Ask HN: Starting a career in security at 40?

Re:Ask HN: Starting a career in security at 40? by griffinmb on Monday November 19, 2018 @12:33PM (#18488023)

I made the switch from web development to security a few years ago and initially took a 10-15% pay cut. I didn't get any certs and wouldn't necessarily recommend them. Instead, I joined various bug bounty programs to get practical (and resume-lite) experience.

Having implementation experience (via webdev) in addition to the bug bounty experience was a plus when I was interviewing.

If you're in a tech hub like SF or NYC there is plenty of security work. But, yeah, I would expect some kind of a paycut since you are moving from a (potentially) senior position to an entrylevel position.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career in security at 40? by eganist on Monday November 19, 2018 @12:36PM (#18488054)

> Having implementation experience (via webdev) in addition to the bug bounty experience was a plus when I was interviewing.

Hiring manager here. Assuming you successfully demonstrated these skills during the interview process, the pay cut probably shouldn't have happened.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career in security at 40? by temperfidelis2x on Monday November 19, 2018 @04:04PM (#18489748)

A minor pay cut can happen for various reasons. There is not enough information to say it should or shouldn't have happened.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career in security at 40? by eganist on Monday November 19, 2018 @06:33PM (#18490661)

Absolutely true, hence the assumptions. It also assumes the OP's prior pay wasn't atypically high e.g. to fill a very specific need such as self driving computer vision refinement.

I wouldn't consider a 10-15% dip a "minor" one, though. That's consistently tens of thousands of dollars in the top ten US metro markets for these roles.

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