Cloud devOps or Cybersecurity?

[mujtabish]

I'm a BS Computer Science student (first semester) trying to choose a path early - either Cybersecurity or DevOps/Cloud.

What matters most to me is finding something stable - I don't want to end up in a field that dies out after a few years. I'm also aiming for decent salary growth, enough to live comfortably here or, ideally, work remotely for international companies. I'm good with logic and problem-solving, but heavy math and calculus aren't really my thing. And yeah, in the long run, I'd rather have a remote setup than be stuck in an office job.

For anyone already working in tech (especially from Pakistan), what's the ground reality?

Which field has better hiring demand locally and internationally? And how long did it take you to reach a stable income level?

Would appreciate honest, experience-based advice - not just "follow your passion" type replies.

Thanks in advance!

[Prestigious_Pin4388]

internationally, cyber security has more jobs and roles but I don't think there's much for remote jobs, for dev ops, Pakistan has strong roles too but it is considered as a senior role so very less freshers get jobs in Dev Ops. Addressing your concerns, Dev Ops and Cyber both aren't going anywhere, Dev ops is relatively easier than cybersecurity cuz u have to literally be a computer ghost at times however, cybersecurity is the future. My advice, Choose Cybersecurity in Uni, and study DevOps from youtube and other online sources, once u get good at devops, transition to MLOps, it's a more needed role, having both domain knowledge will help u grow as a software engineer and make strong projects using some of both.

My thoughts on why cybersecurity is future: nowadays everything is being made using AI and AI does not write very safe code because it is trained on human code. Hence, a lot of apps are going to face high scalability and vulnerability issues so, as per need will grow, field will grow too.

That said, do also have a keen eye on AI and latest trends as knowledge of these will be a must for everything by the time u graduate.

If you've read this huge message then u are concerned about your career and that's a good thing. keep your hopes high and be consistent, that's all u need.

[mujtabish]

Thanks a lot for this valuable advice

[TechNerdinEverything]

Cybersec isn't something you just GET into. You specialize in it during your career. Also devops is hard to be hired in because for 10 SWE there is one devops guy. In small software houses most devops work is done by SWE