DevSecOps in Practice Across Defense and National Security | Yolanda Clarke
From Mission Critical: Defense Recruiting by Katherine Jerald
March 4, 2026 · 35 min
About this episode
The episode discusses the practical implementation of DevSecOps in defense and national security with insights from Yolanda Clarke.
DevSecOps is talked about constantly in defense and national security. Very few leaders actually have to make it work in real mission environments. In this episode of Mission Critical: Defense and Aerospace Recruiting , Katherine Jerald sits down with Yolanda Clarke , Founder and CEO of Powder River Industries , to break down what DevSecOps looks like when failure is not an option. Yolanda explains how DevSecOps must be designed into programs from day one, not bolted on at the end, and why treating security as a core design requirement is the only way to deliver speed without compromising trust, accreditation, or mission outcomes. Drawing on more than 20 years of military service and deep experience across defense programs, she shares how real DevSecOps depends as much on organizational structure and leadership accountability as it does on tools and pipelines. "If security is siloed, you're not doing DevSecOps." This conversation goes beyond theory to explore how DevSecOps operates in practice across defense and national security programs, how leaders should evaluate whether it's real or just PowerPoint, and what it takes to scale secure systems in environments where the…
People in this episode
Host: Katherine Jerald
Guest: Yolanda Clarke
Topics covered
- DevSecOps
- defense
- national security
- organizational structure
- leadership accountability
- system design
Keywords
- DevSecOps
- defense programs
- security integration
- organizational leadership
- mission outcomes
- system design
- schedule risk
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Powder River Industries
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