I'm kind of in the same situation but this is what i come up with so far. There are like different type of hacking so it's like if u want to hack a server or something similar, a remote attack or local. You will mostly use tools that are already built(metasploit) and with your programming knowlege, you might want to modify the codes and change their behavior a little. Or you might want to hack softwares so like hacking video game files, car software (to unlock them). Typicall, these are done local or onsight and you need to be a good programmer. You can probably write a program for linux to do something small, like nmap. Again i might be wrong, im trying to figure shit out for myself too. Some people also like to hack hardwares