8Layers Names Julio Vargas as Head of Product and Go-to-Market

This week, we’re welcoming Julio Vargas to 8Layers as our new Head of Product and Go-to-Market (GTM). He’ll be leading our product strategy, positioning, and early customer acquisition as we scale our platform and build our partner ecosystem.

Julio brings 20+ years of experience across product management, solutions engineering, customer success, and software development in complex, global environments. His background spans cybersecurity, data analytics, telecom, energy, defense, and the public sector, with a strong focus on building products that deliver real impact. 

Most recently, he was Head of Solutions Engineering at Xygeni. Before that, he spent more than nine years at Devo, where he held several leadership roles in product and professional services.

Today, we invited him to answer a few questions about his career, his view of the cybersecurity market, and what he plans to focus on at 8Layers.

"Identity has become the front door to everything"

8Layers: Can you tell us a bit about your background? How did you get here, and what brought you into product and GTM?

Julio: I started my professional career working in several technology consultancies, where I had the opportunity to learn about many different things: web development, the first mobile apps (the legendary PDAs), testing, DevOps, presales, and team management. But my passion was product development. That’s when I left consulting to work in companies like Devo and Xygeni.
I actually joined 8Layers because of my relationship with the founders, which goes back about 10 years, when we first worked together at Logtrust (now Devo). We’ve stayed in touch since then, and now the right opportunity came up to join the team.

8Layers: Was building your career in cybersecurity a conscious decision, or did it happen naturally?

Julio: It was very natural. When I joined Logtrust, we were a data analytics company, but the main use case was cyber (SIEM). So little by little I went down the rabbit hole, and I’m not sure I can get out anymore.

8Layers: What caught your attention about 8Layers, and why did you decide to join?

Julio: First, my admiration for the founders and the rest of the team. There’s a lot of talent at 8Layers. Then I spent time analyzing the identity security sector, and I believe it’s a red-hot market where we can be very successful and create a lot of value. I think we’re arriving at the right time, and we have the team needed to make some noise.

8Layers: How do you see the cybersecurity sector right now, and where do you think it’s heading?

Julio: I think it's still a growing sector, where very large players are gradually consolidating and becoming more relevant worldwide. In a way that's good for the sector: it validates the market and pushes budgets up. But consolidation also leaves gaps, because breadth and depth pull in opposite directions, and that's where specialized players get their opening.

People are taking cybersecurity more and more seriously, and increasingly, governments are treating it as a matter of national priority, not just a business one. And then I think there will be a lot of room for innovation. It's a market that changes quite quickly, and not only because of the rise of AI.

8Layers: You mentioned that, before joining, you spent time analyzing the identity security sector and see it as a red-hot market. From that outside perspective, what stood out to you the most? What made you think there was a real opportunity here?

Julio: What caught my attention is that many identity solutions come integrated within larger platforms, and that almost always comes at the cost of depth: it’s hard to solve such a critical problem well when it’s just one more piece of a suite. And the context makes it even more urgent: with so much cloud, SaaS, and distributed work, identity has become the front door to everything. That combination (a problem that’s increasingly critical and solutions that aren’t always up to the task) is what made me see there was a real opportunity here.

8Layers: As Head of Product & GTM, what are your priorities, and what are you most excited to build at this stage?

Julio: In the first few weeks, getting deep into identity security and sharpening our value proposition. From there it splits in two.

With corporates, the goal is to close the first reference customers in Spain and come out with real use cases to show. MSSPs are a different conversation: you're not selling them a tool, you're selling them something they build their own service on. That changes what the product has to offer: multi-tenancy, reporting they can put in front of their own clients, pricing that works for them.

And we don't want that side to come late. If you wait until the product is finished to talk to partners, you've designed it without them.

8Layers: What kind of impact do you hope to leave with your leadership?

Julio: We’re already starting from a very good base. I think things are being done very well. Now we need to start measuring and monitoring the metrics that will tell us we’re still on the right track. And finally, continue fostering the culture of high standards and collaboration that we have today.

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We are excited to have Julio onboard. We believe his experience will be key as we scale our platform, win our first customers, and build a strong partner ecosystem in the Identity Security market.

About 8Layers

8Layers is an identity security platform that unifies posture, detection, and compliance on a single identity data layer. We see every identity (human accounts, service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, and AI agents) as one continuous story, with no time window on detection.

The three modules (Octagon for posture, Thor for detection and response, and Compass for compliance) all read from the same continuously enriched identity inventory, so a posture finding becomes detection context and compliance evidence automatically.

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