Ask HN: Should I Make the Pivot to Cybersecurity or Grow as a Software Engineer?
DISCLAIMER: I live in Iraq, local software engineering jobs are rare around here, same goes with other IT specialties not just software engineers.
I'm 28, and I'm working as a fully-remote software engineer contractor for a US-based startup. This was my first ever software engineering job, and I started out as an intern, and now I'm a mid-level frontend engineer.
Work has been slow, and being a startup, I'm pretty sure funding will soon end, and I will have to find a different job. Getting a US-company to hire you is really difficult if you are from Iraq, I got my current employer through referals, and I am really grateful for that, but, I am not sure I can do it again.
However, given the prospective job availabilities in my country, and the high number of unemployed software developers, I'd say even finding a local job would be difficult.
So, I was wondering, would a pivot to Cybersecurity be worthwhile? Or should I instead focus on improving my frontend skills and marketing myself?
Selling yourself as a Cybersecurity dev from Iraq will probably be harder than selling yourself as a frontend engineer. So I would focus on improving frontend skills and marketing.
You didn't mention it as an option, but if you are tiring of frontend, I would consider pivoting to doing backend/fullstack/data engineering. Boost your database/analytics skills. Your front-end experience can help you have a nice niche in that backend space once you master backend work.
But this is just a guess on my part from an American developer/architect/hiring manager in both startups and large companies whose frontend skills plateaued 20 years ago at the expense of backend skills but who lightly follows frontend technologies.
I agree. It'll be hard to get hired in security due to your location.