[Melting_Harps]

> Cybersecurity IC here. We have all of that, and more.

Damn... as an IC are you forced into the machinations on a daily basis or can you actively avoid it by choosing to work remotely even if TC is lower than otherwise could be?

I'm pursuing an AI and ML degree and given where we were 6 months ago I have to be honest with myself and fully admit it feels way more smoke and mirrors driven by hype than anything I have ever experienced even in the early days in Bitcoin (which is saying a lot after ~13 years). And unlike in Bitcoin where we have a liaise fare attitude and selective contribution and forks are a thing to be encouraged, most corps do not see value in what made it what it is today, thus take a very dim light on just 'opting out' of things like office politics as means to get ahead and grind/hustle culture.

[qzx_pierri]

BEWARE. Cybersec is often 90% sitting in meetings and 10% filling out boilerplate excel sheets for control assessments and stressful project management (dealing directly with the megalomaniac VP/SVPs in your company).

The ‘cool’ Cybersec roles like red/blue teaming are much more rare than what I mentioned above, and firewall/splunk stuff is often offloaded to Network teams, especially in this economy where companies are trimming fat and consolidating roles.

I say this as someone who went to Cybersec and left because I’m a technical guy who enjoys sitting at a terminal and building things, learning new tools, sifting through FOSS docs, etc.

Cybersec teams are often filled with people who major in things like Economics and History because the only skill needed for those roles is a good vocabulary, project management, and 6-8 months of entry level technical skills/certs.

Yes, I AM bitter, but I’m damn sure not lying. Avoid any compliance focused Cybersec job if you actually have technical skills that are worth a damn.

To all the people who were hoodwinked into taking this type of job like I was: Its not too late to get out. I did. You can too.

[Bluecobra]

Surely there has to be a job somewhere were you can do Kevin Mitnick-sque stuff and have to get paid in bitcoins in some back alley transaction behind Defcon. :)

I've seen so many $10's of thousands wasted on pentests which are just nmap/nessus scans wrapped up into a nice PDF. I wish there was more in-depth stuff going on.

[0xjmp]

Get the work done, have excellent communication skills (planning, reliability, accountability), and finding good remote/TC work shouldn't be much of an issue (even in this climate).

The personal computer was a fad. The internet was a fad. Bitcoin was a fad. AI is a fad. Its going to take more than 6 months to materialize. Hang in there.