Comment by staticassertion | Hacker News Reader

Comment by staticassertion | Hacker News Reader

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staticassertion

I definitely feel like I have much more negotiating power than eng, as someone who used to be in an eng role and is now in security. There are more engineers and eng is a less niche skillset. There are very, very few people with my skillset. Hiring for my team takes months, minimum, with far far fewer candidates in our pipe.

I work at an SF company and routinely field offers from other companies that I can view on levels.fyi, and my colleagues in eng are open with me about their salaries so I have lots of datapoints to compare to.

To your other comment:

> I seriously question whether you understand how mediocre the mean security engineer actually is, even at top tier companies

This seems equally true for eng.

>There are very, very few people with my skillset.

"security" seems to be a very wide notion. Can you give some highlights of what that specific skillset is and what is your job actually consists of.

I have an engineering background, which is quickly becoming a requirement for security roles. I do detection and response work.

I'm interested in getting into security. Can you give any insight on what you're looking for in candidates?

I doubt I could give you better advice than anyone else or the internet. Not trying to be dismissive, I just don't feel like I have a good handle on the question myself.

I can say that the trend at companies that pay well is that you will be able to pass an eng interview. More and more, it'll basically be "we expect you to be as good as an eng around your level, maybe one level less" and "we also expect you to be an expert at threat modeling", plus whatever is specific to your niche; for me it's detection and response, so I'm expected to understand operating system services, how attackers go about taking over a computer, the traces they leave behind, etc.

in The spirit of HN camaraderie: can you share salary info and your transition process?

You can go to levels.fyi and just add 5 to 10% to anything you see, and that's what I expect from the companies I apply to.

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