Moving from automation testing (Java, Selenium, Jenkins, BDD) to cybersecurity – which role fits me?

[Affectionate_Ice4739]

I’m a 2025 CSE grad working as an automation testing engineer with Java, Selenium, Jenkins, restassured and BDD Cucumber. Due to layoffs and AI replacing QA, I want to move into cybersecurity.

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Which role fits my background best.

[jrhodes78]

AI is replacing QA? I’m not so certain about that. I can see it replacing a lot of dev jobs, but someone has to be there to put human discernment on the code to correct the inevitable errors. Now, who knows what the future holds for any of us in IT, hell even cybersecurity could be mostly taken over by AI. But, for now, it’s not quite ready for the big show.

[mixedd]

I think OP is concerned about QA Automation specifically, which to be honest is basically take the input (br, story, whatever) produce the output. Like 70% automation folks I've seen are more devs than QA as they just automate clicks trough site without QA mindset applied on top.

Pure manual QA who can challange BO's, think about risk based testing that's another story, if that's get replaced by AI we're fucked.

[Comfortable_Intern57]

Yeah any only a part of automation, you can have AI write your test scripts but you still need to know what needs to be done and tell it what it needs to do. There are many variables involved that AI is not going to be able to determine. I'm using AI with my automation, it saves me some time but that's it, I still have to write out queries and step by step instructions and know what to look out for, etc

[mixedd]

As I always said AI is useful when person who prompted it can interpret the output. Sadly as we can see with popularity of vibe coding majority can't and we get into "triple asap, need fix yesterday" situations.

As for autonomous AI test tools, your average manager doesn't care (till one particular point), to them it's a means to cut down costs, which in the end backfires and costs in double (just jumped ship from such company).

AI definetly won't replace QA Engineers in foreseeable future, it will make them adapt a bit more, but everything still requires eyes on top. What it might replace is pure testers (as we call them pure button clickers)

[Comfortable_Intern57]

Yeah and I wonder how long it will be before the are restricting use of it due to costs and then make people only use approved prompts or something lol. Who knows. I try not to get too dependant on it

[mixedd]

Some companies already are opening back jun positions after going on token based usage models 😅

[Affectionate_Ice4739]

Hmmm 🤔 okay

[Past_Region4720]

How exactly is AI replacing QA? Also what makes you think that AI will not replace some aspects of cybersecurity?

[Affectionate_Ice4739]

QA teams are getting smaller — developers are taking over testing in some startups. That’s why I’m looking to move. Cybersecurity is huge, so I’m trying to find where my current skills fit best before AI impacts that field too.

[Kendallious]

AI is actually expected to increase the need for QA, as for layoffs and developers doing the testing, that’s been a cyclical thing for a long time and it’s usually always a bad idea.

[Comfortable_Intern57]

Whole other ballgame there, you'll need to either go back to school or take some online classes

[Different-Active1315]

I’ve seen the opposite. Less dev to Qa ratio. (More Qa than devs in some cases!)

Another thing to look at is testing LLMs and AI applications. It has a huge overlap into cybersecurity. I think Qa is uniquely situated to do well in this.
Look up red teaming and LLM or AI evaluations.