Alyssa Miller - Cybersecurity Career Guide

I grew up as a hacker. I have been working with computers all my life and have been a cybersecurity professional for the better part of two decades. My time spent in the hacker communities of the 1990s along with my own successful career progression have etched a special place in my heart for the cybersecurity field.

Ive watched as cybersecurity has gone from a relatively unknown field, where I often struggled to even explain what it was I did for a living, to now an almost ubiquitous presence in the mainstream lives of every person on the planet. It is no secret that cybersecurity has become one of the most talked about career fields in technology and maybe just in general society.

However, as technology continues to grow, innovate, and permeate our daily lives in so many ways, the need for cybersecurity professionals has skyrocketed. I have read many accounts in industry and mainstream media of this so-called skills gap that we have in cybersecurity. Ive seen estimates of anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of unfilled jobs. Yet, as I spoke with people who were trying to get into this hot job market, I heard stories of the struggles they were encountering. A sort of dissonance exists between what the industry is saying and what job seekers are experiencing. So I set out to solve this issue.

Through surveys, interviews, and other research, Ive sought the answers. My goal is to help connect job seekers and the companies that need to hire them. One of the primary efforts of my ongoing work to improve the cybersecurity community is this guide. The Cybersecurity Career Guide is here to help those who want to start their career understand, identify, and overcome the many obstacles and challenges they will face. My hope in writing this book is to ease that path and guide those new professionals who will help secure our digital world.

A book like this does not come together as the result of any one persons efforts. Thus, I take a moment here to thank all the amazing people who made these pages possible.

I begin with Casey Shuniak, whose love, support, and guiding ideas helped make this book so much better than it might have been otherwise. Caseys support in helping me navigate many moments during the COVID-19 pandemic in which I lost motivation ensured that this book got out to the many who will benefit from it. Her efforts in reviewing the content of this book provided me with invaluable perspectives on how to connect with a broader audience of readers. For that, I am most deeply thankful.

I also want to acknowledge the many people in the cybersecurity industry who helped in various ways through the interviews I conducted and the research I performed. In no particular order, Alethe Denis, Carolina Terrazas, Kirsten Renner, Kwadwo Burgee, Kathleen Smith, Gabrielle Hempel, Keenan Skelly, Mitch Parker, and Lesley Carhart, thank you for all the knowledge and perspectives you shared that can be found throughout the pages of this guide. Additionally, special thanks to Carl Hertz and Ray [REDACTED] for being tremendous advocates of my work, sounding boards when I needed an outside opinion, and simply two of the most wonderful people I could ever hope to have in my court cheering me on.

I would also like to thank the people at Manning who helped shepherd me through this process: Karen Miller, the development editor; Aleksandar Dragosavljevi, the review editor; Deirdre Hiam, my project manager; Sharon Wilkey, my copyeditor; and Jason Everett, my proofreader.

It is also important for me to thank the thousands of people who participated in the research surveys that really kickstarted this book and provided some surprising data and conclusions. So many revelations came from your efforts in sharing your experiences, and I cant thank you enough for helping me pay it forward to help others navigate their way into a cybersecurity career. And then, finally, thank you to the tens of thousands of members of the security community I am blessed to be able to interact with on a daily basis through social media, professional events, and industry media. This community I love so dearly served as the true inspiration for writing this guide, and I truly appreciate every single one of you.