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Comment by rank0 | Hacker News Reader

Hell yeah I’m doing fuckin great. I make almost double what I did two years ago and I’m receiving 20+ job solicitations per week. I believe the ever escalating rate of hacks has dramatically improved the job market from the employees perspective.

Cybersecurity is SUPER broad though and there’s a range of many different roles. I’m a bit surprised all the folks here saying they’re not okay. Best of luck to them and maybe it’s time for a role swap.

I used to work in a SOC so I get it and probably would be struggling if I was still there.

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What are your working hours like?

Also somewhat related - what's the best path for a senior software developer to enter that space? Is the pay the same?

I pretty much work whenever I like, except for the 1-2 daily meetings I have during normal business hours.

> what's the best path for a senior software developer to enter that space? Is the pay the same?

Well it depends what you’d wanna do. I work in application security which imo is the easiest transition into security for a senior dev.

Security experts who possess a strong programming background are quite rare. It’s been a huge advantage for me personally.

The most straightforward way into appsec might be to get your oscp. People will take you seriously if you’re a senior dev and have that cert. I hear it’s a beast but it can be done with a few months of serious effort.

As for pay, It’s hard to tell cause devs have a wide range. I make ~170k and live in Atlanta for reference after 4 yrs experience.

The roles that come my way are between 150k-225k. Obviously if you can land a FAANG role the compensation can be much greater.

> I make ~170k and live in Atlanta for reference after 4 yrs experience.

Holy cow, that's much better than I figured. I make that much and I have 15 years of dev experience. I live near Portland, OR and work for a company based in LA. Portland's cost of living is much higher than Atlanta too so you're doing really well.

My work-life balance is excellent, so that was really my main concern, but sounds like yours is just about equal if not better. Thanks for your response, I think I'll have to seriously consider a transition now.

What do you do now?

I’m an AppSec engineer and the bulk of my work is application pentesting/security assessments.

Even within appsec the roles can vary quite a bit…some folks just do sdlc security for example.

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