Optimists design for the happy path. Security engineers design for the day an attacker is already inside. The second assumption produces better systems even when no one attacks them.
Least privilege by default
Every service gets the narrowest set of permissions that lets it do its job, and nothing more. A compromised component should be able to damage a corner, never the whole.
Auditability is a design goal
Immutable logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and access controls you can prove. When compliance asks for evidence, the answer should already exist, not be a scramble.
Compliance is a baseline we start from, not a feature request we bolt on.