Follow up

It has been roughly 6 months from my last post about switching careers so I thought I would do a follow up as I said I would.

For the most part doing actual security work is pretty decent. Although, it is slower paced and more focused on research than producing. This is understandable when you realize that most security testing/work is just knowing more specific details than the person who implemented the feature and also understanding how people think / implement functionality.

One thing I don't like so far is security testers/hackers being grouped in with functional testers. No, I don't think security testers are higher up than functional testers, but I do think they are specialized in a very different area. Yes, there are parallels and they both can benefit from each other, but, it can be said that most technology things are beneficial to each other. For example development knowledge helps you be a better tester, networking helps you be a better security and/or developer and vice versa. This can turn off people because your career growth gets stunted, I know it is a huge turn off for me right now.

On the flip side it is an awesome feeling when you find a big bug and it affects a lot of people. For the most part it is just a job, I am not as energized as I thought I would be about it. Not sure if it is because of the team I am on or the profession, time will tell.

Development:
I still love development and it frustrates me too :). I tend to relate stuff back to development and some days I want to go off and just code stuff instead of researching crap. I look for things to code while I don't look for things to hack. I still get pissed when software is just un-usable or poorly done.

So, basically I haven't gained much insight since my last post. Lets see what happens in the next 6 months.