If you had to write software to run the chain saw, and write software to coordinate socializing with your friends, and write software to enjoy the warm luxury of the fireplace, I suspect you'd feel much the same about your software.
Sadly, modern software development (and the workplace in general) is not optimized around generating immediate, tangible outcomes that might be that rewarding.
Precisely. This is how “mount my monitor on the monitor arm I had lying around” became “ream an 8mm hole in my desk”, “find an 8mm drill bit”, “rig a screw driver to ream out the whole by hand”, “ask coworker for a sleeve to make a sleeve for the bolt so it stays still on my desk”, “ream out the brass shell casing he gave me”.
However, after spending 2 hours doing that, I went and did a bunch of stuff I’d been procrastinating doing that were high priority with seemingly way more energy and focus.
If you want to go into cybersecurity here's an idea (I haven't tried it, so ymmv)
1) look up people who claim to be in cybersecurity on some site like LinkedIn - see what their titles are, where they work, and so on.
2) see if you can find their resumes or any detailed cybersecurity resume - you are looking for keywords, application software, languages they claim to know, etc
3) look up job interview questions that relate to those skills, e.g. glassdoor has a fun feature where people have shared the actual questions they were asked during an interview
4) find free or cheap online resources, classes, demo/free versions of apps, set up a home lab, so you can become familiar with those skills, languages, tools. etc as much as possible and for as little as possible.
5) read a site like "stack overflow" with a focus on the skills/apps that cyber security researchers are likely to use, and see what questions the tend to ask, etc.
6) Develop some study cards on Anki with the interview questions you are likely to get and answers that might fly. Don't be complacent, expand on this as you go along, adding more and improving what you have.
7) See if you can find one-off "cybersecurity" gigs on craigslist or fiverr, etc. where you can be paid something - anything - to do something security related. Not only might this improve your confidence, it will generate a little bit of money instead of you paying money. You can also check out the competition and see what they are doing, for how much, etc.
8) Read up on "cybersecurity" related topics, people, trends, books, movies, etc. Get a feel for things as they are, were, or might be.
Google, the ad-monopoly pretending to be a competitive "tech company" to avoid scrutiny of it's monopoly [1] had a dizzying array of "tech products" it generated to maintain this subterfuge.[2]
Other companies, buying into the marketing smokescreen that they were a "highly competitive tech company" and not a search monopoly figured that 'cargo culting' their OKR process would help obtain the super-profits of they craved.[3]
The statements of departing Googlers during the successive waves of layoffs in '23 and '24 supported the hypothesis that GOOG suffered from having people just meeting their OKRs for products no one wanted or needed, and without any external guidance of profitability or customer feedback.
Just say no to OKRs. They won't give your company the monopoly it wants.
I'm reminded of a company I used to work for that had one sales guy with with a phone, you called him and he would quote a price and ask if you wanted it. I sat across from him. He never left his desk.
After a year, our company was bought and merged with a competitor and we got to see how their sales team worked.
They had a dozen sales guys doing the exact same job as our man, however, they met with prospective clients, had lunch, and 'worked the field'.
Our one man with a phone outsold all of the others combined.
Having a more efficient sales process can be a game changer.
But if you don't wander, you'll never find out. You gotta believe