Senior security engineers can be equated with being the electronic superheroes of a particular organization. They focus on designing computer systems that can deal with disruptions such as natural disasters or malicious cyber-attacks. They analyze computer networks, ensure they are running securely, and foresee possible security issues that may arise in the future.
A senior security engineer's duties include, but are not limited to, designing, implementing, maintaining, and operating information system security controls and countermeasures. Secondly, they analyze and recommend security controls and procedures. Moreover, they also are in charge of monitoring information security systems for security incidents and vulnerabilities. Educational requirements include a bachelor's degree in cybersecurity, computer science, or a related field. Furthermore, for a senior position, employers will also look for a master's degree in a similar field along with proven work experience, usually around ten or more years.
Holding a senior position has its perks. Along with being the leader of a team, they earn an average hourly salary of $58.79. That is equivalent to $122,289 annually. The career is projected to grow 32% in the following years.
How to Become a Senior Security Engineer
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior security engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $55.26 an hour? That's $114,932 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 32% and produce 35,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Security Engineer Do
There are certain skills that many senior security engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, detail oriented and problem-solving skills.
How To Become a Senior Security Engineer
If you're interested in becoming a senior security engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 63.1% of senior security engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 17.2% of senior security engineers have master's degrees. Even though most senior security engineers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior security engineer. When we researched the most common majors for a senior security engineer, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior security engineer resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior security engineer. In fact, many senior security engineer jobs require experience in a role such as network engineer. Meanwhile, many senior security engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as security engineer or senior network engineer.
Senior Security Engineer Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of information technology manager you might progress to a role such as information technology operations manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title information technology operations manager.
Average Salary for a Senior Security Engineer
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Senior Security Engineers
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA • Private
2. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
3. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
4. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
5. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
6. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Private
7. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
8. Georgetown University
Washington, DC • Private
9. Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH • Private
10. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
Top Skills For a Senior Security Engineer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 12.7% of senior security engineers listed identity on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and detail oriented are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Senior Security Engineer Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Senior Security Engineer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Senior Security Engineer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Senior Security Engineer Demographics
Senior Security Engineer Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among senior security engineers, 8.8% of them are women, while 91.2% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among senior security engineers is White, which makes up 72.6% of all senior security engineers.
- The most common foreign language among senior security engineers is Spanish at 50.0%.
Online Courses For Senior Security Engineer That You May Like
Computer Networks Security Technologies and Tools for Network Admins and Cyber Security Officers...
Certified Information Systems Security Officer (CISSO) Certification Exam Prep Course...
This course gives you the background needed to understand basic network security. You will learn the about Local Area Networks, TCP/IP, the OSI Framework and routing basics. You will learn how networking affects security systems within an organization. You will learn the network components that guard an organization from cybersecurity attacks. In addition to networking, you will learn about database vulnerabilities and the tools/knowledge needed to research a database vulnerability for a variety...
Best States For a Senior Security Engineer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior security engineer. The best states for people in this position are California, Washington, Maine, and New York. Senior security engineers make the most in California with an average salary of $139,606. Whereas in Washington and Maine, they would average $136,669 and $134,198, respectively. While senior security engineers would only make an average of $129,054 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Washington
$136,669
Avg. Salary
2. Delaware
$127,777
Avg. Salary
3. New York
$129,054
Avg. Salary
How Do Senior Security Engineer Rate Their Jobs?
Top Senior Security Engineer Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ senior security engineers and discovered their number of senior security engineer opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Wells Fargo was the best, especially with an average salary of $115,137. Salesforce follows up with an average salary of $137,539, and then comes Computer Task Group with an average of $116,168. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a senior security engineer. The employers include Twitter, Broadridge, and VMware
Most Common Employers For Senior Security Engineer
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft | $161,037 | $77.42 | 24 |
| 2 | NVIDIA | $153,003 | $73.56 | 38 |
| 3 | Walmart | $150,213 | $72.22 | 14 |
| 4 | Splunk | $148,260 | $71.28 | 21 |
| 5 | Adobe | $146,975 | $70.66 | 28 |
| 6 | Palo Alto Networks | $146,933 | $70.64 | 14 |
| 7 | Amazon | $139,861 | $67.24 | 15 |
| 8 | Salesforce | $137,539 | $66.12 | 106 |
| 9 | Netflix | $136,599 | $65.67 | 20 |
| 10 | KPMG LLP | $129,494 | $62.26 | 46 |
Senior Security Engineer Videos
