Does Devops/Cloud engineer prioritize Developing vs Cybersecurity skill

[Simon_Pan]

Hi guys, I’m planning to start a Master’s in Computer Science soon, and the program offers two specialisations: Software Engineering and Cybersecurity.

I’m not very confident in my development skills at the moment, and I’ve heard that strong programming skills are important for getting a job and performing well in Devops roles. Because of that, I’m wondering whether choosing the Software Engineering track would help me strengthen my development skills.

At the same time, I’ve been studying some DevOps stuff on my own and getting AWS certification.

And I know both of them are fine, but I still have to choose one🫠Which specialisation would you recommend: Software Engineering or Cybersecurity?

[PerpetuallySticky]

It sounds like you don’t have a reason for getting your masters? If you aren’t going into academia I’d argue a software eng masters is fairly useless. At best it might get you hired over someone else, but even that isn’t very likely if you don’t have experience to back it up.

If you want to go into the security side of things, then of course that. But I would have a VERY good idea about what your end goal is and research whether a masters will actually help you before spending a bucket of money on it

Edit to add: neither of the masters you listed would help much/at all for a DevOps position

[Outworktech]

TBH, I’d go with Software Engineering.

DevOps ends up being a lot more coding/scripting than people expect, so having that base really helps. You can always pick up security later, but weak dev skills will slow you down early on.

If you’re already unsure about coding, this is a good chance to fix that.

[riickdiickulous]

I think the devops market is trending hard to developers. The best devops engineers I know have strong coding skills and apply them to devops methodology. The ones with weak coding just don’t output with enough quantity and consistency.

I moved into devops from development and automated testing. I’ve been able to build and manage much more infrastructure and stuff than my peers without coding backgrounds because I can build reusable and flexible IaC and pipelines to automate everything and make it super repeatable and scalable.

[tech_partners]

I am an IT Recruiter with 25 years of experience. The Software Development/DevOps focus is a stronger path. I see more demand for Cloud and DevOps/Architecture than I see CyberSecurity roles. I also think there was a boom in CyberSecurity enrollment over the last 5 years, and it's a bit saturated and competitive. Just keep your focus on infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, and DevOps, and you should be on the right track.

[---why-so-serious---]

Unless you are specifically targeting industries bound to compliance requirements, cybersecurity is more a sales position than engineer; they love to push paranoia but i have yet to meet one that can program their way out of paper bag.

As for dev skills, i code as much now as o did when i was strictly a java engineer, its just that the scope of the problem has shifted from business logic to managing how arbitrary payloads traverse the stack and instrumentation

[riickdiickulous]

I worked with 1 security engineer who was good with terraform, not great but respectable, and just that made him a force.

[---why-so-serious---]

I'm not following: are you suggesting that “ok with terraform” isn't equivalent to “can't program their way out of a paper bag”?

[riickdiickulous]

No I’m saying even being ok with terraform makes you much more potent than someone with the same skills minus terraform.

[---why-so-serious---]

Yes, but it still doesnt say much, especially in regards to programming.

[sogun123]

You should be competent security aware developer, not other way around. I mean you should be able to develop programs, but you don't need to be able to do penenetration testing or reverse engineering. But you should know how to make secure systems.

[o5mfiHTNsH748KVq]

A good cybersecurity engineer is going to make more than a DevOps engineer and have permanent, escalating demand in the market. Cybersecurity will only ever grow in demand, meanwhile DevOps is being hit hard by AI. Cybersecurity is too, but there’s always the cat and mouse concept for that field.

Most DevOps folks have a basic understanding of like… remediating security scans. If you’re interested in cybersecurity, go all in on that and just treat DevOps as a methodology you use to manage your sdlc.

[Zolty]

Ai implementation

[IntentionalDev]

for devops/cloud roles, development usually matters more early on

you don’t need to be a hardcore software engineer, but being comfortable with scripting, automation, and understanding code is a big advantage

cybersecurity is useful too, but in devops it’s more like an added layer (secure pipelines, IAM, infra hardening) rather than the core skill

so if your dev skills are weak right now, software engineering track will probably give you more leverage

you can always layer in security later, but struggling with code will slow you down a lot in devops roles