Pen tester salary reddit. You’ll make yourself far more marketable that way.

Pen tester salary reddit Penetration Tester / Application Security Expert (May 2023 - Present): In my current role, I've had conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration tests on a wide range of systems, including Web, iOS, and Android applications, internal/external networks, cloud infrastructures, and telecommunication infrastructures. the places that can/will sponsor visas for standalone pen tester roles are likely to be bigger foreign companies, so competition is p intense. I am an aspiring Junior Pen Tester. i have +-3 years of experience and i have aboslutely no clue what an average salary would be for a fresh pentester with a couple of years of working experience. Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. Nearly done with the CISSP, got at least another month in for revision/practice exams. Most companies just hire consulting firm to do pen tests. While there's abundant guidance online, much of it feels dated, and each individual's journey is unique. Good luck in your endeavor’s. If you can identify a vulnerability and then script out the fix you will be high demand than a standard pen tester. com, is $92,759 per year, but that does not include any potential bonuses or additional compensation. Since one of rules of pen tester is do no harm My advice would be to look for penetration tester positions and see what you can do to close the gap on what they are asking for. Hey all, I'm a penetration tester with two years of experience, OSCP, OSWE, and CRTO without a college degree. Many want you to have security experience up front. Good salary, work/life balance, problem solving and learning are all big things for me in the workplace/job roles. I have been working as a functional analyst. Just passed Sec+, looking to start CREST CPSA then CRT. Dedicated to those passionate about security. Hey guys, Looking for some advice here. Every company serious about security will need them. Not saying there's a a low variety but it seems that pentesting is more of a advanced field that you get in once you have experience working in the field as well as obtaining a oscp cert. Yeah if you do security consulting work it would probably be 50/50 remote and travel. Ideally, you want to work for a penetration testing consultancy where you work with external businesses. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. I passed the oscp and started a job as a pen tester 2 weeks later. I would look up entry/mid level pen testing jobs in your area or remote and read the job descriptions. I feel like I'm lacking skills in terms of cloud security. Most cybersecurity jobs, especially pentesting jobs require actual experience even with homelabs and ctfs. I always questioned their ethics. So doing a job search there seems to be more openings in the defense side than the actual pentesting side of it. 9. Note: OSCP will be very difficult if you don’t take the time to understand networking protocols and operating systems. As has been said in previous comments theres a whole load of people that watch a few ethical hacking videos, install KALI, get a certification or 2 and then assume they are going to jump right on in to being a pen tester. It's one of the cheapest and still good online training platforms that focuses on "hacking" but they also have a variety of other paths/training modules. I passed the eJPT exam back in November, and I am trying to gain some knowledge towards penetration testing through certifications and TryHackMe/HTB. so it is 100% Possible though I'm based in Germany so that might influence things. Well if your just starting college I would try to consider what is a more practical job for you once you graduate. ) It almost always involves working in consulting (which means travel, tracking hours Work remotely Great salary Being challenged every day (My current job offers the first, salary could be much better and I don't feel challenged at all -this probably has to do with the company and my role and not so much the position title) Even with a modifier job titles vary a lot: Penetration Tester, Application Penetration Tester, Security Consultant, Application Security Consultant, Security Engineer, Security Software Engineer, Software Security Engineer have all been used to describe the same job of application-specific penetration testing. 5 YoE Senior pentester here I’ve shot up starting at 21k in 2018 and over the years have moved jobs and managed to snag 70k on my Edit: I think switching from 10 years of developer to junior pentester seems like a waste and I'm afraid I don't get much salary as junior pentester compared to my current senior developer salary Share Two career paths I am interested in are software engineering and ethical hacking/penetration testing. I say it depends on your location, here in Detroit 110-120k is a high end rate for security and other high end development jobs. Kicker was having 10+ years of experience. if a 3k salary difference is significant for you, there's probably other benefits differences one way or I started off as a (graduate) penetration tester (security consultant) role at a private company in the UK London a couple of months ago. I see a bunch of jobs at big tech companies that say Security Engineer or Product Security Engineer and the first job responsibility is Pen Testing/ DAST SAST. Edit 2: why OSCP and not GIAC - well for 1 GIAC qual (and training) you can get a years subscription and unlimited exams from Offensive Security. Pen testing is not entry level (that doesn’t mean you need to start at help desk etc). My previous salaries + bonuses combined: junior - 85-90k consultant - 110-125k senior - 130-150k All just estimations, salary changed a lot + a few job changes in that time. Hi Reddit. Then see where they overlap and get experience with whatever they all have in common first. Archived post. 260 votes, 217 comments. Posted by u/Dry_Network_2110 - 12 votes and 21 comments 192K subscribers in the AskNetsec community. £500 a day for 3 months for example for someone with 3-5 experience. Reply reply I’m in a similar boat but a little further along trying to get my first pen testing position right now. We got over 200 resumes in 2 days. I've been working in IT for 11 years. Very few security professionals have this skill set. Are the salaries of red team and pentester On Google (150k), is it real? 142 votes, 87 comments. Most are asking for 5-7 years of experience in a security or pentest role. Im UK based and got my Cpsa before the oscp. OP has even thought about how to legally perform a pen test, or what kinda work goes into the business side of making that happen. Penetration Tester DADOS PESSOAIS Idade: 39 anos (M) Formação académica: Engenharia Informática Experiência profissional : 2… Posted by u/RelishBasil - 3 votes and 16 comments Personally, I would steer clear of penetration testing. I sent the HR a copy of my current uni results & the OSCP cert. Being a pen tester is broad field and I highly recommend finding out what you want to do in the space. If you want to actually become a pen tester, work on your writing skills and do high quality, engagement level write ups. If you’re interested in becoming a traditional pen tester ie hacking legally (In scope) partner up with people doing bug bounties to sharpen your skills. The portswigger web academy helped loads in the interview cause they asked loads of web application questions you don't get in the oscp. Umm, you can be "black hat" and a penetration tester. I am in the process of interviewing with a Big 4 company for a junior pen tester position. I have never seen a role with the name of Ethical Hacker. This subreddit is for technical professionals to discuss cybersecurity news… 72 votes, 82 comments. Hi all, I'm at a point in my cyber career where I'm not quite sure which direction I want to progress down. I've OSCP, CRTP. Posted by u/Tall-Town-1147 - 7 votes and 5 comments Due to an increase surge of work of a new contract, my company needs penetration tester contractors which would be good to use on an ad-hoc basis. We have a full pentesting team where I work at and the hiring for these positions is incredibly competitive. Very competitive as well Edit: if you want to be a penetration tester then going for OSCP Is a better use of your time and money. e programming/data structures and algorithms). I would say 140k would be a fair rate most places for mid-senior role with the rest of your compensation being training, conference attendance, and performance bonuses The only negatives about pentest as a career are that 1. Doesn’t make sense to pay them a salary. Pen Testing is typically considered the top of the line as far as technical goes so career advancement after this moves more towards business needs. This subreddit is for technical professionals to discuss cybersecurity news… Security jobs and IT jobs will burn you out if you’re just in it for the pay day. You can be an independent consultant or work for a business which offers pen testing. 187 votes, 149 comments. Your company is ripping you off. Job openings in United States. Tons of people that already have security experience on the blue side are going after OSCP to convert to the offensive side. 2. A little background, I graduate in May with a degree in software engineering and a minor in cyber security engineering. I started off with a BSc in Mathematics, MSc in Information Security and OSCP with a starting salary at 28k. After this I was wondering about 2 job routes, Security Architect or Pen tester. Get some experience and pivot into pentesting. Security Engineer/Analyst always. ) Pentesting labs like hack the box (document progress) 27 votes, 19 comments. ) Freelancing 2. Most companies that work with cloud also have fulltime security positions. TryHackMe has an Offensive Security path which would be beneficial for a pen tester. Hi everybody. penetration testing, security engineers, developers and so on) could be considered ethical hackers. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. A decent security engineer salary here is upwards of 100k, although many are paid below that. Sounds harsh, but pen testing is not a one man band with some entry level certs in their pocket. I have known guys that work for a security firm doing pen testing and then did questionable things on their free time (not to their clients and i am not talking bug bounties). Ok that’s kind of what I figured. Right now, I'm in the midst of a interview process with a SG based Dutch company for the Junior Penetration Tester role. Penetration testing (or pen testing) is a security exercise where a cyber-security expert attempts to find and exploit vulnerabilities in a computer system. They say its a 24 hour exam and its supposed to compete with the OSCP. Consequently role openings are much fewer and concentrated to pen test providers. 55k CAD was my starting salary as a junior CSE. We were looking for a penetration tester with 3-5 years of experience (ideally in a pentesting role) with no degree or certifications required. Depends if your a junior or not and where you work. Posted by u/i_shot - 47 votes and 107 comments This should be the top comment. Nov 22, 2024 · What is the salary range for penetration testers at different experience levels? Entry-level penetration testers earn between $60,000 and $85,000 annually. 22 votes, 19 comments. Reply reply EagleClaw322 Landed a pentest job within 3 weeks of getting OSCP. ethical hacking. experience as soc analyst and bug bounty hunter. Reply reply What would be an approximate salary range for a penetration tester in Switzerland (Zürich area as a reference)? Not necessary big 4 but also small or medium size companies, for an entry level position, with a master's degree, and a 6-month internship in the field as the only experience. I (M29) currently work in a government role earning 80k, with no relevant IT/cyber… "How do I get experience after college for a job I need experience for": 1. Reply reply Posted by u/SalBeast123 - 10 votes and 21 comments For penetration testing the jobs are usually advertised as junior penetration tester or security consultant. Glassdoor. Most pen testers got into this for hacking and hate the writeup part. Experience and knowledge of the security field, as well as having a good understanding of the tools and techniques used in pen testing, are more important Red - pen tester. Dec 16, 2024 · A pen test engagement is drastically different to a cert exams or CTFs. Pen tester are too expensive to keep around except for very large companies. I have hacked a couple of htb and tryhackme machines and am currently working on the cyber mentor's Practical Network Penetration Tester certificate. Salarystarted on £26k then after 9 months moved to another company on £48k (been working there for 1 year now). Right now, I have around 500$ to invest in a certification. I was hoping to gain some additional information about the two fields, particularly if they require any similar skills and/or expertise in certain areas/concepts (i. Red team is an extremely small amount of members and is highly competitive/difficult school. it’s more common for such services to be contracted remotely from consultancies based in the us/uk – infosec You should research what % of pen testing jobs require one. Disregarding my impostor syndrome that comes with this line of work, I feel like I lack knowledge when it comes to AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, Serverless, Kubernetes specifics I just started my Junior Penetration Tester role on 1. S government jobs are definitely not overpaid, compared to private counterparts. Google tells me the upper band for Senior Penetration Tester is $141k, and the upper band for Senior Cloud Architect is $180k. My question is the following: Penetration Tester, £40k, 1. Let's say you land a job as a junior pen tester for a medium sized security consulting company that has clients all over the world. true. Until recently, I've always worked as a… I’ve been on the hunt for a position as a Penetration Tester and I was wondering where the best places to search for jobs online are. I currently work as a consultant and my work week is typically pen testing clients 80% of the time and then spending 20% of the time on reporting. The more experience you have the better. That being said, big companies have internal pentesting teams A big part of penetration testing is writing reports and presenting findings. Meaning, if you are a pen tester, you'll most likely only find work as a consultant. The average salary of a pentester with two years of experience is around 80k-100k in Quebec. You could end up getting a job straight away as a pentester and it will be a steep learning curve, however getting that job my not happen over night, so be prepared for it to take a Mar 9, 2025 · The average salary for a penetration tester is $125,650 per year in the United States. Or get a sysadmin job, network admin. Im currently in my 4th and final year of cyber security, however i’ve never had a class on pen-testing or ethical hacking. Lastly, the fact the article is peppered with statements about not knowing certain things and being new to this, I’m not sure how that qualifies anyone to talk about how someone shouldn’t be a pen tester. Hey there, reddit! A little over three years ago, I completed my master's degree in cybersecurity, and shortly after, I embarked on a career as a penetration tester. ELS doesn't seem very well known in the US cyber security market unfortunately, and certainly in HR and management filters. Most pen-testing positions require years of experience after graduation and a butt ton of certificates. I was lucky my employer paid for a "training bundle" that included the CEH and the CPENT (Can be Licensed Penetration Tester if i pass with 90% of the score). You have to keep in mind that everyone in IT and coming into IT wants to be a pen tester… Supply is high and demand is low. ) Internship 3. SALARY. Ultimately companies want you to not only identify vulnerabilities but remediate them. ) lots of people really want to be pentesters and won't take any other job, which makes salaries relatively lower than other security jobs (though still very well paid compared to non-tech jobs!) and 2. I've been toying with the idea of moving to Canada and I'd like to get some info from anyone working in IT security in Canada, more specifically Toronto but info from anywhere in Canada would be great! I have a background in both forensics and pen testing and ended up going the pen testing route as I enjoy that more. That part is generally absent from all the cool marketing videos for the role or whatever Offensive Security is pumping out at that time. Taking a 3k pay-cut on a £35k GBP salary while you live in outer London is not the same as taking a $3k salary pay-cut on a $88k salary in suburban MA. Look for another place that will pay you better. I've had this role for about 3-4 months, hired as a Junior Penetration tester with a helpdesk background. com reports that the average pentester has a base salary of $106,823 and a total compensation of $125,717, including additional pay. Their experience will be a lot more competitive. I recently found out about HacktheBox and have been working though there starting point scenarios and am enjoying t Hi, I'm looking for an advice on how to get a first pentesting job from third world country. Agreed. It takes a lot of resources to remediate vulnerabilities. I currently work as a sw engineer and was looking at some pen test jobs that were paying upwards of $140k/yr to $200k/yr plus. Getting the first job is the hardest and OSCP and consulting skills will help you land that first job. Any tips how to land a job after passing CPSA then CRT with no experience. Saving 80% of your salary sounds fantastic, until you plan to move to say London and suddenly you realise that 400EUR a month of savings got you nowhere and you should have been earning a British salary all along where even saving 40% of a salary would have given you more savings. Cybersecurity isn't developed in my country, so I'm looking for a job abroad, I'm willing to relocate or work 100% remotely, but most jobs require e A place for people to swap war stories, engage in discussion, build a community, prepare for the course and exam, share tips, ask for help. But being a low level pen tester you’d probably hold up in a SOC testing vulnerability for whatever org your working for. Not saying it's impossible to jump into pen-testing directly after college it's just a slim slim chance. It's an entry level job by definition. Since this thread is about penetration testing, I can assume you'll be able to find those companies on your own. I'll give some background on myself: I got a degree (BCs with honours) in hacking, towards the end of uni I applied for a couple pen testing jobs but didn't get them, probably due to my pentesting skills being sub-par at the time, whilst also being swamped with deadlines. If you don't like writing reports, or at least tolerate it, you won't enjoy penetration testing work. if you are set on being an employed pen tester specifically? that will be hard as those jobs are going to be relatively uncommon in japan. I'm a dropout. From there you do the work required. Other than that I would check out TryHackMe and Hack the Box. Most companies only do annual pen tests. FYI I am on £45K per annum. You’ll make yourself far more marketable that way. The benefits do tend to be better at government jobs, and work/life balance tends to be a lot better. As the text states. Penetration testing is not an entry level job and is better paid with more interesting/better career prospects. 219 salaries reported, updated at March 9, 2025. What are the typical rates for pentesters and how long do a typical contract go on for? E. What were the steps that you took to finally land a job as a penetration tester or somewhere along the… Posted by u/Chance_Zone_8150 - 130 votes and 86 comments Hey guys, I am currently a penetration tester living and working in Paris, France. You will likely be supporting a senior consulting on a client engagement. A penetration tester does ethical hacking. Up until now I have no real world experience as pentester. I doubt a "red team" member or pen tester alone makes anything above $100k. You also didn't compare the other benefits of the roles- which probably differ somewhat. Jan 31, 2024 · The average penetration tester base salary, according to Payscale. 22 and I only had my oscp. Maybe $150k in shithole cities like New York or San Francisco where trash homes cost $600,000+ Reply reply I think this has a lot to do with inexperienced folk calling themselves 'pen testers' or cyber security professionals. Hello reddit community. At the moment i'm making a switch to become a consultant with my focus on penetration testing. Source: I'm a penetration tester and interview/hire experienced folks for similar positions for a large consulting company. 586K subscribers in the cybersecurity community. Jun 6, 2024 · The estimated total pay for a Penetration Tester is $141,356 per year, with an average salary of $113,557 per year. Are there more jobs in Soc then as a pen tester. Gross salary/month: 3700 Pen testers are usually part of network/infra companies and companies that make money off security. Maybe eventually work on OSCP once you have a solid year pen tester experience and time just for personal accomplishment and bragging rights. The awesome parts, its an exciting job, I get paid well, I get to do everything, so far I've done external tests, internal tests, vishing, phishing, AAD audits, AD password audits, wireless testing, reporting, client presentations etc. Reply reply slippy7890 OSCP does have a reputation of “getting you past HR” for pen test roles so again might be worth looking into depending on your circumstances. While a degree in computer science, cybersecurity, or a related field can be beneficial for a career in pen testing, it is not required. Government jobs tend to be about 25% lower wages than the private sector. Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: . I’ve done some research and it would seem that going into a specialised area of IT is where I would start to see a salary rise, I’m leaning towards pen-testing because it seems like a collaboration of all the necessities I’m Chances are slim to non you will actually be doing any form of pen testing as a 1B the AF still does not know how to utilize majority of the career field. Hi everybody, I am about to apply for Penetration Tester jobs. Thanks in advance Starting salary penetration tester is about 60-80k ish. You will likely have 2-3 things to work on at all times, the first and foremost being whatever pen test engagement you are assigned to. I have looked online for jobs, but there is not a lot out there for Junior Pen Tester and all the companies ask for experience. g. of highly paid & well . First round was a interview with the HR, she wanted to get to know me etc, whether the company values matches with my expectation etc, its basically a chit chat So I've been on the job hunt for a while now, and have recently applied to a couple junior pen tester positions with consulting firms. Is this reasonable pricing? U. With obvious caveats of go out and get experience with any entry level tech jobs to work your way up to a pentesting career my advice is as follows: Start out with TryHackMe. 32 votes, 37 comments. . The purpose of this simulated attack is to identify any weak spots in a system's defenses which attackers could take advantage of. If you can perform internal/external network and webapp testing and consulting you can very easily break six figures. My gut feeling would be 120k upwards for a pen tester, but this is only based on my experience applying for infosec jobs over 6 years here. After Pen Tester you typically move into a specialised Pen Testing role such as reverse engineering or Red Teaming or you move into management or architecture. OP do bug bounties as a side hustle, if you want to pen test, get a pen testing job. I love pentesting; however, I switched jobs eight months ago and feel stuck in my current position with the company because I have been limited to only doing web app testing, even though I have conveyed a significant interest in doing To give context, I'm from Quebec and I started worked in vuln management 4 years ago. 82 votes, 36 comments. Re. overtime: 40 Shiftwork or 9 to 5 (flexible?): Very flexible On-call duty: No Vacation days/year: 20 + 12 ADV 4. They asked me to have a technical interview in the form of CTF for 3 hours long (Windows Machine). 732K subscribers in the cybersecurity community. I was wondering what you guys think about these types of positions. I would love to get your feedback. Was offered £75k by a company this week but I like to work remotely outside of the UK some months of the year and they won't suppor Posted by u/[Deleted Account] - No votes and 16 comments AZURE sentinel homelab, or install a siem and use kali to generate logs and apply to a SOC job. I'm seeking advice on transitioning into Cyber Security, with an end goal of becoming a Penetration Tester. I am a professional penetration tester for some years now, mainly focusing on web-, mobile- and desktop- applications. Both have free rooms/boxes with paid versions as well. But the content and labs are definitely professional grade. SOC analyst, no where near as technical, more monotonous and less interesting. FTFY. Read the few top comments about reasons why it’s so attractive but there’s a reason it’s also one of the most outsourced cyber roles. Current job title: Senior Penetration Tester Job description: Ethically hacking companies to make them more secure Seniority: 2 Official hours/week : 40 Average real hours/week incl. No, you do not need a degree to become a pen tester. Even, everyone that work in the offensive security of a company (e. Work with an organization with some scope of work defining what they are hiring you to do. ixeg zksy ynv wlxize tekyz odhcf eorjnv afmpdl fckku mmks uxgfor ziautwln adleidp kmebl lxcsxr