[freehunter]

My job. Sitting at home in my pajamas, in a place a hell of lot cheaper than SF, making about the same amount these guys are offering (according to a link someone posted further up). I think I'll go for a walk at lunch, and keep working from the nature preserve down the road because it's a nice day. And when my wife gets home, 90% of the time the laptop closes and I'm off the clock.

If you can't imagine a job paying $100k+ that lets you also have a life, you're not looking hard enough. Or maybe I'm just lucky to not be a programmer.

[sp332]

It is tough. What do you do that's so valuable?

[s54b32dd]

I'm (obviously) not the person you're replying to, but information security, financial analyst, systems analyst (ok, some basic programming skill required), systems architect, IT audit all come to mind. That's just within the scope of the jobs I've been asked to interview for within the last 3-4 months. I'm a CISSP with a couple years of infosec consulting & audit experience; I can read/write SQL, and that's about it, in terms of programming.

That said, I understand large-scale organizational infrastructure and am current on the organizational concepts associated with building & mainaining a large-scale IT environment, so that's what I bring to the table as an employee. I work 40-45 hours in an average week, and the glassdoor box charts for positions with my skill set are typically between $80k and $130k, depending on experience and the company you choose to work for in my region.

[freehunter]

Spot on. I'm an information security consultant for a major SIEM vendor. It's not an easy job by any means, but I don't have to fight tooth and nail for a job in an overly crowded market, I don't have to live in San Francisco, and I don't have to work overtime for less than market wages.

[sp332]

Does that kind of auditing job tend to be freelance, or for a consultancy/agency?

[freehunter]

In my personal experience, you don't tend to be too successful doing freelance security consulting unless you have a lot of certifications and you're aiming at very small companies. Bigger organizations will go with PWC, even if you're half the price.