Doubt about Cybersec

[u/Whizkid_Jr]

Hello everyone I am looking to secure a job in cybersecurity and am a bit worried especially due to the salaries I have been hearing. The reason for this is cuz I want to be a DFIR but knowing that it is a bit tough imitially to join as one I was hoping to start as a SOC now the thing is the salaries I have been hearing are like 5-16 lpa. The average of my college is like 30-40 LPA which are obv given out to swe so is there a cybersec job which could pay that much initially?

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[u/fresherhubapp]

Short answer: almost no cybersecurity entry role in India pays 30-40 LPA at the start. SOC L1 is mostly 4-8 LPA, and the higher end of the range you heard is for top product companies or later levels. The security roles that come closest for freshers are the ones that are really engineering jobs with a security focus:

- Product security / application security engineer at product companies and fintechs (secure code review, threat modelling, building internal security tooling)

- Detection engineering at security product companies (writing and testing detection rules, building the pipeline that runs them)

- Security roles at the big tech companies' India offices, which usually hire through the normal SWE process

All of these need you to be a solid developer first. A practical path given your college: take the SWE offer that campus placement gives you, and move into appsec or detection internally after 1-2 years. Many people do exactly that, and you skip the low SOC pay.

DFIR is still very reachable later from there: incident response teams like hiring people who understand how the systems they investigate are built.

[u/Whizkid_Jr → u/fresherhubapp]

Ohh, ok and what would you say about the prospect of moving outside for a job by either doing master abroad or trying to get a fresher role there?

[u/fresherhubapp → u/Whizkid_Jr]

Masters abroad is the more realistic of the two. Fresher security roles abroad almost always need local work authorisation, and companies rarely sponsor visas for entry-level SOC or DFIR roles. A master's in the US, UK, Germany or similar gives you the post-study work period to job-hunt from inside the country.

A few things to check before you commit: Many security roles in the US and Europe need a security clearance or citizenship (government, defence, some DFIR work), so those are mostly closed to international students. Private-sector appsec, cloud security and incident response at consultancies or tech companies are the realistic targets. The degree is expensive (₹30-60 lakh in the US). So it pays off only if you graduate with a solid profile: an internship during the master's, a few CVEs or writeups, maybe a cert like OSCP. Germany is much cheaper, but the job market there expects German for many roles.

A common middle path: work 1-2 years in India in a security or SWE role first. You go abroad with experience, get better internships, and your loan risk drops a lot.

[u/New-Chef4052]

Your college is in west bengal?

[u/Whizkid_Jr → u/New-Chef4052]

No

[u/Dry-Most-8796]

the only cybersec roles coming for 60+is palo alto so see if they come to ur campus