working from home

Ryan9764

How do you guys feel about working from home? Is there jobs in cyber security where you can work from home? If I right out of school, can I work from home or do I need on site exp? I was just wondering because someone suggested to me that working from might suit me good. I was diagnosed with anxiety and ptsd. I want to move up but if working from home wont' allow me than I might just toughing it out and work in Kansas City.

Welly_59

You need experience. After all, who's going to trust a person with no history to work from home with no supervision ?

anhtran35

Cyber Security working from home??? Don't know about that. Most require you to be on site with the exception of Penetration Testers. Most work at home IT jobs are programmers.

tpasmall

I work remote once a week. I use that day for my off-network stuff. The rest of the time I go into the office. (I do a mixed bag of red and blue team stuff)

Danielm7

I work in security and do some WFH but am primarily in the office. I can do 100% of my job remotely, it's just a company culture thing. I wouldn't hold your breath about getting right out of school and starting a remote position, or a security position for that matter.

kalimuscle

You getting professional help for your disabilities?

TechGromit

Ryan9764 wrote: »

How do you guys feel about working from home?

It's OK one or two days a week, but I rather be in the office. Being known gets you more opportunities.

Ryan9764 wrote: »

Is there jobs in cyber security where you can work from home?

Sure some cyber security work can be done from home, if your skills are in enough demand, I don't see why you can't work from home every day.

Ryan9764 wrote: »

If I right out of school, can I work from home or do I need on site exp?

Work from home jobs without experience are most likely scams. Your going to need at least a couple years experience before you can even think about working from home. I guess you could freelance, but you'll need professional contacts of people who know your work before you can do that. I guess if you were a high level pen tester that won several CTF events, you could try to make a name for yourself and get freelance work. In short without significant experience and contacts working from home every day in the Computer security field is impossible.

tunerX

I love working at home. Most things I do can be done where ever I am. My last job came with some travel that was mostly during the summer which I didn't like. My new job is about 4-5 weeks a year travel but spread out.

It sometimes gets hard to separate work/life balance. People who know you work at home think that they can contact you anytime and be available since you are at home.

kiki162

Working from home is great. You do get a heck of a lot more done during the day that at the office.

Most work at home jobs are NOT programmers - Just wanted to put that out there. The real key is finding a company that has work from home opps and what you bring to the table. Beyond the anxiety and ptsd issue, you should understand that working from home you will get a lot more work done then being in an office. So I'm not sure if you are getting triggered because of your workplace, or something else separate from that. A lot of us here have issues with anxiety, ADD/ADHD, etc. The key is to get it under control so that it's manageable, and you are able to handle more work so that you can move up.

Since you are right out of school the likelihood of you getting a work from home job will be low. You should be aiming more towards getting a "core" skill set established. Getting those core skills will help to prepare you better for a "cyber" type role. I would suggest looking into any Cyber competitions or CTF's that may be in your area to help build some of those skills.

Would be interested in knowing what type of job exp you have currently, as well as any interests. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

JoJoCal19

I work from home full-time. As a matter of fact, barring any situation where I'm ever laid off and it takes too long to find another job, I will never seek or take another job that isn't primarily at home. Good thing is most consulting or sales positions are remote. And I'm honestly at the point that I won't need to worry about rushing to find another job because I have my real estate brokers license and I'll just transition to doing that. I really don't care to sit in an office and do a job that is perfectly capable of being done remotely. I'm tired of wasting 1.5 hours commuting, and the gas expense to sit in an office for 8 hours clicking on a mouse and typing. I'm tired of working in noisy environments, of not having my kitchen and bathroom easily accessible.

anhtran35 wrote: »

Cyber Security working from home??? Don't know about that. Most require you to be on site with the exception of Penetration Testers. Most work at home IT jobs are programmers.

Actually there are plenty of security remote positions, and not just consulting or sales engineering based either. I'd say the greater percentage are GRC, but I interviewed for security engineer positions that were remote too. And there are plenty of companies that are realizing that remote work is both cost-saving and also a selling point on their company.

hurricane1091

I could work from home 4 days a week, but I don't. I hate sitting at home all day. I thought it would be awesome. Not really awesome.

gespenstern

I worked from home for several years for two different companies and it was awesome. The only problem was the pay.

It's easier to secure a WFH position which isn't that high in terms of pay and responsibility. Then it becomes tough, unless you are a world-class star.

I currently work as an architect and I don't see them letting me do that from home because of meetings, etc. In general, the pay is higher for office jobs.

hurricane1091

I really dislike working from home, and it always amazes people. This may change one day though. My day shouldn't consist of me potentially never leaving the house. It is great to not have a commute, but no real interaction is depressing. I never find that I get more done at home either. I get done less. Way more distractions around (TV, game consoles, wife/kids, whatever). That beer in the fridge and pool is looking pretty good too, might as well go sit outside since no one will know! Everyone is different though. I know I'm in the minority here.

JoJoCal19

hurricane1091 wrote: »

That beer in the fridge and pool is looking pretty good too, might as well go sit outside since no one will know! Everyone is different though. I know I'm in the minority here.

Heh, my manager doesn't care where, when or how I work, as long as my deliverables are met. Working by the pool, beachside, or on a boat? No problem to him. I'm definitely the exception and not the norm for remote positions though.

tunerX

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Heh, my manager doesn't care where, when or how I work, as long as my deliverables are met. Working by the pool, beachside, or on a boat? No problem to him. I'm definitely the exception and not the norm for remote positions though.

Not all remote work is the same. Some helpdesk and network support positions are remote but they maintain a strict guideline of attendance. Its basically just taking a keyboard clacking job and putting it at a remote location. I have seen remote positions where there is a camera trained on the employee and some manager somewhere takes accountability of remote employees to make sure they show up on time, take only as much lunch as given, and then clock out at set time.

revbox

I would not expect anything other than basic help desk or call center type work in a work from home setting when you are just starting out. If you have work experience, you may have additional options depending on your level of education. There are lots of financial and project management type roles that are remote based. If your degree is a technical one, with no work experience it will be call center/help desk. A better path in my opinion would be to find a good landing spot, prove yourself, then see how much flexibility they offer once they consider you a core team member. These types of opportunities grow over time as the level of trust in your performance grows at least in the early stages of your career. Even if the offer you accept has no flexibility for this, a year of work experience will go a long way in positioning you for better offers where you can do this later.

hurricane1091

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Heh, my manager doesn't care where, when or how I work, as long as my deliverables are met. Working by the pool, beachside, or on a boat? No problem to him. I'm definitely the exception and not the norm for remote positions though.

I worked from home a few weeks ago. The reality is I went on a job interview and got a new job, and no one even new I wasn't home. It's too easy sometimes to not to do work. The place where I am going is all about SCRUM or whatever, which seems effective in getting work done. I probably won't enjoy that, but can understand the effectiveness of it.

Ryan9764

kalimuscle wrote: »

You getting professional help for your disabilities?

Yes I am. I doing therapy and all that good stuff. I current running on my own. I made a big stride from 5 years ago. But all the traffic, populated area get my anxiety going.

Ryan9764

revbox wrote: »

I would not expect anything other than basic help desk or call center type work in a work from home setting when you are just starting out. If you have work experience, you may have additional options depending on your level of education. There are lots of financial and project management type roles that are remote based. If your degree is a technical one, with no work experience it will be call center/help desk. A better path in my opinion would be to find a good landing spot, prove yourself, then see how much flexibility they offer once they consider you a core team member. These types of opportunities grow over time as the level of trust in your performance grows at least in the early stages of your career. Even if the offer you accept has no flexibility for this, a year of work experience will go a long way in positioning you for better offers where you can do this later.

Thanks. One of my professor told me that most of the IT jobs can be done at home. He work at a hospital and go in couple days a week and does most of his work at home. It just a thought. Plus I might moving back to my home town in which it about hour and twenty minutes away from Kansas City.

SoCalGuy858

I'm in a home-based cybersecurity position with my company. I'm home 100% of the time, as our nearest office to me is over 300 miles away. Definitely didn't start out that way though, and a few things played into the whole scenario.

I joined the company in 2013 as a systems administrator / IT support guy in one of their California-based offices and held that position for two years. During that time, my direct supervisor was based out of an office either 150 or 1500 miles away (initial supervisor transitioned to a new position half way through my time as a systems administrator). For all intents and purposes, I was already working "remotely" from the start. Nobody in my office was from "corporate", let alone IT, besides myself. My initial position was also so much of a "jack of all trades", I was always up and on the go around the office. Never 100% at my desk (I don't think I could deal with a job that monitored you via webcam, as mentioned above...), and at one point, we had two separate physical offfices I was back and forth between all day. I always got my job done, though, and made sure my management knew about it.

The supervisor that originally hired me on (who transitioned to a new job halfway through my time as a systems administrator) moved over into a newly-created position as our Director of Information Security, and brought me over as our company's first Information Security Analyst. I did this for about 10 months in my same office before moving across the country before moving cross country.

Despite the job title, it's not a traditional SOC-style security analyst, but rather another jack of all trades position. We have never had a dedicated security presence at our company before this, so on a daily basis, I find myself working with everything from vulnerability management and security awareness to physical security and policy development (and everything in between!). Given that this is being done for the entire company and not just the office I worked in, the same "already working remotely" mindset was still in play. Supervisor was light years away in another office and I had no direct support duties in my office.

That's when I asked to transition to work from home, and it was approved. Been living across the country for just shy of two years now. I'll definitely say that my position and path towards working from home is definitely more of a "unicorn" story, but I wanted to illustrate that it can happen. It just may take being in the right place at the right time.

mzx380

I speak from experience when I say that working a remote support job can be a death sentence for your career. The temptation is there not to want to leave and take a stagnant approach with your upskilling. If you are just starting out, the goal would be to collect as much experience as possible and then "reward" yourself with a job that allows you to work from home when you need it.

powerfool

I love working at home and I will be hard pressed if I am ever required to go back into the office on a regular schedule. Not having a commute is the main thing... the expense and stress related to driving, the potential to be involved in more accidents (statistically, not from experience) or get speeding tickets (from experience), those are nice benefits with realy value. Also, it is super convenient. My kitchen is right around the corner and I can make my own coffee exactly how I want. It also makes my attempts at intermittent fasting easier to deal with; if I get to a point where I am just too hungry, I can grab something at pretty much any time. It is also nice to be able to use lunch time to mow the lawn so I don't have to dig into my time on the weekends or some evening during the week.

The main benefit that I see, but have yet to take advantage of in a measurable way, is being able to work from anywhere. I would like to do some extended trips to different places. Find an inexpensive place to stay, fly out there... work my days as normal and then have the evenings and weekends available as if I were a local there. It would make doing 3-4 days weekends very nice to get to see more stuff without burning up too much PTO.

ande0255

I used to spend 1 hour driving across the Twin Cities to my job, and sit by myself as my team was scattered in different areas of the building, or working from home.

Once the supervisor who "strongly preferred" me to drive in was no longer my supervisor, I have been at home ever since, and I don't mind the dozing off in rush hour traffic on the way home or car crash that adds 2 hours to my drive along with winter driving fun!

On top of that, I can go right from shutting my laptop to studying to get it out of the way faster for the night, or give me more time during the night to study all night (or as long as I can go).

I'd honestly rather just drive a reasonable distance to an office and work with my team again, but if I had to continue driving 60+ minutes each way, I would have sought work closer to home. I thought I'd hate it, but I actually really enjoy my own bathroom *queue singing angels*, and spending my drive time studying instead.

DatabaseHead

For me it's a blend, at least one day a week. Need that time to keep end users off of me and allow me to develop. Right now I get drive bys and they KILL my productivity.

Perfect environment for me would be 2 days a week from home. Get visibility but avoid office politics and drive bys 5 days a week......

I got a friend who works from home 5 days a week unless deployed on a sales meeting or training (not very often). Makes good coin ~155,000 midwest and plays golf 3 times a week on company time. I've always bit my tongue warning him, but he has been doing this for 5 years and still is rolling.

Must be nice.....

dhay13

I have been working from home for about the past 18 months. It has its perks but I wouldn't have a problem going back to an office IF it was a reasonable commute. My current job I was driving 49 miles each way (about 70 minutes each way on a good day). I wouldn't want to go back to that and if I did I would definitely look for another job. 99% of all security related jobs around here are still at least a 45 mile commute but at least I would get paid more (current pay is pretty bad). In fact, of all the security related jobs I have seen around here they all pay more than mine but I know what it cost me to commute so I am gaining something back there.

As far as working from home, it is nice to run a few errands on my lunch break, run to the grocery store, etc. I can tie my dog out so he isn't locked up all day, get laundry done. I also feel that working from home gives me the feeling of being left out of the loop. There are no promotions to be had at my job but if there were I feel I would be left out of those talks.

I definitely feel I am more productive working from home. At the office I wouldn't usually get to my desk until about 30 minutes after I got there and was in a hurry to get out to beat traffic. Now I am at my desk a few minutes before I am supposed to start and will often times stay on a little longer and sometimes even log back in after dinner. I also usually grab my lunch and eat at my desk while working so my lunch breaks are minimized. I also don't have any distractions. I have a dedicated office at home and stay there all day.

TechGromit

hurricane1091 wrote: »

It is great to not have a commute, but no real interaction is depressing. I never find that I get more done at home either. I get done less. Way more distractions around (TV, game consoles, wife/kids, whatever). That beer in the fridge and pool is looking pretty good too, might as well go sit outside since no one will know! Everyone is different though. I know I'm in the minority here.

I'll have to agree, if I do not have meetings or a clear task I need to accomplish, working from home is just an excuse to goof off all day. I try to stay near my phone and computer, but not really working.

ande0255

If you are single or just have a girlfriend / fiance and no kids though, if your valuable enough to the company, you can move state with a job already in hand to rent or buy a new place immediately in another state.

That is one of the major benefits to me, after I finish the CCNP I intend to take some time off to move South to Colorado or Arizona, moving without a job is near impossible unless you have a huge bank account... having that pay stub to put in front of a renter / home seller is invaluable to having to rent a room out of a house with cash and live off savings until you find a local gig ASAP.

Perfect time to move to a new state if you ask me, as long as your indispensable enough to HR, that's why I CCNP R/S before bringing it up to my top manager / HR

powerfool

I don't get this sentiment about goofing off... maybe you just don't like your job enough... maybe find something that is more interesting to you. Sure, I from time to time goof off... but I did that in the office, too. However, most of the time I am working hard and sometimes "quitting time" passes by before I have realized it.

networker050184

If you have discipline problems with work you're going to have them at home or not. If you need someone looking over your shoulder to make sure your work gets done you're probably not a very good employee...

Personally I love working from home and haven't had any productivity issues.

JoJoCal19

networker050184 wrote: »

If you have discipline problems with work you're going to have them at home or not. If you need someone looking over your shoulder to make sure your work gets done you're probably not a very good employee...

Personally I love working from home and haven't had any productivity issues.

Exactly this. And to add, unless you're working remotely in a metrics driven position, you have a lot of leeway and flexibility to knock out work as quickly as you want and then have some time to study (or do other things). I'm in a deliverable driven position so as long as my deliverables are met on-time (or even early), it doesn't matter how I structure my day. I use the good old 80/20 rule and try to knock out 80% of my work in 20% of my day that way I have time to study, to get a head start on other deliverables, and to end my day early.

kalimuscle

An employer pays you money to work ! People goofing off and not putting in what is required is kind of like stealing