I don’t think pivoting to another career path less than a month before maternity leave is a normal (and smart) thing to do, but here we are.
Finished:
In progress:
- OverTheWire wargame: Natas
- TryHackMe: Jr Penetration Tester learning path
- HackTheBox: Lab & Academy introductory stuff
- CTU MOOC Introduction to security
… and joined Hackfest discord (local community).
Why? I was a tester once. Then, API developer/advocate/whatever. Shortly after my previous maternity leave, our company was acquired (again) and I had to do even more pure developer work. React, of all the things! Not a fan. So, that was the first time I had a thought about switching to something less developer-ish.
Second, since 2022 I’ve picked up a bunch of peculiar interests, like Canadian defense procurement shenanigans. Or knowing that CAF does cyber something under hunt-forward operations REASSURANCE (Latvia) and UNIFIER (Ukraine). Yeah, my LinkedIn sponsored job ads look weird now.
Third, after our office was layed off, I took a look at the job market and it wasn’t that inspiring. Meh. I should (and could) have started way earlier though, but it hit me only now. Specifically, I was hit by CTU MOOC in the grugq’s newsletter. Learning that the local community isn’t one and a half anonymous sad person but very very active and huge was an additional boost.
At this moment I haven’t even decided yet at what path to take: pentesting (nod to my testing time) or security engineer (nod to the developer time). For sure not SOC, even though it is probably an easier position to find. But I have time. Though, I recall being brain-dead for a year last time I had a baby, so, that’s gonna be a really funny experience.