
Ask HN: How to Progress for Seasoned Professionals? - tempaccountfoo
I&#x27;m 35 years old and work at one of the big tech companies as a security professional, focusing on penetration testing, security research and some consulting. I&#x27;ve done this now for over 10 years and noticed myself contemplating more and more how to progress from here.<p>I do have a bachelor&#x27;s and master&#x27;s degree, numerous certifications (CISSP, GPEN, GXPN, OSCP, OSCE, etc.) and 50+ CVE&#x27;s in common software products. My yearly income after taxes is around 150k USD.<p>Since last year or so I feel at quite a loss regarding where I am at in my career. I very much enjoy technical work and don&#x27;t want to switch into a pure management position. One of the options I was thinking about was creating my own small company, but I am not sure if I like dealing directly with customers that much. We are also expecting a child, so I think it might be a high risk, since I don&#x27;t have many direct leads for potential customers to get enough work and cover our expenses. Similarly, I am not even sure if it would make a big difference, since I&#x27;d be most probably doing the same kind of work that I am currently doing. Previously, I have worked and lived also in Europe and Asia, which was interesting to get exposed to different cultures, people and so on, but in terms of work it&#x27;s quite similar everywhere.<p>I recognize that the majority of HN users are probably software engineers, but I think similar constraints apply. Curious what others are doing do &quot;progress&quot; in their career that already have a lot of experience and if anyone has any specific advice or recommendations for me?
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battery_cowboy
I vouched you, so don't start spamming; sorry I can't help with the career
question, I'm a developer who also doesn't really know what I want to do from
here.

