
Meet the Team!
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Meet Gus! đ
Gustavo Gonzalez is an engineering manager and heâs been at Vanta since January 2021.Â
Tell us about your role at Vanta.
As an engineering manager I have many of the typical responsibilities: supporting my team members as they develop their careers, collaborating with product and design teams on our engineering product strategy, and regularly meeting with sales and customer success teams to ensure that our work meets customer needs. At the same time, with my infrastructure background, I am actively involved in our infra on-call process and forward-looking engineering foundation planning. Last and most importantly, I am the engineering lead for New York; currently a major area of focus for me is building out the engineering presence for our NYC office.
If you could go back to the start of your career, what advice would you give yourself?Â
Rather than stressing over future plans years from now, focus more on understanding what you enjoy about the work you are doing today. It took me years to develop a solid framework to better understand the aspects of my job that I really enjoy. Once I developed this framework I had a much easier time deciding where I wanted to go next in my career.
Why did you choose Vanta over other companies?Â
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This is my first startup job and a big part of my decision-making process was to find a new opportunity where I could participate in all aspects of the companyâs strategyâunderstanding customer problems, working with product counterparts to translate those problems into engineering projects, and finally supporting our customers as they navigate the product. The opportunity to participate in the full lifecycle was a major decision point in my choice to join Vanta.Â
Why are you excited about Vantaâs space and industry?
Having participated in SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance audits in the past, I personally felt the pain and immediately saw the need for more software to automate the processâtaking something that previously was completely manual and making it automated. The continuous monitoring aspects of Vanta also stand out to me. During previous SOC 2 audits, I felt a large amount of pressure leading up to the audit; it felt like every year we were starting over again. With continuous monitoring you can tackle issues throughout the year rather than letting problems linger and become findings during audit.Â
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Whatâs been your favorite quarantine activity?Â
Like many people, I picked up some new hobbies during quarantine. First, I bought a road bike and started taking longer bike rides. I completed my first century (100-mile bike ride) and have enjoyed cycling as an opportunity to check out neighborhoods and nearby towns. I also really love Mexican food, so I have spent much of quarantine learning to make corn and flour tortillasâwhich has been surprisingly easy to start but difficult to master.Â
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?Â
My wife and I really love to travel and our favorite country to visit is Ireland. Weâve spent multiple weeks touring all over the country over the years. The scenery is beautiful, itâs easy to get around (assuming youâre comfortable driving on the left!), and the people are friendly and welcoming.

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PCIÂ Compliance Selection Guide
Determine Your PCIÂ Compliance Level
If your organization processes, stores, or transmits cardholder data, you must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a global mandate created by major credit card companies. Compliance is mandatory for any business that accepts credit card payments.
When establishing strategies for implementing and maintaining PCI compliance, your organization needs to understand what constitutes a Merchant or Service Provider, and whether a Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) or Report on Compliance (ROC) is most applicable to your business.
Answer a few short questions and weâll help identify your compliance level.
Does your business offer services to customers who are interested in your level of PCI compliance?
Identify your PCI SAQ or ROCÂ level
The PCI Security Standards Council has established the below criteria for Merchant and Service Provider validation. Use these descriptions to help determine the SAQ or ROCÂ that best applies to your organization.
Good news! Vanta supports all of the following compliance levels:
A SAQ A is required for Merchants that do not require the physical presence of a credit card (like an eCommerce, mail, or telephone purchase). This means that the Merchantâs business has fully outsourced all cardholder data processing to PCI DSS compliant third party Service Providers, with no electronic storage, processing, or transmission of any cardholder data on the Merchantâs system or premises.
Get PCI DSS certified
A SAQ A-EP is similar to a SAQ A, but is a requirement for Merchants that don't receive cardholder data, but control how cardholder data is redirected to a PCI DSS validated third-party payment processor.
Learn more about eCommerce PCI
A SAQ D includes over 200 requirements and covers the entirety of PCI DSS compliance. If you are a Service Provider, a SAQ D is the only SAQ youâre eligible to complete.
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Use our PCI checklist
A Report on Compliance (ROC) is an annual assessment that determines your organizationâs ability to protect cardholder data. If youâre a Merchant that processes over six million transactions annually or a Service Provider that processes more than 300,000 transactions annually, your organization is responsible for both a ROC and an Attestation of Compliance (AOC).
Automate your ROC and AOC
Download this checklist for easy reference
Questions?
Learn more about how Vanta can help. You can also find information on PCI compliance levels at the PCIÂ Security Standards Council website or by contacting your payment processing partner.

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