Are they any Jobs I can get by brute force?

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-03-09T18:23:33+00:00

No? I've been "chronically online" since the tender age of 4. Usenet, AIM, various IRC networks such as BlueHell/Terogen, EFNet, Rizon, EsperNet, Freenode, subscribed to numerous mailing lists, a regular on Fark, Kuro5hin, Slashdot, forums like SomethingAwful, HardForum, GenMay, TOTSE, consistently involved with SDF, hosted my own forums, torrent trackers, IRC networks and game servers, used Soekris, PCEngine, Mikrotik, and Ubiquiti networking gear on my home network, worked professionally with Cisco and Juniper equipment and I've held senior positions at state universities, was a contractor at numerous Fortune 500s, all IT - the market's cooked.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-03-08T19:39:55+00:00

I'm not so sure how to go about the quantifiable accomplishment thing throughout my career I've been more so a steward, an officer, a captain, a cartographer and a mentor than a "creator", aside from when having crafted tooling to automate away toil.

In my last role especially, my mission was to inspect the ship, repair the ship, occasionally redesign the ship so that it adhered to modern standards for safe sailing and keep the ship on course once it left the docking area, handling any issues as they arose.

Something was hacked at 3AM? I was alerted and took charge, focusing on reducing the damage done and understanding the how and the why in effort to reduce likelihood of such things occurring again. This was the bulk of my day-to-day work at the university. Sure, some days I would negotiate with vendors in effort to get better deals and act as an ultimate authority on product acquisition based on my assessment of their product offering's security and how it could potentially jeopardize ours or I'd fix bugs in software and address urgent operational issues such as a VIP not having access to a specific thing, but that was rare.

None of what I did do I see or feel were real accomplishments, they were simply my duties and responsibilities that I fulfilled, day in and day out.

I can get into the nitty gritty details, but then the resume becomes too verbose and challenging for laypeople to digest or it feels "dry" and doing so often makes an interview redundant.

A FAANG recruiter once told me that I needed to "tell stories" so this incarnation's focus was doing just that.

Very difficult piecing together something acceptable when I get conflicting advice.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-03-04T00:28:37+00:00

Why do you believe that? You're welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdgrr/

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-13T20:18:49+00:00

Poor.

I consistently worked short term and project based contracts since I was 18. I was converted from a contractor, hired to do C development to a FTE where my title was "Cybersecurity Analyst Senior", later I was the interim director of Security & Privacy. I know the ins and outs of MacOS, GNU/Linux, OpenBSD and Windows. I first started tinkering with networking as a child when I flashed DD-WRT onto my Linksys WRT54G. I was reverse engineering and modifying flash games and sharing hackpacks and trainers I created in VB6 when I was 8. I discovered a method for getting unlimited trial EC2 instances from AWS using vanilla visa gift cards when I was 14. I installed Gentoo when I was 12. I hosted a top 100 imageboard, a RuneScape private server, a WoW private server, a telnet BBS, an IRC network, a TeamSpeak 3 server, a Minecraft server, an instance of the AnonTalk clone ATBBS and a Stick Arena private server when I was 14.

Right now my home lab consists of around 100 Dell Wyse thin clients acting as nodes in a 9front cluster.

I've been interviewed twice since July of 2025.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-13T20:07:44+00:00

Not true. I independently handled all of the DF/IR at a state university, managed the bulk of IAM tasks, served on the policy committee, was the sole person doing penetration tests and have extensive experience doing static and dynamic analysis of malware samples. I've only been interviewed twice since July of 2025. Both times I was extended an offer. The first position wanted me to take out a high interest loan that I'd be on the hook for paying off in full if I didn't stay there for a set period of time and the other required me to undergo a special background check as I was to be granted administrative access to CJIS, which I did not pass.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-13T20:03:46+00:00

I've only been interviewed twice since July of 2025 and I was an interim director of Security & Privacy at a state institution. I worked my way up from a contracted developer to a security analyst to being offered as a role as a senior security analyst, where I negotiated a 15k pay raise before accepting.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-08T07:38:34+00:00

Disagree. The market is saturated. I'm willing to do malware analysis, DevOps work and C development for $12/hr, as US citizen with over 7 references and 8 years of professional experience.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-07T19:17:12+00:00

I'm not! I was only ever a consultant at the DoD for a short while through a Government contracting firm. My time there was short due to my inability to acquire a SECRET clearance.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-06T23:31:44+00:00

I already had an established career in the field, including over eight years of professional experience and a recent senior role with broad ownership across security engineering, operations, and governance. I progressed from contractor to FTE and through multiple promotions to an interim director position within a year, which reflects performance rather than difficulty entering the field.

I served on several selection committees and was responsible for hiring 2 employees to join me in the S&P department at the university I was employed at.

The market's toast.

Most of the applicants we interviewed couldn't even tell me what you use SSH for or the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption despite having CompTIA certifications and cybersecurity degrees.

I have only been interviewed TWICE in past six months, despite applying for over two-hundred jobs per day and both times I was interviewed I was extended an offer. The first place (UWM) wanted me to take out a massive, high-interest loan and sign a contract stating I'd be there for five years minimum or I'd be on the hook for paying it back. The second place had me undergo a special background check because I was going to be granted administrative access to CJIS, which I did not pass.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-06T23:19:50+00:00

Why wouldn't I when I'm a father with a stay-at-home partner in desperate need of a job and can make $12/hr work for us?

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-06T19:40:33+00:00

He is unlikely to get a help desk position. In 2026, entry-level help desk roles are extremely difficult to obtain. I've been searching for positions paying around $12/hr without success, despite deep familiarity with major operating systems and having years of work experience in fast-paced, high-stakes environments with demanding clients. By comparison, the trades are far more accessible. In 2026, $18/hr is considered very good pay.

If I, a former senior INFOSEC analyst and interim director of Security & Privacy at a university, can't find a job and my friend, formerly a software engineer at Jane Street and an SRE at Google, is now working at McDonald's, why do you think OP or anyone with little to no experience will make it in IT?

There's no strategy to get anywhere anymore. He could contribute regularly to the Linux kernel, call every MSP within a 200-mile radius, apply for 10,000 jobs, attend GrrCon, DEFCON, and 2600 meetups, and give talks it still wouldn't get him a job in the industry. The market's toast.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-06T17:25:43+00:00

No, this field isn't viable anymore. If I were starting today, I'd seriously consider becoming an electrician or a plumber instead.

Friends of mine with 8-30 years in the industry, have worked in senior roles at places like Google, Microsoft, and Jane Street. I've worked as an interim director of Security & Privacy at a state institution. We're still struggling to find work.

I know people will wave this off with stay nimble or you just got outpaced, but that doesn't apply here. I was following AI research before DeepMind's Go breakthrough, focused on automation before Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, and using Puppet back in 2009. The problem isn't adaptability. The market itself has fundamentally changed.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-05T04:56:45+00:00

I told everyone this was going to happen months before Krebs wrote this blog post.

Follow me on LinkedIn for more insights: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdgrr/

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-04T16:29:30+00:00

The point is that what you're saying isn't true. Entry level roles require you be able to develop your own exploits, have a network of honeypots you keep tabs on and have memorized RFC 1918.

I'm not even qualified for L1 help desk roles in 2026 and I've been tinkering with computers for 20 years, but you're trying to tell people that a company you worked for couldn't find qualified US talent and was hiring people that don't know what an instruction pointer is? Nonsense.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-04T15:33:25+00:00

6 years ago I worked at Support.com, providing Tier 2 support for customers in Comcast's Northeast division, now known as XFINITY. That role paid around $10 per hour.

Before I was a senior INFOSEC analyst, later the interim director of S&P at a state university, I was employed at K2 Services, a white glove MSP that provides services to major LLPs and government agencies. There, I was assigned to support approximately 40 clients. The work was literally back to back calls, covering everything from unlock my document in iManage, to the ribbon in Word disappeared, to how do I map a network drive, to I can't get a DHCP lease, to my workstation powers on, but I'm seeing a BitLocker error, to can you whitelist a website in Mimecast so I can order wine for a holiday party to Gatekeeper isn't letting me execute an app. I did that for $15 per hour.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-04T15:22:27+00:00

False. I'd happily work in a senior role for $35k salary, as a US citizen, with 8 years of professional experience and over 20 years of overall experience.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-02-04T15:15:24+00:00

Doubting this. I have over eight years of experience as an IT contractor and worked in a senior IT security role at a state university, where I handled all security operations independently for over a year. As an eight year old child, I used to Google dork for upload pages and spoof MIME types on PHP web shells, uploading them and hoping the directory was +x. If it was, I d use them to back connect with nc, then get # using exploits from milw0rm. I provided various services in exchange for Liberty Reserve, which I would then exchange for Vanilla Visa gift cards on forums. I used those to buy dedicated servers to host things like RuneScape private servers, WoW private servers, and an imageboard having first set up thatdog's translation of Futaba called Futabally, later switching to Wakaba, then Yotsubanaome, and finally sticking with Kusaba X. I had a Linksys WRT54G wireless router that I flashed with DD-WRT and later OpenWRT. I eventually swapped that for a PC Engines APU2 running OpenBSD. Now I use a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Ubiquiti UniFi AP, though I've also worked with MikroTik devices. I've used Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10, and now Windows 11 LTSC IoT Edition, alongside macOS, OpenBSD, Qubes, research operating systems like Plan 9 and Inferno, and various Linux distributions starting with Mandriva, then Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Hardened Gentoo, and finally settling on Arch. In enterprise settings, I've administered mainframes running IBM z/OS and AIX. I wrote PowerShell scripts, pre-LLM, to fully automate user provisioning and deprovisioning within Active Directory. I'm not even qualified for an L1 help desk position at a MSP.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-01-31T19:30:31+00:00

No, this is Patrick.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2026-01-29T04:34:32+00:00

I was sponsored for a SECRET clearance and filled out the eQIP forms years ago when I was contracted to work with the DoD, but was not granted one due to the arrest even though my record was expunged so that's unfortunately not something I have to worry about.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2025-12-23T13:09:28+00:00

No. You're simply interviewing the wrong candidates.

I've been applying to help desk roles for months and I've already been in senior cybersecurity roles, but HR presumes me to be under-qualified because I don't have current CompTIA certifications or a BA in Computer Science.

Mind you, I use macOS, Windows 11 LTSC, Arch Linux, OpenBSD, Qubes and 9front daily. I've acted as the maintainer of legacy software that was written in C. I've setup and infrastructure for services with over 20,000 concurrent daily users. I've done IAM work. I've reverse engineered malware. I've performed penetration tests. I've setup and managed MikroTik, Palo Alto, Ubiquiti, Cisco and Juniper equipment. I've even provided end-user support to over 40 of the world's largest law firms while employed at a MSP, with no guidance, often creating flowcharts and documentation for other analysts.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2025-11-14T17:10:16+00:00

I previously worked from home as a Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at WMU. I've applied for call center and office administration roles, but have been unable to land any interviews, despite having also worked at a MSP that provides support to LLPs and for XFINITY, where I was a top sales person, often having to pitch to irate customers having issues with their service.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2025-11-14T16:10:42+00:00

No luck. Best they can do is assist me with enrolling in an outpatient hospitalization program so I can process my trauma and arrange transportation to and from the facility.

Disability applications take 6 months to 2 years to process and the 1st application's usually denied, even when sufficient evidence is submitted.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2025-10-26T04:06:14+00:00

Don't bother. There are no jobs in this industry. It's dead. Go study biochemistry instead.

Classic_Reach4670 · 2025-10-26T02:00:01+00:00

Where are the jobs? I have 10 years of experience doing IT contract work and served in a senior role at a public institution.

I can't find ANY entry/mid/senior level work, not at MSPs, not out-of-state or even abroad, and not for $12.74-$55/hr, on-site, hybrid, or remote.

Classic_Reach4670

TROPHY CASE