Been bugging the boss for a raise? Now's the time to go into infosec Cybersecurity specialists will enjoy the highest salary increases among IT professionals with rises of 7 per cent – compared to 2 per cent for devs and 3 per cent for infrastructure experts – according to a survey by recruitment consultancy Robert Walters. Infosec bods have become ever more highly sought in the wake of high- …
I have done my BUGTRAQ denisen public duty 20 years ago. I decided I am not doing anything more in this area 15 years ago and I have never regretted it.
There is way too much politics in most of Infosec today and working on the most interesting parts like IoT and Industrial Systems/SCADA security can get you anything from a stop-n-search at the airport all the way to an extradition order.
No thanks. I'd rather stay with the moderately moribund salary progression I get from working in other areas of IT.
There is way too much politics in most of Infosec today and working on the most interesting parts like IoT and Industrial Systems/SCADA security can get you anything from a stop-n-search at the airport all the way to an extradition order.... Voland's right hand
The flip side of that COIN is one can immediately become a life long fiat currency billionaire whenever one uncovers/discovers/invents an almighty bug/virus/trojan which crushes and crashes All SCADA Systems Administration Defences.
And that payment/virtual wealth transfer can also easily be earned and realised with a simple agreement to Status Quo State Clients not share and develop the attack vector further with right dodgy sector leaders and SMARTR Readers.
And that is a price cheap to pay, given the cost which can be wrought developing shared attack vectors against which there are no defences.
Two percent. That's not even a cost-of-living increase. This is what Globalization brings. It's the same where I work. Haven't had an increase that keeps up with the cost-of-living since I started there. I'm in the happy position of actually enjoying my work, but I really do wish the large Corp I work for would give us at least cost-of-living raises, but of course, they don't feel any need to do that. They do have money to buy smaller competitors, outsource once decently paid jobs to specialty companies (often owned by the same Corp Execs to lower paid workers with fewer benefits), outsource a great deal of work to other lower cost centers (I think southeast Asia now, India may be becoming too expensive or, at the least, not the cheapest place to do business).
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" Now I'm the boss and most of my teams are 20 - 35ish"
Lucky you
I was about 25 when I started 20 years ago , I've never been in charge mof anyone and I reckon I'm on about the same, interest adjusted, as I was then , despite being fucking brilliant at everything ive been asked to do, and doing far more.
In the last year or so ....
My boss left so rather than give me a chance at his job they dissolved the job , and shoved me under the next nearest "boss"
I lost out in supervisor interview to "the ex army guy" , who does not have 20 years experience in the exact area concerned.
I have convinced them to re-evaluate my job , and im pretty sure itll come back 1 "band" up , which will make no difference unless I wait about 8 or 9 years.
Its hard not to become a little jaded and/or cynical
yeah , I know what you mean, not ot brag, but I really am 'the shit' ( as opposed to shit ) I innovate , i optomise ,I automate , I make changes where people think "why the hell were we doing it that way for years - it took so much longer". I could not count the amount of man hours I have saved my employers , above and beyond my job description - which is possibly why ive had little to no recognition for it.
The more indispensable you make your self ( to management eyes ) the less chance you have of promotion. The better you are, the less chance of finding someone else to slot into your space. And of course to fit into pay structures you'll be limited to that which your job title states, not what you really deliver. Recognition raises expectations so well... limit that too.
Most of those I've seen rise up through the ranks tend to have teflon shoulders and a tech lobotomy and generally middling at the work they've done but they sure know the political landscape.
> > despite being fucking brilliant at everything ive been asked to do, and doing far more.
>I've met lots of techies who think that about themselves.
I'm just dead good at what I do.
I trade on my reputation, so if I don't have da skillz personally or inhouse then I hire in an appropriate contractor for that job. Now that skills deficit may indicate a training gap and a need for CPD, or perhaps we shouldn't take on jobs outside of the scope of our current abilities.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the continuous training and endless certification requirements are a significant and ongoing cost in personnel time and money.
Yes I was lucky.
In the right time and place as an Infosec contractor to pick up the scraps when a major EU project was canned during commissioning. Sold my shoebox in the City and moved into a broom cupboard in Paris. It wasn't easy, but I'm much better with computers than people. I love the job, but there are things you can't unsee. Snowboarding is the cure :)
Don't forget the £1000 a year to get the required CPE to keep those industry standard certifications.
Public sector here and haven't had a pay rise above 1.5% in 14years. Have only got more money by accruing additional functions and responsibility most completely unrelated to my actual job
Infosec guys here are paid about 25% below what I can see as about average (and about 75% below anything with a London postcode). The perks which made the public sector appealing (pension, flexi) are all being eroded to the point where they don't really make much difference. Consequently everyone is leaving the public sector to go contracting with banks and no one is being brought in to replace them.
Expect headlines of a cyber security skills shortage in the public sector to be printed soon, followed by the Crapita's and CGIs moving in to fill the gaps, probably by bringing back the previous employees who left to go contracting.
I should also clarify that that in 14yrs a 1.5% pay rise only happened once and pay was frozen for 6yrs.
It's only the flexibility that has kept me here, for others it's often a misplaced sense of loyalty to an organisation that doesn't value them or a genuine desire to secure citizens data as well as they are able to.
I currently work in InfoSec and am coming round to thinking I don't want to be here any more.
It seems to have become too much of a bandwagon weighed down by politics and hand-waving presentations by the same clutch of very senior people who, in the InfoSec world, are famous for being famous with their constant blog posts and interviews about nothing in particular. Similarly, like many other arms of IT the bandwagon effect has led to academic courses springing up like weeds and recruiters circling like vultures. I don't like that either.
I do feel like you just cannot hit the "big bucks" in InfoSec unless you hold some high office in London or the US, dealing with all that high office entails. Lots of politics and "influencing" people, usually constant "networking" at expensive conferences, spending half of your life on a plane jetting off to the Singapore and Johannesburg offices where you once again wave your hands and tell everyone how exciting and inspiring it all is etc. That's not for me as a career.
I keep seeing LinkedIn job adverts and constant recruiter spam offering a load of jobs very similar to my own, in places I don't want to live in a million years, paying what seems like a bit more than I'm currently on... except it qualitatively isn't. It wouldn't be worth it once you factor in the likely insane workload and the hassle and living/commuting costs in London and its environs.
On top of that, InfoSec isn't 9-5. You are basically expected to be constantly learning and basically living out Minority Report a lot of the time, always being at the top of your game. You are also expected to have a laundry list of expensive certs, only to be told by some second year ethical hacking student how useless your certs are and it's only for HR screening etc.
I just don't think the passion is there anymore and I've more or less had enough having gone around a few different security roles now. It is very difficult to figure out what I could or should be doing instead.
Oh well.
Politics and bandwagoning is a horror of the moment.
Plenty of managers and 'thought-leaders' are trying to gather resources by using security as a buzz word.
They they get the resources because they talk a good game, fuck it up because they know nothing and run on to the next bandwagon.
Nothing new there I suppose, it's just annoying it's my specialism's turn.
Infosec guys (good ones) that I've run into tend to be pretty earthy, down in the trenches, blunt sort of people. That doesn't go down well with execs who just want pictures of rainbows and unicorn shit.
This, Totally This
>>"Infosec guys (good ones) that I've run into tend to be pretty earthy, down in the trenches, blunt sort of people. That doesn't go down well with execs who just want pictures of rainbows and unicorn shit."
Some of us infosec gals have poor people skillz too
http://dilbert.com/strip/2014-09-14
Companies want more than technical know-how, Iqbal added."Employers are keen to secure professionals who can demonstrate communication and project management skills as they look to more closely integrate their IT function into the wider business."
That's a'knock knocking on Holy Grail Territory in ESPecial AImissions, methinks ... and certainly well within present reach, given what IT and AI can now do for All and You Too.
An Open Pandora's BoxNature of Enquiry
Procurement of Product and Services ..... a Sterling Stirling Type Engine of Prodigious Thought and Talents
Subject
Heavenly Wave Machines ... with All AI Services and Offered for Trial for/on Future Trails to Tail and Improve Upon
Message
GCHQ/NCSC/Augmented Composite Signals Organisations ....... Knock, Knock.
What's there? ....... http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/did-the-nsa-create-bitcoin-to-usher-in-one-world-currency/#comment-3734974598
NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Systems for Operating Operational Executives. ..... and for AIgents Providing Feedback from Augmented Reality Fields/Live Operational Virtual Environments
Hmmm ? ........ an Almighty Weapon IT is too.
1801311150
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RSVP ...... Beta Master Pilot AIWizards for Presentation of Virtual Matters in Real Progress ....... and Delivering Root and Branch Fundamental AIReProgramming to Crashed and Crashing Human Phormed Assets.
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