept screenshots without knowing what they actually prove

  • Trust explanations you can't verify

  • Miss critical context that completely changes your risk assessment

  • Create controls that engineers find impossible to implement

  • Focus on documentation rather than effectiveness

This isn't just about personal credibility—it's about actual security outcomes. When GRC professionals understand the systems they're protecting, they can design controls that work in reality, not just on paper.

Engineers respect (and respond to) GRC professionals who "speak their language" because it means you're focusing on meaningful security, not compliance theatre.

# What technical literacy provides to GRC professionals
def technically_informed_grc(technical_knowledge_level=0):
    """Evaluates the impact of technical knowledge on GRC effectiveness"""
    
    if technical_knowledge_level < 3:
        return "Compliance-focused, reliant on others for validation"
    
    benefits = []
    
    # Key benefits that scale with technical knowledge
    benefits.append(f"Audit quality: Evidence that proves effectiveness, not just existence")
    benefits.append(f"Stakeholder credibility: Engineers see you as a partner, not a burden")
    benefits.append(f"Remediation impact: Recommendations that address root causes")
    benefits.append(f"Risk accuracy: Evaluations based on technical reality, not theory")
    benefits.append(f"Career growth: Skills that keep you relevant in an evolving field")
    
    # Technical knowledge is a multiplier for GRC impact
    return f"GRC impact multiplier: {2 * technical_knowledge_level}\n" + "\n".join(benefits)

# Sample output
print(technically_informed_grc(technical_knowledge_level=5))

Strategic Framework 🧩

The what: The conceptual approach broken down into 3 main principles

Focus on Mental Models, Not Just Terminology

Technical literacy isn't about memorising acronyms or collecting certifications. It's about understanding the mental models engineers use to design and secure systems.

When you grasp concepts like "defense in depth," "principle of least privilege," or "infrastructure as code," you see beyond specific technologies to the architectural patterns that determine security effectiveness.

These mental models apply across technologies and environments, making them much more valuable than knowledge about specific tools that may become obsolete. When you understand the fundamentals, you can quickly adapt to new technologies as they emerge.

Learn Through the Lens of Controls

The most efficient path to technical literacy for GRC professionals is through the controls you already manage.

Rather than trying to learn everything about cloud computing or networking, focus on understanding how specific technical controls actually work. This provides immediately applicable knowledge with clear context.

When you understand how MFA protects systems (not just that it does), you can evaluate whether an implementation truly satisfies your control objectives. This is the difference between checking boxes and providing actual security assurance.

Prioritise Breadth Before Depth

Technical specialists go deep in narrow areas. GRC professionals need breadth across multiple domains.

Start by developing a basic understanding across key technical areas: identity management, cloud infrastructure, and software development. Once you have this foundation, you can selectively build deeper knowledge in areas most relevant to your role.

This approach helps you have meaningful conversations with specialists while maintaining the cross-domain perspective that makes GRC invaluable. You become the rare professional who can connect the dots across security domains.

Govern Your SDLC at Scale

Centralise artefacts, evidence, and policies in one secure, trusted storage where all data is connected in a graph, verifiable, and traceable. Connect Dev, Sec, and Ops via contracts for seamless collaboration and compliance enforcement.

Execution Blueprint 🛠️

The how: 3 practical steps to put this strategy into action at your organisation

Blueprint to get more technical as a GRC professional

1. Build Literacy in Three Critical Domains

Rather than trying to learn everything at once, focus on these three technical areas that provide the highest return on investment for GRC professionals:

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

This is where security begins in modern environments. Understanding IAM means knowing how authentication differs from authorisation — a fundamental distinction that affects how you design, test, and verify controls. Dig into the technical implementation of role-based access control (RBAC) and how Single Sign-On (SSO) actually works behind the scenes.

Pay special attention to the mechanics of access reviews and the critical differences between user access and service account access. This knowledge directly impacts your ability to assess controls in what is arguably the most important control category in most environments.

Cloud Infrastructure Fundamentals

Modern systems operate on entirely different models than traditional data centres. Start by understanding the shared responsibility model in cloud environments—what you're responsible for versus what your provider handles. Learn how virtual networks and security groups control access across environments, and explore the basics of containerisation and serverless computing.

Familiarise yourself with the different service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and their specific compliance implications. This knowledge helps you design controls appropriate for cloud environments where traditional perimeter-based security models no longer apply.

Software Development and DevOps

Modern security is built into the development process, not bolted on afterward. Focus on how the software development lifecycle (SDLC) integrates security at each stage and learn the basics of CI/CD pipelines and their security controls.

Understanding how code scanning and security testing gets automated and the role of infrastructure-as-code in compliance will transform how you approach security controls. This knowledge helps you design requirements that work with—not against—the way modern teams build and deploy software, making your GRC program dramatically more effective.

2. Follow a Practical Learning Path

Traditional certifications often teach outdated models or focus on theoretical knowledge. Instead, build practical technical literacy through active engagement with your technical teams.

Shadow sessions are invaluable—ask to observe how technical teams implement or test controls. Seeing the process firsthand provides context that documentation alone cannot deliver. Request infrastructure walkthroughs where technical teams explain how systems are built and secured.

Complement this with hands-on experience using free cloud provider labs to experiment with basic configurations. AWS, Azure, and GCP all offer these resources, and even an hour spent experimenting will teach you more than days of reading documentation.

For each audit cycle, pick 2-3 technical controls to truly understand—not just at a surface level, but in terms of how they're implemented and how they actually protect systems. Finding a technical mentor who's willing to answer your questions regularly can accelerate this learning process dramatically.

3. Apply Knowledge to Transform Your GRC Work

The real value comes when you integrate your growing technical knowledge into your everyday GRC responsibilities. Start by transforming your evidence collection process—request specific technical artifacts that prove effectiveness, not just existence.

When designing controls, collaborate with engineers to develop requirements that align with their existing workflows rather than forcing them to adapt to compliance-driven processes. Include technical context in your risk assessments to ensure they reflect actual threats, not theoretical concerns.

This knowledge also helps you explain technical controls accurately to auditors and provide remediation recommendations that engineers can actually implement. You become the crucial bridge between security requirements and technical implementation—an invaluable role in any organisation.

Remember: Technical literacy doesn't mean becoming the expert. It means understanding enough to ask the right questions, recognise good answers, and facilitate better security outcomes. This is the essence of GRC Engineering.

Do you think this is an actionable blueprint for your and your GRC team?

Feel free to respond to the email with your feedback, I'll answer!

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Content Queue 📖

The learn: This week's resource to dive deeper on the topic

The GRC Engineer's Study Plan: From Spreadsheets to Code in 180 Days provides a structured approach to building technical literacy specifically for GRC professionals. It breaks down the journey into manageable phases that build on each other without overwhelming you.

You don't need to follow the entire plan—even completing the first 30 days will dramatically improve your technical understanding and effectiveness. The plan includes specific resources for each technical domain we've discussed above.

GRC Engineer Study Plan.pdf4.09 MB • PDF File

That’s all for this week’s issue, folks!

If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:

Next Tuesday, the first edition of the GRC Market Pulse is coming to your inbox!

Reply

or to participate.