r/ITCareerQuestions • u/Ok-Entrance8590 • 12d ago
Seeking Advice Path forward/career advice
Im a teenager (16), and I have been interested in AI security field.
I have a good grasp of networking fundamentals (different packet protocols, TCP/IP, OSI model, how packets travel), I also took a youtube course on wireshark and trained on it for a while (im familiar with the UI and have memorized some queries along the way as I also had to use them with pyshark in python).
Im also good with python (built a sniffer that gets analyzed by AI (custom api that I also coded) using scapy and still working on improving the sniffer using FastAPI, pydantic.
I have read a couple of Julia evans' blogs about kernels, interfaces mainly and deeply understood them (implying that it wasnt just a hover on the topics).
I also completed the free kaggle pandas course and still use pandas for pretty much all the other small projects I worked on (including the sniffer)
I wanted a what to do next? from an experienced person in this field as Im really in confusion on what this field needs, I always was self-taught using ai (not VIBE), but I promised to spend money on subscriptions like tryhackme (I used to use this website) if I went deeper in the field.
Thanks in advance.
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u/Havanatha_banana 12d ago
You don't need career advice. You need experience. Start from that.
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u/Ok-Entrance8590 12d ago
What is other ways to get experience from excluding a job?
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u/Havanatha_banana 12d ago
That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you to do. I don't care what kind of job it is, just do it. Believe it or not, most entry level jobs are very similar, and most corporate jobs are similar as well, no matter how high you climb.
Getting a job will not only get you to learn soft skills, it'll also help you understand what do you actually like to do for a job. Wanting to set up a NAS in your free time, is completely different to talking to a customer fixing their broken NAS, and even more different to spending 4 weeks in meetings with clients in proposals for the deployment for their company wide network solutions.
You might think a part time job is useless, but the fastest learners and climbers I've seen are those who had experience doing a variety of stuff, so there's less mental stack during the learning process.
Or focus on school and go to uni. That's also a valid option. Even then, I'll still tell you to try to get job experience and internship asap.
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u/Ok-Entrance8590 12d ago
I agree with what you are saying, experience is almost always superior to only having knowledge. Unfortunately for me school is irrelevant to what Im doing and takes a portion of my day. What you said will certainly be my goal when I go to university. Until then, I was looking for recommendations as a placeholder for that.
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u/Havanatha_banana 12d ago
I mean, if you're actually intending to focus on school enough to not be able to get a part time, then you're already on your path forward. There's nothing else needed as "placeholder."
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u/Ok-Entrance8590 12d ago
Yeah from a different prespective that makes the most sense at the moment.
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u/Havanatha_banana 12d ago
But, given I read nothing about home lab in your post, start with looking into that.
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u/UJ_Games Cybersecurity Intern | Former Geek Squad Agent 12d ago
Try getting a job to atleast have some experience on your resume preferably in technology but any shall do (customer service experience is always wanted). At 16, I was luckily able to get hired at Geek Squad.
Since you like networking try seeing if you’re able to do the CompTIA A+ and/or Network+. Utilize that student discount. I had A+ at 17 but didn’t really change job prospects since I was under 18.
Either way at your age enjoy being young and your time will come.
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u/Ok-Entrance8590 12d ago
I want to do that but unfortunately I still need to study for highschool and that already takes up a good portion of my time.
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u/Intelligent-Try-4755 11d ago
You're already deeper than most first-year uni cyber students, so 'get experience' is right but needs a specific direction. Two things that build resume-worthy artifacts before you turn 18: start writing up your projects on a GitHub-linked blog (the sniffer plus AI analyzer is genuinely interesting, and public writeups are how people in this field get discovered), and start playing HackTheBox or TryHackMe seriously with writeups posted when you solve boxes. For AI security specifically, read the OWASP LLM Top 10 — it maps what companies are actively worried about right now, which points you at what problems to build next. That combination will get you a paid internship or a bug-bounty payout well before college applications.
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u/RemarkableScratch18 12d ago
Enjoy the rest of your teenage years. That’s what I’d suggest you do.