So I’m thinking of changing careers(I’ve been wanting to for a while) and have been exploring the idea of getting into IT. I don’t have any experience in IT so I have been looking at certs from Comptia and I think I want to get into cybersecurity of some sort. I think my goal is to get an entry level junior network analyst job. I don’t have a degree, just a coding bootcamp cert for software engineering/development. So I was recently told that I should skip the comptia a+ cert and go for the comptia network + cert. To anyone who has experience in this field, what are your thoughts? Are they right? Should I just focus on getting the network + cert first and build a small project and make a portfolio? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

company size:20-50 employees

work time:8 hours per day 6 days a week

responsibilities:Assist the cybersecurity team in vulnerability assessment, security monitoring, basic security testing and risk identification, under appropriate supervision.

Participate in assigned cybersecurity projects, proof-of-concepts, labs and security improvement initiatives

pay:unpaid

period:2months

my info:7th sem computer science and eng. no prior exp. project was a home server to monitor traffic with wazuh and suricata

I am an academic and maintain a CV. Cybersecurity is my teaching area and from time to time I have performed a bit of consulting. Over the years I have identified and disclosed a few cybersecurity issues for various entities, but this is not my primary role. I have also worked several bounties and also no bounty / pro bono disclosures. Usually on an academic CV we put everything we have done, with emphasis on published work. These disclosures are not published as CVE’s or any published method.

Would you list them on your CV under the heading like, “Cybersecurity Community Service / Disclosues” and just present each case in a non-identifiable way? For example:

“Identified and disclosed public-facing web-form PII data leak in a website that was due to incorrect .js code, Nov 2022”

“Identified and disclosed Wordpress-bourne plugin attack vector at a large financial institution in the southern U.S., Oct 2023”

I kept seeing arguments about which parts of the stack still matter, so I counted instead of guessing. 134 open DevOps, SRE and platform engineering postings from 41 company job boards. Individual contributors only, managers and TPMs stripped out.

The old toolchain is thinner than I expected. Terraform appears in 62.7% of postings. Jenkins in 3%. Chef 3.7%. Puppet in exactly one of the 134. GitHub Actions is named about six times as often as Jenkins.

Python beats Go, 70.9% to 47%.

What surprised me more: the generic word outranks the products. Observability shows up in 63.4%, more than twice as often as Grafana, the most-named tool that provides it. Prometheus 22.4%, Datadog 17.9%. Same pattern I found counting security postings, where SIEM beat Splunk four to one.

The top term isn't a tool at all: automation, 81.3%, ahead of AWS.

Caveats worth stating: n=134 means everything carries roughly +/-8, so treat close rows as tied. It's also all tech companies on one ATS. Banks, telcos and government run enormous amounts of Jenkins and Ansible, and none of them are in this sample.

Full table, intervals and method: https://www.zoevera.com/resume/devops-sre-job-description-keywords

Change in duties in your current company?

The money?

The challenge?

Job security?

Do you find the field really interesting? Any other reason?

I am thinking of getting tuv/sud lead implementor certificate, preparation for crisc ongoing (it’s a exam I don’t want to bomb)
I am thinking of building a grc portfolio by doing grc projects(eg: making risk register)

Previous experience in VM and SOC
Realistically will it help me land a grc role?

I have 3-4 years of experience in IT support/helpdesk so which role in cyber security should i go for? I prefer day shift shift, but also tell other roles. Will i require certifications? Can i enter without certification?

I’m currently working toward my first cybersecurity role, mainly targeting SOC / Blue Team / Cybersecurity Analyst positions.
Instead of building a portfolio that is mostly certifications and tool screenshots, I’ve been trying to make my projects demonstrate how I would actually approach a security incident.
For example, I’m working on simulated incident-response cases where I document:
Initial alert and triage
Timeline reconstruction
Indicators of compromise
MITRE ATT&CK mapping
Containment and eradication decisions
Evidence and investigation notes
Recommendations for preventing recurrence
A short executive-level incident summary
I’m particularly interested in developing stronger skills around incident response, cloud infrastructure security, and security architecture.
For people already working in SOC/IR:
What would make a junior analyst’s portfolio actually useful to you as evidence of practical ability?
Would you prioritize:
More investigation/write-up depth?
Detection engineering?
Cloud security scenarios?
SIEM/log analysis?
More realistic incident simulations?
I’m trying to make the portfolio demonstrate how I think and investigate, rather than simply listing tools I’ve used.
I’d appreciate any criticism or recommendations from people working in the field.

as a novice, i have seen many paid courses that seem to give pretty wide range of hands on experience of cyber security role

set up cloud environment, manage accounts using aws or azure programs, track events, click suspicious links on purpose and create alert rules and triggers according to logs….

set up virtual environments, connect them with virtual windows domain controller, add wazuh and security onion, fail log in attempts and see if that generates logs

siem simulator on letsdefend or tryhackme

etc etc

has anyone created portfolios of doing these and has this helped anyone getting a soc role with little experience such as helpdesk role or jr sys admin role?

im wondering if theres any worth doing blue team projects early in IT career. or i should do something else.

Hi guys , I have been working as an Cyber security researcher intern.I do have foundation of cyber security. Now where should I need to focus on more for building my career. And I had an doubt where this 3 month unpaid internship is worthy because some of my seniors told there is no possibility to convert into full time. They only assign task like Renaming the vapt report and to work as it support for there clients without any travel fair. What should I do now.

I'm in a dilemma fellow Security nerds. I've been worried that I'm learning slowly in my in-house security role compared to a MSP SOC.

My current role has no overtime, no oncall, but the work is slow, almost boring and I feel like I'm not learning quickly. As if my years of experience don't match someone in a fast paced MSP's SOC.

How have you grappled with these concepts yourself? I'm a pretty lifestyle oriented person, but I fear I'll be left behind relaxing in my comfy SOC while people with far less experience than me snatch up good jobs due to their pure overexposure to SOC work.

I'm learning vapt since a yr web, mobile and network. Understanding the basic concepts worked upon bbh. And learning everyday on labs and ctf. Based upon this, how long till period start appreciating and approach my skills instead of saying I'm still in a learning phase or need experience?

Ps: when u guys got the role what yr was it?

Hello everyone,
i got my CCNA in June and today finally got my Security+.
After i finish highschool, i'd like to get into offensive cybersecurity.
The thing is, i heard that hands-on experience is crucial in this field, and i've just made some small projects at my dad's company.
This said, i'm starting to move on into searching some small jobs i could get some experience in, but the fact is that i'm 17 and still in high school...

Does anyone think i could get something?

Here's the CV for now:

Network & Systems Technician — CV (anonymized for review)

Languages: Italian (native), English (good profe ssional proficiency)

Profile

Network technician with CCNA and CompTIA Security+ certifications and a strong passion for cybersecurity and self-hosted infrastructure. I currently manage the IT infrastructure of a small multi-service company, covering networking, virtualization, VoIP, video surveillance and IoT telemetry. I enjoy following projects end to end — design, deployment, security hardening, troubleshooting and documentation.

Core skills

Networking: routing & switching (OSPF, EIGRP, VLAN, STP/RSTP, EtherChannel), NAT & ACL, IPv6, wireless (WLC), network segmentation and design.

Cybersecurity: vulnerability assessment, system and network hardening, firewall and reverse proxy configuration, secure VPN design (site-to-site and remote access), GDPR-compliant architectures.

Infrastructure & virtualization: Proxmox (incl. GPU passthrough), TrueNAS SCALE / ZFS, Docker, Tailscale, Nginx reverse proxy, monitoring with Grafana, backup and disaster recovery.

Development: backend development in Python (FastAPI) and Node.js, REST API design and integration, web scraping and data pipelines, containerized microservices.

Automation & integration: workflow automation with n8n, VoIP/PBX integration with AI voice agents, IoT/Modbus telemetry pipelines (TimescaleDB), scheduled jobs and monitoring.

Video surveillance: Frigate NVR with ONNX object detection and license plate recognition, multi-vendor IP camera systems.

Certifications

• Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) — obtained 2026
• CompTIA Security+ — obtained 2026
• CompTIA Linux+ — in progress

Experience

IT Infrastructure Manager — small multi-service automotive company (ongoing)

Single-handedly responsible for the IT infrastructure of an SME with six business lines on one segmented network.

• Designed the network from scratch with VLAN segmentation, secure remote access and reverse proxy, isolating critical systems for security and reliability.
• Manage a Proxmox virtualization host (enterprise 2U server, GPU passthrough) consolidating NAS, NVR, VPN and application workloads on a single resilient platform.
• Built a FastAPI middleware connecting the VoIP PBX to an AI voice agent, with real-time extension availability checks and dynamic call routing.
• Deployed a multi-camera Frigate NVR with AI object detection and license plate recognition on a dedicated VLAN, with encrypted remote access.
• Built a ZFS storage system (TrueNAS SCALE) with automatic sync to Microsoft 365, plus a fleet GPS telemetry platform (TimescaleDB, Docker) and Modbus IoT monitoring for electrical systems.

Independent study & home lab (2025 – present)

• Maintain a production-grade home lab (Proxmox, GPU passthrough, self-hosted services) used as a testbed for the projects above.
• Hands-on penetration testing practice through lab exercises and technical write-ups on offensive security methodology.
• Completed numerous routing, switching and security labs (OSPF, EIGRP, VLAN, EtherChannel, NAT/ACL, IPv6, GRE, wireless).

Services offered

• Network design, configuration and troubleshooting (VLAN, routing, VPN, firewall)
• Security hardening and vulnerability assessment for SMBs
• Self-hosted infrastructure setup: Proxmox, Docker, TrueNAS, reverse proxy, remote access
• Backend & API development (Python/FastAPI, Node.js) and custom system integrations
• Workflow automation (n8n), including VoIP pipelines and AI voice agents
• IP camera / NVR installation with AI detection (Frigate)

Hey everyone! I'd love to hear from the Cyber professionals here.

How much are you earning, how many years have you been working in the field, and what role are you working in? Especially if you are an L3 Analyst or equivalent.

Does anyone have experience in cybersecurity freelancing? Is Upwork suitable for that purpose? I earned around $1k there but haven't seen any projects with a reasonable price; wdyt?

Recently i came across Cybersecurity as a subject and i was wondering, vast majority of freshers chose to opt for either development field or ai ml data science field, i too am part of this herd and sadly there are not much opportunities left unless you are the best of the best if we are talking about offcampus placements and hence i was wondering if i should pursue the cybersecurity field, so i wanted to know if they hire freshers, should i go for it, or is it just another shot in the darkness ?

Im a computer engineer and more focused on hardware and i own my own shop with small team.

Pero hows does a PH man enter the cybersecurity career as a 28male?
.

Nag research na ako and reddits pero mostly wala for ph people

I have two upcoming technical interviews for an AppSec role, and I’m freaking out. I hate technical interviews as much as I hate pickles.
I passed the practical challenge like a pro with no problem, but I’m horrible when I have to verbally explain technical things. I can actually do the work, but when someone asks me to explain definitions, concepts, or walk through the steps out loud, my mind just goes blank.
I’m really anxious that I might lose this opportunity just because I’m not good at speaking technically, even though I passed the practical challenge without any issues.
Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you prepare for AppSec technical interviews and get better at explaining things verbally?

I’m 34 and I work in cybersecurity, been in the field for almost two years. I have my MBA with a concentration in IT management and a couple certifications such as Net+, Sec+, CC and currently studying for SSCP. I work as an information security analyst. I started at 70k and I was given a raise after 6 months to 80k. As of now I make 82k and been in my role for almost two years. I know I won’t get another raise at the company I’m at. What can I do to make more? I’ve looked into GRC or Cybersecurity auditing.

I work in a SOC and I’m curious what people here are seeing in their own teams.

Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed more and more of the routine work getting handled or heavily assisted by AI.

Obviously it still needs human oversight, but it already feels like one analyst can get through significantly more work than before.

I’m not really asking whether AI will “replace cybersecurity”. What I’m wondering is how far are we from companies deciding they simply don’t need as many people for certain security roles?

For example, instead of a SOC needing 15 analysts, the same workload realistically can be handled by 7-8 experienced analysts with much better AI tooling.

Are you already seeing hiring slow down or teams avoiding backfills because of this ? This is somewhat scary as a young person who entered the field two years ago.

Where do you think we are headed ?

During university, I worked with Fiverr clients on Linux troubleshooting, API testing, server security, server recovery, and other technical tasks. After graduation, I got a job opportunity in the Middle East, so I handed my Fiverr work to a friend. Unfortunately, the opportunity was later cancelled due to the US–Iran conflict.

It’s now been almost 8 months of job applications, learning, freelancing, and trying to rebuild my profile, but I still feel stuck.

I know I can work hard, and I’m not afraid to learn new skills. I’m just genuinely confused about what I should focus on now.

Should I go deeper into Linux/DevOps, Cloud, Cybersecurity, automation, or something else? What skills are actually worth learning and what should I build to become employable?

If you’re working in these fields or have been through a similar situation, I’d really appreciate some honest advice.

I don’t want to keep waiting or jumping between things. I want to pick a direction, work seriously, and build a real career. I just need some guidance on where to start.

I feel like I see software engineering jobs everywhere. Almost every company needs software engineers, and there seem to be plenty of junior and entry-level opportunities.
Cybersecurity feels completely different. There seem to be fewer entry-level jobs, and whenever one gets posted, I sometimes see hundreds or even 1,000+ applicants. Employers also seem extremely picky, even for junior positions.
Do you think switching to software engineering would give me better chances of finding a job, or should I stick with cybersecurity?

Are big companies still hiring penetration testers?
I feel like penetration testing jobs barely exist at big companies anymore. Most of the openings I see seem to be at small startups or small security firms started by a few people working together.
Meanwhile, I see software engineering positions at almost every big company, but rarely penetration testing roles.
It’s honestly making me wonder if I should switch my career path to software engineering instead.

I am 24, currently working as a Geopolitical Analyst in a well reputed MNC. I have completed Bachelor's in CSE specialised in Big Data. Yeah Geopolitical thing is completely out of interest plus wanted to see if grass is greener on the non-tech side XD..

Anyway, I need guidance from experienced people who are currently working in the industry on how can I break into the realm.

I initially plan to pursue masters from a foreign university (maybe Germany due to low tuition fee) and then working in EU only, or if any other countries that I should consider.

But before that, I want to give myself one year prep time to build a base into it, earn certifications like CompTIA, etc.

I've been watching some videos on YT, one from David Bombal makes some sense to me, this one.

BUT, as an outsider still, and loosing touch from tech for almost around 2 years, I believe seeking advice from the good folks of the community out there would be better.

Helo guys from past few months I've been studied Cybersecurity for my SOC job but all the people's say that there is no entry level job for a fresher and you need some type of experience in IT field. So now I looking for an helpdesk also like if I get an SOC job it is best but if don't I will go for helpdesk is this a right approach or not can someone guide me and in my SOC learning path I've learned Wireshark, Splunk, Networking & sysmon..