Good morning everyone, I just registered here.
I am currently the Security Architect responsible for a very large, very high-complexity organization with a top priority security function.
However, my office is being relocated, and I have chosen not to go. Functionally, I will be accepting a layoff.
My career history has been completely in the security domain (I’m a young guy).
To be honest, I do enjoy the principles of the security discipline, but the amount of political, management, and cat-herding overhead really puts a damper on my job satisfaction.
I had a bit of an epiphany a few months and decided to write down the top five projects that brought me the most job satisfaction, and they were all applications that I had developed or re-vamped (I am the only person in my group with a programming background and we have a lot of internal apps and tools).
So I am going to try to pitch myself as a software engineer. I’m pretty confident about being able to do the job well (the major role of my current position is security lead on development projects, ie architecture/design signoff, code review, and testing. I also have a wealth of experience developing applications, primarily for the security team.) I’ve spent the last several months learning as much as I can about the software engineering process, things like best practices (“code complete” was a mind-blower for sure) and design patterns.
I’m fine with the almost-certain paycut, this is about job satisfaction and I have no doubts that in 2-3 years I could be a lead developer in a F500 environment.
But I’m not sure how to go into an interview and convince a hiring manager to take the risk of a guy who has never had a true software engineering gig.
I feel like I can tell them WHAT I’ve done, which has true validity, but how can I get them to trust my background? How can I convince them to hire me over another candidate with equal experience in a true developer role?
Thanks!