35. Careers, Certifications and Bug Bounty
35.1 Cyber Security Job Roles
| Role | What they do | Chapters that prepare you |
|---|---|---|
| SOC Analyst (L1/L2) | Monitor SIEM alerts, triage, escalate, investigate | 1–6, 19, 24, 31 |
| Incident Responder | Contain and clean up attacks, lead investigations | 28, 31, 34 |
| VAPT / Penetration Tester | Test apps, networks and cloud with permission, write reports | 18–26, 29 |
| Web Application Security Tester | Find OWASP issues in web apps and APIs | 9–16, 21, 29 |
| Cloud Security Engineer | Secure AWS/Azure accounts, IAM, logging, guardrails | 12–16, 30 |
| Security Engineer / Hardening | Build and maintain firewalls, EDR, hardened servers | 5–8, 32 |
| Digital Forensics Analyst | Collect and analyse evidence from disks, memory, logs | 28, 34 |
| GRC / Compliance Analyst | Policies, risk assessments, audits (ISO 27001, DPDP) | 18, 34 |
| DevSecOps Engineer | Add security scanning and secrets control into CI/CD pipelines | 16, 29, 30 |
| Threat Intelligence Analyst | Track attacker groups, indicators and trends | 19, 27, 31 |
For freshers the most common entry points are SOC Analyst L1, VAPT trainee and IT/cloud support with security duties. Many people move into security from system administration, networking or development – your AWS and Linux skills are a real advantage.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip
All freshers say "I want to become an ethical hacker" and think they need OSCP on day one. Start as a SOC or VAPT trainee, gain experience, then specialise. And if your networking + Linux are weak, no security role will last – make the foundation solid.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip – मराठी
Freshers सगळे "मला ethical hacker व्हायचे" म्हणतात आणि पहिल्या दिवशी OSCP लागेल असा विचार करतात. सुरुवात SOC किंवा VAPT trainee पासून करा, experience घ्या, मग specialise करा. आणि networking + Linux कच्चे असेल तर कुठलाच security role टिकत नाही – पाया पक्का करा.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip – हिंदी
सारे freshers कहते हैं "मुझे ethical hacker बनना है" और सोचते हैं कि पहले दिन OSCP चाहिए. शुरुआत SOC या VAPT trainee से करो, experience लो, फिर specialise करो. और networking + Linux कच्चा हो तो कोई भी security role नहीं टिकता – नींव पक्की करो.
Practice task
Pick two roles from the table that interest you. Search current job postings for each on a job portal and write down the five skills and two tools that appear most often. Mark which chapters of this book cover them and which gaps you still need to fill.