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Considering a Career in IT/Network Security
Legoman05
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Right now, I'm employed as a student assistant to our University's Network Enterprise Security Group - the 8 of us to tech stuff for the entire university, with over 70,000 hosts.
I was an English major, but I realized that I like writing code a lot more than prose, so I've picked up a CIS degree in addition to English, since I was almost done with my English degree anyway. I'm really interested in the networking and security aspect of the job; and would like to capstone in it.
On present track, I'll graduate on time with two Bachelors Degrees, and three years of experience in the industry, with a portfolio of my own software and scripts that I've written to streamline the intrusion detection/prevention/incident response processes.
So, I feel like this would make me a pretty solid candidate for a consulting company to pick up - to give me a lot of real-world experience rather quickly.
The problem, however, is one of priorities.
I'm committed to my church, not just showing up, but also taking on leadership and mentorship roles: and as such, it's basically like a 15-20 hour job on top of school and work. The total ~60 hour work-load is acceptable, especially since all the church stuff is really relational, so I don't feel disconnected and isolated like I would with 60 hours staring at a computer monitor.
What is likely to happen when I do land that consulting job? Am I going to be asked to work 60+ hours a week for them? Would it be possible for me to set boundaries with my future employer - "I'll work like a dog for you for 40 hours a week, and if something goes down in the middle of the night I'll fix it, but I can't commit more than 40-50 hours a week to work all the time," - or are there just too many candidates doing this sort of thing for that to be a realistic possibility? If I have to take a 10-20k paycut to find someplace that's OK with that, I'm fine with that, but will I find a place like that at all?
Also, would this be the kind of thing that I could talk to a career counselor at my college about? Probably a wise course of action there?
I was an English major, but I realized that I like writing code a lot more than prose, so I've picked up a CIS degree in addition to English, since I was almost done with my English degree anyway. I'm really interested in the networking and security aspect of the job; and would like to capstone in it.
On present track, I'll graduate on time with two Bachelors Degrees, and three years of experience in the industry, with a portfolio of my own software and scripts that I've written to streamline the intrusion detection/prevention/incident response processes.
So, I feel like this would make me a pretty solid candidate for a consulting company to pick up - to give me a lot of real-world experience rather quickly.
The problem, however, is one of priorities.
I'm committed to my church, not just showing up, but also taking on leadership and mentorship roles: and as such, it's basically like a 15-20 hour job on top of school and work. The total ~60 hour work-load is acceptable, especially since all the church stuff is really relational, so I don't feel disconnected and isolated like I would with 60 hours staring at a computer monitor.
What is likely to happen when I do land that consulting job? Am I going to be asked to work 60+ hours a week for them? Would it be possible for me to set boundaries with my future employer - "I'll work like a dog for you for 40 hours a week, and if something goes down in the middle of the night I'll fix it, but I can't commit more than 40-50 hours a week to work all the time," - or are there just too many candidates doing this sort of thing for that to be a realistic possibility? If I have to take a 10-20k paycut to find someplace that's OK with that, I'm fine with that, but will I find a place like that at all?
Also, would this be the kind of thing that I could talk to a career counselor at my college about? Probably a wise course of action there?
Legoman05 on
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This varies completely from company to company, no-one can make a blanket statement for you. Apply where you can, go to the interviews, wait for the contract if you are successful. You don't need to mention hours at any point until now. The contract will tell you how many hours you are contractually obliged to work and/or what services are expected to be running all the time, as well as your responsibilities in the event of an outage outside work hours.
I can't imagine anywhere realistically asking you to do 50 hours a week in the contract. Whether the job demands it because of the working culture you will never truly know until you start, or manage to get the ear of a current employee. Most consultancies will have you talk to current employees privately before you sign for these sorts of reasons; hiring candidates is very expensive, so they need to know you are fine with everything.
The only thing you need to worry about is that you probably will be part of an on-call rotation. If your commitments require you to be somewhere every night for a long period of time, and you aren't willing to give that up in the event of an outage, there will be trouble.
Not especially. Talk to the IT people to get refrences for security consultants and speak with them.
The few i've met (for pen testing and auditing) were not local and were here for days at a time.
That depends on both the consultancy and the location of the consultancy. If you live in a city, you can reasonably expect almost all your assignments to be in that city, or one where you work remotely.
Your church obligations may not be impacted often/at all if you have a standard schedule, but you can just about count on missing it at some point. If your network gets owned you will be pulling in some hours to get things taken care of. Likewise if your company has clients/sites out of the area, you may well be required to travel there to take care of issues or provide support.
All of these things are items you should get a clear understanding of when you get more info on the job. Don't be afraid to bring up obligations at interviews if you know you will not break your commitment at the church.
While it does vary, I would say the majority of consultants are expected to travel at least semi-regularly, if nothing else but to travel to work sites for an initial meeting before beginning remote work. This is based on people I know who work for consulting firms.
If you're a consultant on your own, you can always limit yourself to jobs in your area, but that's a different route.
No, you are right, it varies wildly from company to company. Even sub-fields within the consulting industry itself have different travel requirements.
Like you said, if the firm is located in a decent-sized city, most of the traveling is done within the city itself or its outskirts. Especially at the entry-level, you are typically not given travel assignments that require you to spend large amounts of time out of state, unless you go to your manager and specifically state that you prefer such assignments, in which case they will consider you when they are picking the team members.
Also, even if a consulting assignment takes you out of state for a few months, you can still come back during the weekends. Most companies are reasonable about it and they will pay for your flight to and fro - especially if you're a valuable employee.
How did you find said job? Monster? Friend of a friend?
Now that you mention it, my boss sits on the board of a security firm in town... and I know two other guys who work there...