How I Got Started in Cybersecurity
Posted on April 13, 2025
It Began Like This
There’s a term in fighting games known as “Character Crisis” — it describes the struggle of picking a main character, investing hours into them, only to switch again. This perfectly mirrors my early journey into the world of Information Technology.
At first, during my time at vocational school, I was convinced I’d become a software developer. We started with Turbo Pascal, which was part of our final exam curriculum. Alongside it, we were introduced to Python, which quickly became my favorite — and to this day, it's still my go-to scripting language.
Hungry to go further, I also dove into C programming, advancing well beyond the school's syllabus. Things looked crystal clear: the dev life was for me.
While I doubled down on development, I neglected networking classes — one of the other main subjects for our finals. Why bother, I thought, when I knew my path?
Years later, when I found myself intrigued by networking, I realized I had to start from scratch. I had skipped the fundamentals, and that came back to bite me. Thankfully, university opened the door to other areas of IT, and I got a chance to explore.
Character Crising
From that point on, I bounced between specialties:
- Software development
- Web development
- Networking
- Sysadmin
- ...and finally — Cybersecurity
The issue with cybersecurity is this:
You can’t be good at securing a system unless you understand it deeply.
If you're securing networks, you need advanced networking
knowledge. The same applies to systems, applications, or
cloud environments.
Luckily, by the time I seriously decided I wanted to become a Security Engineer, I had already built a strong foundation across multiple domains.
The SysAdmin Chapter
In 2021, I landed my first role as a SysAdmin in the
hospitality industry.
It was a goldmine of experience — I worked hands-on with:
- Firewalls
- Hypervisors
- Windows servers
- Cloud services
- And plenty more real-world infrastructure
That job was a launchpad. Over four years of troubleshooting, deploying, maintaining, and learning — plus hours of study and certifications — paid off.
The Transition to Security Engineer
Finally, I made the jump:
I landed my first Security Engineer role.
I owe thanks to:
- The mentors who guided me
- The TryHackMe platform that taught me hands-on
- The mistakes that made me hungry to improve
Right now, I’m actively building my skills in the cybersecurity field — and it’s exciting as hell.