Security Engineer Review

Security Engineer Main tasks are implementing/configuring our security tools We speak to many different team/projects each day, to understand their infrastructure and systems and what needs monitored We also interact with various security companies on a regular basis, for provision of their services/tools (I can't put too much detail here, for obvious reasons!)

Within my team there was a wide range of disciplines, and I could (and still can) go and glean knowledge from our large team of SME's, who are all experts in their field (SIEM, Forensics, Incident Response, Rev. Engineering etc). There is a lot to learn on the job, but if you find something particularly interesting (didn't have to be related to security) and want to learn in your own time, such as programming or web design or machine learning, there's always 3 or 4 people on the team who will have studied it previously, and it's easy to go and ask for their help or advice.

I was lucky enough to be put in one of the Cyber teams, and I thoroughly enjoy the work I do and the people I work with. Because of the massive boom the cybersecurity industry is going through, we get a constant stream of contractors or new co-workers, all who have studied security at uni or been working in the field for 5+ years, so there's a wealth of knowledge here to exploit. Because of the nature of the job, there's always new ideas to learn or developments in the public space that are directly relevant to my job (major hacks/dDOS's), and my job gives me an insight to theses that I wouldn't get anywhere else.

My team here has been incredibly friendly and welcoming, which makes all the difference. My line manager always checks in at least once a day to see how I'm getting on, and everyone has a monthly meeting/review with their LM so you can bring up any problems you might be having. Any projects I work with are also very friendly, and they always make sure to say thanks. We tend to get less interaction with anyone higher up, which is to be expected with such a huge company, but the teams in my particular office are a pleasure to work with.

There were two parts to the programme, one is the actual work, which typically made up 4.5 days of the week, and was completely up to the particular team you were working with to organise and train you, whilst the other 0.5 was the qualification, which was more like a school course with a weekly tutorial, and phone call every 3/4 weeks to confirm what you've learned. Personally I didn't find the learning part to be useful, as it was quite basic compared to what I was learning on the job, and I'd already learned the relevant parts in the first two months.

As I had already learned what was required I didn't need much support, however my two assessors always checked if I needed help and always gave hints and tips out for any assessments we needed to do. With each visit they always reminded us that they could give us support with work/life problems as we were still students.

As mentioned before, there are scheduled formal interviews with your manager to bring up any issues or support you need. I was also assigned a mentor, who is still my first port of call for explanations on technical stuff I'm not understanding, and also for general advice on what I should study/what I'd find interesting etc

The salary more than meets my needs, and is one of the best-paid apprenticeships I've seen. I live in a student area in my city, so my rent is quite high, as well as covering all the council tax, and have things like travel/living/going out costs, but I still have plenty enough left over to save up.

Lots of events for our directorate, kind of like conferences, where we can volunteer to go and meet other departments. Charity fundraising is a huge thing here, there are always runs or volunteer days to sign up for. In terms of sports clubs or classes, the choice is pretty sparse in my office, but I do know of other locations have a good choice, it depends on who is willing to organise them. For my team in particular, there a security conferences we can go to, plenty in our hometown, but sometimes a select few are flown down to London, or (rarely) to mainland Europe for the bigger ones. There are plenty of opportunities to be found if you are pro-active

Yes

I definitely would as this has been a great opportunity for me, I applied after dropping out of uni and found it very difficult to find a job, however this apprenticeship has been a great way to find my feet. You're given a lot of space to grow and learn what interests you/what you'd like to go onto do in the future.

Aside from the usual application stuff, one thing that stuck out to me is that when you apply, there is no indication of where you will end up. In my cohort, there were 30 of us, and everyone applied to one vague "IT" apprenticeship, and were then assessed and placed in 30 vastly different roles. If you see or hear about a certain area that interests you, could be coding or security or project management, make it clear that that's what you'd like to aim for, both in your CV and during interviews/assessments. Also, good luck :)