Security Engineer | Career Path

Learn about the Security Engineer career path in cybersecurity. Discover key responsibilities, required skills, average salary expectations, and relevant certifications for this role.

Overview

Designs, builds, implements, and maintains an organization's security infrastructure, including firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, VPNs, and other security solutions to protect networks and systems.

Responsibilities

  • Design
  • implement
  • maintain security infrastructure (firewalls, VPNs, IDS/IPS)
  • develop standards/policies
  • automate security
  • incident response
  • secure application development support (DevSecOps)

Required Skills

  • Network security architecture
  • firewall config
  • IDS/IPS management
  • endpoint security
  • cloud security (AWS, Azure, GCP)
  • scripting/automation (Python, Ansible)
  • security frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001)
  • secure coding

Salary Expectations

$90,000 - $150,000+ USD

Relevant Certifications

Common Career Pathway

Progresses from Security Analyst, Network Engineer, or SysAdmin roles. Strong technical and design skills required.

Learning Roadmap

Network/SysAdmin base -> Security+ -> Firewalls/IDS/IPS -> Cloud Security -> Scripting -> Frameworks -> CISSP/GSEC.

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