Great video, Josh! As someone who works in cybersecurity as a SIEM Engineer/Admin for an MSSP, this resonates with me so much. I've been in this role for a year but it feels like double that amount of time already. The stress has been immense and the tickets are endless. Within just my first 4 months I watched 11 engineers quit out of a ~35 person team. I quickly went from being the new guy to now being one of the more "senior" engineers. We manage the security for hundreds of medium and large companies so I will often have 30 tickets/projects in my queue every week which makes it a challenge to manage communications, prioritize projects, and complete tickets before more get assigned since much of the work requires communication from others to complete. The pay has been nice considering I had no cybersecurity experience prior and had never touched a SIEM. Started out at 70k and got a 30k raise after 6 months and expecting another raise soon. The experience has been extremely valuable but this is not something I can sustain long term. I'm still new in this career so I'm not sure yet what I would want to or could pivot into next. Getting into coding sounds nice but is also intimidating.
70k to 100k with no experience?! Damn I’m jealous good stuff man I’m at 50k in a support position my 2nd one really first one was 30k, looking to upgrade soon
Sounds awesome man, like the kind of thing I’d like. Im taking the google cybersecurity certificate course and the security+ after. Any other suggestions? I have no background in IT, I’m a union Ironworker, 12 years in the industry but due to lack of work and a belief that the industry is only going to get worse i made this decision, which has been in my mind for sometime.
Jobs with the least stress is anything remote that doesn't deal with customer service. Help desk sucks because you have to be at your desk the whole shift if calls come in. My current cyber job is great because we have a great team and have one person each week take care of issues/tickets so that's the most stressful for that week but the rest of the time you just work on projects and just get your work done and no one cares how long you work
What type of Cyber Security are you involved in? I am at the beginning of my IT journey, and eventually I would like to work in a remote position that does not have a lot of stress involved, and allows me to be productive.
I've worked as a DevOps Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Cybersecurity Engineer, to now in Security auditing. Auditing is very low stress. Just policies, security control assessments, but it's very controlled. It's boring, but easy to me and you can still get the high pay as a DevOps engineer without the tech stuff lol.
@@myway8950 Not really. I can see being in technical roles for most of my career makes auditing extremely easy for me because I was on the other side once upon a time implementing the security controls. I don't really miss "fast paced" because I was stressed lol. Always on call and working long hours. I like being in the position of telling someone something is not implemented and kindly asking them to fix it lol. I prefer boring, high paying, and working remote. This allows me to work on other things outside of my main job.
I worked for almost four years as help desk and the stress is seasonal. Also a lot depends on what size of the organization you work. It can be pretty stressful
Hey Josh, great video. Just want to let you know that the term “go postal” is taboo in the mail delivery world. It’s a reference to a disgruntled USPS employee shooting up a post office…
Someone needs to take a chill pill and give people the benefit of the doubt. This world has become so hypersensitive taking all the fun out of just speaking. Thank you Josh for doing a great job.
Do entry level cloud jobs exists? Id imagine cloud could be one of the few careers where personal projects are highly valuable if you don’t have experience. Also , Happy Thanksgivings to the InfoSec 🐐
Hey man really liked this video thank you! - I wanted to ask as someone who has no background in IT or tech, where do you think is a good place to start? My values moving forward are: low stress, can work remote and pays relatively well, doesnt require huge amounts of money to star and lastly where i can maintain sustainable employment i.e stability. I'd really appreciate your insight! YH
oh cloud support engineering is endless. you can solve a case within a couple hours or can't solve a case for 4 months because of an unresponsive customer
Hello Josh could you please make a video on Thesis/dissertation i am about to complete my masters in information security but stuck with completing my thesis and facing multiple roadblocks. It will be of great help if you can throw some light
Hey Shreyas, I didn't have to do a thesis, but I did do a capstone. My topic was implementing a vulnerability management program on distributed government systems. I can just show it to you if you want to email me at the email in my channel :)
I work in Vuln Mgmt and its not bad. Like Josh was saying, you are relying on other people to do their job especially in the gov space. Pay is decent and work/life balance is good,
@@BigAlfromblo I came from a background as a Network Admin, Sys Admin, and Pentesting and hold a few active relative certs. Combination of my experience, education, and little bit of luck help.
@@BigAlfromblo going to conferences and doing CTF type events will help. Also add it on resume it shows you like to learn. Some certs help. Make friends and talk to VM guys sometimes you can move into that role from IR or blue team maybe even help desk
Hey I can add to this too!!! I've recently gotten into vulnerability management for the past 3 months and it's actually not as stressful as I thought it would be. I have great work/life balance as well.
I'm learning Python. It allows you to do web dev or AI / Data fields. Javascript is mostly for web dev. I don't think AI will replace web dev anytime soon and if it does you will know how to code for AI industry. I'm new too but I figured i'd share my opinion after doing some research!
I'll make a short answering this soon! But in short, usually the more control you have over your job, the less stress it will be. Data Analyst has less stress maybe since maybe you aren't relying on humans so much
0:09 HEY! That's me😁 Never had a question directly answered by a video. Thanks a lot, Josh👍 Edit: I totally get what you're saying about having control in your job and not having to rely on others. As a college student right now, I always hate having to do group work for that very reason!
In IT the word "stress" is usually related to not knowing how to resolve an issue. The more knowledge you have the less stressful it becomes. I remember going from computer to computer doing tasks back when I first started. Now I look back and get upset because a simple script could have saved me so much time and "stress".
@@liljzz8621 A bash script. Example...let's say your boss asks you to add Outlook to 80 computers. You can either go computer to computer and download the software or write a PSEXEC script and automate the task. Automation is the key.
I just got my first helpdesk job recently but am still training haven't started on tickets yet. It's remote so I feel the perk of being at home is awesome, once I start doing tickets will it feel awful? I can't imagine it's more stressful than when I used to work in the medical field which feels like you're always rushing through tons of patients and stressful situations everyday while understaffed.
I just started in help desk too and it’s stressful, we support so many things and get lots of backlash from other tiers and depts that haven’t gotten back to users.
Very true, started my first help desk in June for a third party IT and the amount of hassle to take calls and check creds and follow up task within a few hours is what drove me find another job quickly. The new job I started in October is way better in terms of manager and coworker being helpful and giving you time to do said tasks.
Been a software engineer for over a decade. It pays well but is often high stress. Work life balance suffers as well. But it all really depends on the company, team, and project.
I don't feel like cyber security fits so well into one box... you could be doing vulnerability management, pen testing, incident response, identity access management, firewall administration, security awareness training, or any combination of those and more. The level of stress is as much about the way the organization operates as it is your role within the organization too it seems.
Yeah, I feel you are 100% correct about this. I just tried to share my personal experiences but for sure it depends on what/where and stuff. Thanks so much for watching and sharing your thoughts ^^
@@JoshMadakor Thanks for the reply, Josh! I do agree with your analysis of these roles in a more general sense. With the people I know in cyber security roles though and even in the roles I've been in myself, there seems to be quite the range in level and type of stress associated.
I have to disagree with alot of what's said. I've done alof of cybersecurity and some cloud and its been pretty low stress. Help desk got the most calls and least respect from people. I'm currently a pentester and its low stress and fully remote.
@@CyberNinja6969, clearly there are exceptions. I was also in a pretty low stress cyber security job for several years. Sometimes I wish I wouldn't have left for more money. I still think Josh's comparison holds true within the companies I have worked at.
@@CyberNinja6969 I Came across a video this morning about Cyber Security and Vulnerability testing. He mentioned that you don’t necessarily need certifications but going through a training program would help you land a job. What are your thoughts?
I find it also greatly varies on the place also. I work in healthcare IT and the work-life balance is great, although I don't get paid as well as if I were working the same position at a FAANG company - I also deal with much, much less stress and more authority. Scarce resources and shitty computers aside, I've worked for 4 hospital systems now and all of them have a big focus on enjoying your job (Although the execs are clueless).
I work in healthcare IT. Very true this is one of the stress free jobs in IT. I recently moved from hospital to another as systems admin/desktop engineer.
I found doing IT for the Army not/hardly stressful (surprising I know). Most of the stress comes from doing actual Army stuff that doesn't necessarily include your job.
Ah yeah, that's pretty much what I've been reading. I considered joining for a long time, but I was too much of a B to go through with it, so props to you :)
Thats kinda the secret almost any gov job pays will and doesn’t require nearly as much work as say work in the public/private industry government just loves to waste money 😂
Tier II/Tier3 is most likely the best work life balance...pay is between 50 and 110k and you can be off by 4pm and headed home...very little after hours work...sometimes you have snippy users who need your help...but that generally never turns into a major concern as long as you are professional with them..
Also, it's easier to get a job in IT with an associate's degree than to get a job as a developer or cyber security analyst. I am in school for Computer Science, but I might change my major to IT, get the associate's, then go back and work on Computer Science. My brother got his associate's in IT last year and he got hit up by a recruiter around two weeks after graduating. Now he gets calls non stop. It's different with cyber and programming. They generally want you to have a bachelor's degree along with projects to prove you know what you are doing. Considering that I don't live with my parents and I split an apartment with my brother, I need to take the route thats going to make me money faster first.
I honestly don’t think thats necessarily true. I think having project’s or certs is mainly what they look at and the thing is theres more and more IT jobs then they can fill all you need to do is spam applications and one of them will hit because the IT field will be forever growing. Getting a As and BS in computer programing is pretty challenging way more than IT i would say
It is worth noting that the Software market is crashing right now. That isn't to say that there are no jobs, but it is much much harder to get a job at the entry level. IT doesn't seem to have as many entry level roadblocks right now.
To be honest, I don't think there isn't any roles in IT that doesn't have stress. Even when you start getting into Tier 3 as a Network Engineer or Systems Administrators, the stress level increases once some thing breaks as you are constantly putting out fires being on-call 24/7. I work in Tier 2 role above Help Desk as there is some level of stress meeting a quota of closed tickets a day or once some thing breaks that's urgent, you can't go home until is fixed. I also facilitate Tier 3 with server and network issues in the server room with hands and eyes even after hours when infrastructure issues occurs.
Hello and thanks for that comment. Just one question what do you think about the same topic in networking but applied to call center?. Cisco TAC for example...
I'm 17 looking to get into coding but i'm looking for a field where I can have a life outside my job ive seen a lot of videos and it seems even when they are not on the job they are still working to understand I dont mind the stress while im working but i would like to have a work life balance where I can be a family man and have time for my family
I'm currently helpdesk and the stressful part is when there's nothing to do lmao. I work at a bank and they gave me the corner of the office with no cubicle so everyone can see that I'm doing absolutely nothing at times and I have to make up some psudo-important stuff to pull up on my screen.
Haha, I feel you on that. Honestly if I were you, I would just start coding a lot of study something where it looks like I'm doing work. lmao. Get a lot of skill/certs :O). In fact, that's what I did in my previous job
I’m in exact scenario as you. On a side note, I’m not sure I want to deal with service tickets for the remainder of my career. I was initially looking into cloud computing but now I’m not so sure.
🙄🤦♂️ now I see this video after taking the google cyber security course because you had another video about cyber security 😂 I was just about to buy your cyber security course. So your It course the better course? 🤔
To me it depends on the environment that you're working at. Small vs large companies, the size of the IT department, resources to go to, and so on. Small companies working in IT you're probably going to wear a lot of hats dealing with various kinds of issues that could lead to a lot of stress.
If you are going to work help desk don’t work tier 1 as that is the most stressful in my opinion just based on my experience. Tier 2 or 3 tends to be less stressful because you are usually not getting back to back calls. And don’t get me started on not being on the phone when you’re supposed to in the case of a restroom break.
Those are Sub-Tier levels with in Help Desk. You are still on the Help Desk as a Level 1 role. Tier 2 is Desktop Support and Tier 3 is the Network and Sysadmins.. You can technically skill help Desk all together and jump to Tier 2.
Are there tech jobs that don't work overtime or at least don't work a lot of overtime? There was this video by CNBC about how millennials are all quitting their tech jobs. All the comments on that video were horrible and basically trashing tech and made it seem like everyone works 60+ hours a week.
From the research that I've done, being a QA engineer, either manual or automation, but especially manual, is low stress. Its actually been voted the number two least stressful Tech job in the country, via Forbes. I'm considering pursuing it
Yes, that is true. I've been doing software testing for the past 5 years now, at both enterprise and startup companies. Prior to that, started in IT as tech support and did some DevOps work for a cybersecurity startup. I'd say it depends on the company. Yes, as a QA engineer the stress is lower and work-life balance better than most cybersec and IT jobs. BUT there's also crap that comes with QA work too (ie: needing to test multiple features/user stories within a short timeframe, difficult managers, toxic work environment, etc). I agree with Josh - jobs that involve coding do tend to be more relaxed (except for DevOps lol). Best wishes on your QA journey!
@@intentionalgreatness An opportunity presented itself at my company when i was in tech support. The dev manager knew i wanted to be a developer (at that time) and there was a QA opening. He thought i was great for the role, so I switched to QA. Prior to that, I had no idea about QA. For me, i learned everything on the job. If that's something you're interested in doing, watch a few youtube videos or the udemy course is fine. Learn the fundamentals to get your foot in the door as a manual tester and go from there.
@@elise4517 Hello Elise, I just saw your message, so pardon the delayed response. Thank you so much for your insight! Difficult managers and or toxic work environments (if you are remote) is not that common, correct? Do you have certain questions that you ask during the interview process that can help you weed out a toxic work environment, even if it's remote? Thank you.
Yeah it depends on a lot of things. On my case, I am moving from coding to pentesting (I always had a passion on hacking field, since I was a teenager). My job as a software engineer was a hell. Work on a trash code, with horribles deadlines, being underpaid and cannot have any energy in the end of the day. I had the worse experience on my life, breaking a production app with a bug that could not be reproduceble. I mean, work on frontline as a software engineering is for me way more stressing than analyzing issues. I hope I find myself on this new field.
great decision. I dont do pentest but if you were a swe, pentesting will be much more fulfilling than making rich guys richer with their specific commercial apps
Ultimately, depends on company’s culture and industry. The jobs that prioritize anything close to 24/7 365 support are usually more demanding of your personal time. The Jobs that are literally fixing problems all the time can be stressful. The jobs where your wearing multiple hats tend to be both stressful and demanding. I could go on.
I've worked IT Support and Help desk like roles in the beginning and Frontend Development has been the least stressful...not having to run people down for access or info or waiting on others to do your task makes it a lot less stressful
@@ArchaicCreationsbp Honestly if you were going that route I would take coursera's Frontend and backend certificates and do javascript masteries free bootcamps on RU-vid and post about them on Social Media or look up coding phase on RU-vid and take his email developer bootcamp course...Email development is like a starter job to help get into web dev
If you know some web dev... the app sec field of cyber is pretty good... you're not fixing the code... you're pointing out flaws in the code for the developers to fix
Software Dev is very stressful especially if the company is not organised; knowledge base is not really what you depend on but you’ll have to think outside the box. I would say Business Analysis, Scrum Master and IT Project Support roles are the least stressful.
Yup, being a software developer is like being a research scientist but without the respect and glamor (and usually without the pay): You're daily having to teach yourself something new just to get the job done, and there's a lot of trial and error and shots in the dark. Sometimes you discover late that you've been blindly barking up a wrong tree, and you have to start over from scratch on a project.
I'm an IT PM. I think there are different kinds of stress. I have to deal with people-related and team performance-related stress. Your PMs are supposed to protect you from the noise and internal-external disturbance so that you can focus on the work that matters. To be honest, I feel PM work is very stressful and have caused me to age very quickly. I want to see if I can get into BA work or pivot into a technical role that's project-oriented (non-IT Support) so I don't get bored.
Would you know of any companies that are known good to work for? Or companies known to hire chat agents, not having to talk all day long on the phone? Like Fortune 500 ones. Talking all day is exhausting.
Based on what I have worked, I feel that Cyber GRC may be the least “stressful”. However, it gets to be soul-sucking, in my opinion. As you said, you also have to rely on others doing their job, which can also be hit and miss. Obviously, a LAN Admin or Vulnerability Management position may be more “stressful” but I ultimately had a better sense of pride and job satisfaction in those roles, where I troubleshot actual problems and made things happen. Some people might crave a boring, “stable” job. Good for them. Some like new challenges. Just because a job is easy, doesn’t mean you’ll be happier.
Shoot. I did not know that cyber is high stress.... I just spent like 7-8 months doing cyber in a bootcamp. I wish I knew that prior to my starting in this field...
Management only care about metrics if your resolving tech issues in real-time on the phone you must meet the metrics, if not your fired, very stressful. You can not meet metrics eventhough you solve the issue and left a positive experience with the user. I would imagine working on support tickets is alot less tressful. I don't know the metrics for IT support ticket work.
Sorry for asking questions on a video released 7 months ago, and really if anyone sees this question, feel free to answer. Soft skills aside, which position would you recommend for the least amount of human contact? Obviously not help desk, but out of software engineering, cloud support, cybersecurity, sys admin, network admin, etc which is the lease collaborative? I don't lack soft skills, but I definitely struggle to work closely with others. Computers don't stress me out nearly as much as people do 😅 I prefer to sort of just be given a queue or something to monitor and be left alone until we have a meeting or something. Anyone have suggestions?
@@epicotakugamer4930 So far it seems like soc analyst is a good option. There’s meetings and paperwork but it seems like the major of the core work is monitoring. Pretty solo.
This is a great question. I'm a systems administrator for an MSP and I have very little interaction with clients. I also only have my weekly 1 on 1 with my boss, but other than that, I don't have any reoccurring meetings.
Worked as an on prem sys admin early in my career for awhile and man it was a pain, Patch tuesdays, Nagios beeping all through the damn night, backup/restore, exchange/sql taking a dump just to make your day that much harder, random issues with ADFS..and then the users.. Athough I do miss the hands on tech tinkering and the the old team, I don't think I would go back to that, but then, with copilot integration all that is probably going to be a thing of the past, who knows. I would say, something like GRC is a lot process driven and less stressful but monotonous at times.
What do you think about pentesting/ethical hacking? I always assumed it would be lower stress than other cybersecurity jobs but I don't know very much about it.
Hey Annie, My thoughts on pen testing...Roll in, break some stuff, write a report, and let the nerd client worry about fixing it and then dip. lmao. I haven't officially don pen testing before, but it seems like a pretty sweet deal and low stress
I've been kinda looking into it myself. So far the majority of people tend to say that it's all fun and games till you have to do the report writing part! lol And it can be in various forms such as an actual "physical" penetration gaining access to buildings or restricted areas that require special access etc. Even saw a video some months ago that involved actual "lockpicking" a door. Network penetration of course is what's most commonly thought of which is exactly what it sounds like without going into too much detail. There are many who also differentiate between "Pentesting" and "Ethical Hacking". I recommend checking out: "The Cyber Mentor", "Hackersploit", and "John Hammond" to name a few of the most popular experts on the subject.
This content is remarkable. A book I encountered with a similar premise was life-altering. "A Life Unplugged: Reclaiming Reality in a Digital Age" by Theodore Blaze
Cybersecurity is stressful, unless you work for govt, then it's chill. But you won't grow as fast as industry does in the field. Been looking into Cloud and coding more, I'm tired of commuting and wearing a collar shirt.
Hello Josh. Wondering what kind of IT Jobs that is not coding that is remote and can make 65k a year. I am currenty getting my B.S in IT management at WGU
Hey Ntech! Bunch of stuff. Just go to LinkedIn jobs, set the jobs to remote only, and start typing the name of certs and see what comes out. This should give you a decent idea of what jobs and in which fields have a lot of remote positions :)
Currently work as a NOC Engineer, but the actual work is basically help desk. It’s stressful in the fall because the company is busy during that time (printing). But it’s alright during the spring.
yeah I'm an InfoSec analyst, get scheduled with a good 12 hours of audits/RAs every day and its miserable. red teaming doesn't look bad though but yeah thats what everyone wants to be .
lol I can second that point on consulting. It is alot of fuckery you will rarely get to do what you want to be doing and I have no idea why so many people want to work there
It really depends honestly, but I imagine offsec would be really comfy. Just go in, find stuff that's broken, break stuff, write a report, and dip, I haven't done it though, but that's my image of it lol.
Pentesting or offensive cyber is well paid and often hybrid or fully remote. Pentesting and or cloud are usually both well paid and often remote. Pentesting isn't really a job you deal with customers much except presenting your findings and explaining it to non technical people.
Super helpful Video, I have 6 years in Front-end dev, and I was wondering If there were other Tech areas I could be a in a better position, now I can see I am already in one of the best ones lol
are you working remotely in japan working for company in another country? I kinda wanted to do that, just wondering how you manage to let your company do that if u do
I started out thinking my cybersecurity is not all that stressful at all, and then you started listing why it's stressful and I'm thinking. "oh yeah, I guess there is that. Oh.. yeah that too..." lol I guess it is a mindset, The biggest aspect is you can get in real trouble when someone else doesn't perform a task correctly. Also compliance work when your assessor sometimes does not understand how a system works and adds requirements that are not plausible or sensical for that type of system. You get stuck in a loop.
Lol a lot to unpack here. It just depends on what you want to do. Getting a CS degree for It is a bit overkill, but it will give you a titanium foundation to build upon haha. If you wanna go IT, Get A+ If you wanna go SWE, get CS
@@JoshMadakor Im thinking of doing a one year accelerated programme to get a CS degree. Will cost about 8 grand. i am definitely more than knowledgable for it, do you think its worth it? im in IT
Say I'm a bit of the opposite. I do best in roles where I can lead, delegate, coordinate, and support teams in success. I would be far less happy in a pure text solo role. I could do it, but would be less motivated and happy, so that would make me stressed.
I would say working help desk at a MSP can be high stress depending on the size of the MSP. And work life balance can suffer. For instance, if you work for a smaller MSP you are on call a lot. My last job I was on call for all of our clients 1 week a month. The MSP I am at now is a lot larger so were only on call 1 week a year.
I m working in soc analyst working in rotational shifts including night shift weekend are other than saturday sunday like my others frnds weekend on this day only work life balance is disbalanced now... Can u tell cyber security domain which generally don't require rotational shifts
I would love some advice. I have experience with computers but my certifications, knowledge and experience are about 20 years old. My A+ is GFL so I still have that but would need to get other education/certifications. I haven't worked in about 8 years due to having to take care of family but I am now able to go back to work. I am wanting to know which path I should focus on that would allow me to get a good paying job as quickly as possible. Should I go for network/security or for coding?
Software Engineering is no where near "Less Stress", of course it depends on the company, but in most companies the deadlines are crazy, the management and investors are crazy, and they want you to justify your high pay.
cyber here, get what you're saying 100% to do with the place been through 4 different places til i found one that appreciated and dedicated enough budget to cybersecurity to make our lifes and jobs easier