Pittsburgh

dhay13

Anyone here in the Pittsburgh area working in the security sector? Seems the job outlook around here is pretty slim when it comes to security. Or am I just not looking in the right places?

slinuxuzer

Despite being a mini tech hub nowadays, I think the market in Pitt is just slim, I'm not from there, but I worked for a steel company based there for five years and know a little about the area. CSC (they are called something else now) might be a company worth looking at, they are a managed service provider. The manufacturing companies there will have small security departments if any, PNC bank has a decent sized department so I am told. Other than that, remote gigs are really easy to find now, have you looked at something like that? OR look at making the move to DC, I think its a short commute, and you'll have more of a job market for security than you can handle, although you'll need to be able to attain clearance.

dhay13

PNC and BNY Mellon are large companies always hiring but they are 99.9% contract positions. I probably get 7 or 8 calls a month about contract jobs at those places. US Steel is another but the only job I have applied for there was a contract and I didn't get a call back on it. In fact, I have only heard of a handful of jobs here that were direct hire.

On another note, I would love to move but family comes first and I'm not really in a position to do that. Remote would be great (I am 45 miles from Pittsburgh) but those seem pretty hard to find. I work remote now but I'm looking for more of a challenge and somewhere that I can advance and move up that ladder. My current job doesn't offer that. As long as I am here I will still be making the same amount and have the same title and responsibilities. I'm willing to give up remote work for those opportunities but finding another remote opportunity would be great as well.

dmoore44

You could always check out the Software Engineering Institute... They're a Federally Funded Research & Development Center run by CMU.

dhay13

CMU would definitely be an option but not sure on the commute. It says 44 miles from my house. Be cool to learn from the brainiacs there too. Top dogs there.

slinuxuzer

You say 45 miles, what township do you live in? I worked at US Steel for five years, and their cyber security department is small and probably not what you're looking for, Cyber is such a specialization, even in Pittsburgh most companies won't have a cyber department of any note. Be patient and stay on top of dice and indeed.

What facet of Cyber are you interested in? Penetration testing? Network security? Compliance? SOC/NOC? Incident responder? The key to landing great remote jobs is sharpening those technical skills and honing in on a specialty, this will differentiate you.

dhay13

I live in Lawrence county. I currently do vulnerability scanning and remediation and ensure all servers are FISMA compliant. I would like to do a little of everything. Down the road I would like to be a security manager or CISO and I feel having a little knowledge from each area would be beneficial (and specialize in 1 or 2 areas along the way).