Selling Bread to Making Bread as a Software Engineer
Let me start by saying that, it is okay to be at any point in your life and still try to make a change. Reading this counts as a first step towards that change. I want to talk about my journey into cyber security and want to help others get into the field. My journey started soon after I graduated high school.
Watch the Video instead?
The Air Force Academy
Back Story:
Growing up I had been introduced to military programs even though none of my family had ever been in the military. I don’t know why it is me that my parents decided to put into the Young Marines, but I am glad they did. At 8 years old, I was already going through pools of mud, doing push ups and getting myself up early to do my chores. I did this for a few years and then came back my sophomore year of highschool. I worked my way up and began teaching incoming recruits on how to become young leaders of the next generation.
Meanwhile in high school, I joined the Air Force JROTC program and worked my way up to the highest cadet rank, led 140 cadets and served the community as much I could. I did all of this work to try to get into the Air Force Academy. This school was a way out of where I lived and my income situation. I also saw it as an opportunity to give back and better my life.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get in the first year. I had to go to a preparatory school and community college before they let me in. The process was amazing and difficult at the same time. I received a congressional nomination to the school and was in boot camp June of 2018.
Where Things Get Messy:
Up to this point, I have accomplished everything I had set my mind to since freshman year of high school. To be honest, I was on top of the world in my eyes. After finishing boot camp and starting my first week of school for a computer engineering degree, I was quickly disheartened by the idea of doing this for the rest of my life. I knew that I had just gotten out of school and my life was just starting but up until that point in my life all I knew was discipline, taking orders, being restricted from going outside, and not being able to truly think outside of the box in fear of doing something that may offend a superior. I decided that if I was going to truly get into the world of cyber security, I would have to see it from all angles and would need to understand security from all types of people.
Left the academy, traveled back to California, ended up in Santa Cruz, the bay area, near silicon valley and grinded like there was no tomorrow.
French Bakery
My initial steps were to find a job and get some income flowing. I didn’t have any friends in this new area, luckily I made a lot of friends working for a French family and selling baked goods. This transition period solidified what I had to do with my life, that was get into the technology world.
Looker (Google) — IT Internship
Accepting this internship brought joy to my heart because I knew that as soon as I got the first job, every other job will come. Not because I am entitled, but because of the skills and network that I was bound to build.
Working as an IT Help Desk Intern I was mostly dealing with broken laptops, hardware, password resets, computer imaging, networking issues on devices and troubleshooting other issues as they came up.
Skills Acquired:
I will say, the most valuable skills that I acquired here were interpersonal problem solving skills. I was able to de-escalate issues that may have seemed too big for others. This in turn also helped me build many relationships with people who I helped.
Community College
While I was working at the internship, I was working towards my computer engineering degree. At this point, I had a revelation. The education degree systems suck. I did not agree with having to take 2 years worth of physics and calculus when I was mostly going to use linear algebra and statistics. Not only this, but I was infuriated after getting a C in calculus 1. The test was a pure regurgitation test and I was not ready to waste my time doing that for another 4 years.
The best choice was to look at some kind of education that would teach me true employable skills and then later I could come back and do my linear algebra.
The answer to this was Career Technical Education (CTE).
Door to Goldmine:
Career Technical Education allowed me to work directly on employable skills while still obtaining associate degrees of science! I got my degree in networking and systems administration. The only catch was that the degree was not transferable to a state school. Honestly, that was okay with me because I was not about to go into $40k in debt. In this degree I learned about python, Linux, operating systems, networking, digital forensics, penetration testing, and I also passed my CompTIA Security+ certification there!
Cyber Security Tech — Student Job
Like I said before, getting your first job opens doors to many others. I was introduced to this job through my instructor in the CTE program and was hired almost immediately after seeing my course work progress and current work experience at Looker. Both jobs were part time so I was able to do both at the same time. I know a lot of people find it stressful to work full time and go to school, but I felt like I was just doing a hobby and getting paid for it. If you love something so much it won’t feel like work.
BACCC Summer Cyber Camps
Through the Cyber Security Tech job I was offered to join the BACCC Summer Cyber Camps development team. This is where I learned a lot of Kubernetes, Google Cloud, docker, and Python. I then started honing in on my teaching skills when it came time to instruct students on how to do tasks. I have always thought about the idea of teaching in some way and this was sparking that interest. You never know what opportunities may arise.
WGU and Certificates
In the world we live in today, having a bachelor’s degree is mostly a checkbox for HR filters. The competition between those who have degrees is getting more serious as higher paying jobs diminish. I found out about Western Governors University and learned that I could transfer over my non-transferable degree, will you look at that? Not only that, the B.S. in Cyber Security costs about $3800 for 6 months. To finish it off, the finals for most of these classes were paid for global industry certifications. I was able to pass a certification every 2 weeks and finished the degree in 6 months. I got my CompTIA A+, Network+, Project +, Pentest +, the EC-Council Certified Encryption Specialist (ECES), Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) by ISC², and stackable certifications that came as an addition to the ones I earned. All of these were already included in the price of the degree. What wins in today’s world ? Real World Experience, that includes global certifications!
Balbix- Software Engineering Internship
I joined as a Quality Assurance (QA) intern to help out with testing and breaking programs. I really enjoyed doing this and excelled quickly because I wanted to show that I had a lot of potential. I would work on items even when I wasn’t tasked to do them, ask many questions, figure out how everything works internally and really understood every little part that I was doing. Quickly my coworkers were able to see that I was fit enough to stay on! I ended up getting hired and moved into another team.
Biggest Thing I learned:
It is okay to fail, as long as you learn. Do your research before asking questions, people’s time is limited in the technology world. You seem more prepared when you go in knowing the issues at hand and an idea of what to do to solve them.
Software Engineer
As of today, I have worked on things from Python, C++, databases, data engineering pipelines, software design, and anything in between that involves data wrangling, processing, extraction, and storing. I have been able to work on full production systems and hone in on my coding skills. My goals at work are to learn as much as I can everyday, do my job well and test, test, and test my code many times! Really. It comes down to a lot of testing.
Future Goals
I have always wanted to get into Artificial Intelligence. I see it as the pinnacle of technology is our day and time. I didn’t know exactly how I would get there but I wanted to get there. As I learned more about cyber security and how to break things, I was drawn to malware analysis and bug bounties. More specifically the art of finding and making zero days. I’ll be filming my progress from zero to hero in the AI world while I focus on its use specifically to find bugs and zero days. Join me in this crazy venture!
Last Thoughts
Your path may be completely different, I have met many people who go from being dancers to cyber security engineers. If you have your mind set on this goal, get ready for lifelong learning. Let me know what you think and if this was helpful! I can answer any questions you may have! All I ask is that you follow me here or on YouTube! See you all Later.
Quack QUACK,
