How to find a job in the one tech market that is not seeing layoffs: Cybersecurity
Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn | Istock | Getty Images
Strong demand for cybersecurity workers is continuing even as big technology companies lay off thousands of employees.
That’s not a big surprise, as cybersecurity is seen as one of the more resilient areas for tech investment in a more cautious economic environment — though even it is not immune from the tech sector slowdown. But it is an area for young professionals, college students, and workers looking to make career transitions to focus on as the tech sector’s labor force contracts significantly for the first time in a decade, from the largest companies to the venture-backed startup community.
There were 755,743 online job postings in cybersecurity as of December, according to new research from cybersecurity workforce analytics site CyberSeek, created through a partnership of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, CompTIA, and labor market research firm Lightcast. That did represent a year over year decline in postings, from 769,736 in the 12-month period ending December 2021. But with a supply-demand ratio currently at 68 workers per 100 job openings, the nearly 530,000 more cybersecurity workers need in the U.S. went up year over year.
The researchers say the data reinforces a trend that has existed for years now and will persist: the shortage of cyber talent. If all those positions are filled, that’s a labor force positioned for huge growth. The total number of employed cybersecurity workers was estimated at 1.1 million, steady year over year.
Here are the top things to know about pursuing a career in cybersecurity.
How to ‘major’ in cybersecurity during college
When looking for a job, you’re guaranteed to be asked what major you studied in college. While cybersecurity is not a common major for colleges to offer, there are a large range of related majors that can make you a potential candidate for a job in this field. The most obvious comps are computer science, information technology, software development, and even business management.
“The more that you can find either courses or other educational opportunities while you’re in school, to learn both the fundamentals of IT and the fundamentals of cybersecurity, as well as some of the specific high-value, high growth skills that employers are increasingly demanding, that’s going to best set you up for success when you enter the job market,” said Will Markow, vice president of applied research at Lightcast.
However, it’s not as much about a specific major studied as the skills which employers are attempting to identify.
The question that candidates need to be prepared to answer isn’t what they majored in, but, “What have you learned during your degree that prepares you for a career in cybersecurity?” Markow said.
Obtaining technical skills after college
Technical skills in information security theories, network administration, and IT is some of the primary knowledge that candidates need, while strong soft skills like communication and collaboration are additionally important. But whether you are a college student or graduate already in the job market, there are plenty of other opportunities to gain the skills you need to enter this field, primarily through certifications.
Non-profit trade association CompTIA’s Security+ is the most in-demand entry level credential for cybersecurity professionals, according to Markow. By receiving the Security+ certification, CompTIA states that professionals will acquire the skills to assess an environment’s security, monitor hybrid environments, respond to security events and more. Other commonly requested certifications are EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker training and GIAC’s Security Essentials (GSEC) training.
“Cybersecurity is a heavily sophisticated field, and employers place a lot of weight on certain credentials,” Markow said.
How to get started in job search
Some of the most common entry-level positions include cybersecurity analysts, cybersecurity technician specialists, and cybercrime analysts. These positions focus more on what is defined as reactive work, for example, learning about the types of threats that organizations are facing, and identifying when threats need to be investigated and remediated.
As professionals progress in a cybersecurity career, the goal is to gradually take on more proactive work helping organizations design secure digital infrastructure.
There are many opportunities for existing tech professionals to make the move into this field, with common launch pads including other IT roles such as network administration, software development, systems engineering and even IT support; and by targeting the lower-level cyber positions.
“Since those roles often have lower barriers to entry than some of the more advanced positions in the field, and if you are able to target one of the certifications and obtain one of those entry level certifications from CompTIA, or other providers, then you will have the greatest chance of finding an opportunity in one of those roles,” Markow said.
The approach of first entering through the broader IT job market can work for new labor force entrants as well. “If you’re starting from complete scratch, it’s often useful to target some of those positions that can serve as launching pads into the core cybersecurity roles,” Markow said.
Jobs will often pay over $100,000
Cybersecurity jobs pay well, too.
The average salary ranges between $100,000-$120,000.
There are going to be differences in pay based on experience level, as well as the specific role.
“You probably won’t start at $110,000,” Markow said. “You might start somewhere in the $70,000-$90,000 range, depending on what part of the country you’re in. But as you gain experience in and advance within cybersecurity, the salaries become progressively larger and more appealing.”
Where the jobs are concentrated also varies region to region, and by sector. The new research found public sector cybersecurity job demand growing by 25% to 45,708 postings in 2022, a faster growth rate than in the private sector, but still far fewer jobs overall compared to the private sector’s 710,035 listings. Lightcast says that public sector job demand trend isn’t a one-year phenomenon, growing by 58% over the past three years in all. Related to that, the Washington, D.C. metro area accounted for 19% of all public sector domestic cybersecurity job listings.
Partiful’s CEO, Shreya Murthy, and CTO, Joy Tao
Courtesy: Partiful
When Shreya Murthy and Joy Tao decided to launch a party-planning startup in 2020, they settled on a business goal of “bringing people together in person.”
The Covid-19 pandemic demanded the exact opposite.
Despite the challenge of the pandemic, Partiful survived, and five years later, the New York startup is now used by millions of people to plan events such as birthday parties, housewarmings and weddings.
The app’s a favorite of those ages 20 to 30, and it’s added 2 million new users since January, Partiful CEO Murthy told CNBC. The company has never revealed its exact base of monthly users.
Partiful drew attention on social media after Apple, known for replicating features from popular apps on the iPhone, launched its own event-planning service in February, and the startup posted a joke about “copycats” on its X account.
Of course, Partiful isn’t the first party-planning app. It competes against not only Apple Invites, but also Eventbrite, Evite, Punchbowl and others.
Each service differs slightly in its target markets and features. Evite, for example, uses a “freemium” model, where certain invitation designs and other features are paywalled. Eventbrite is often used to promote and sell admission to large public events.
What sets Partiful apart from its competitors — and appeals to its Gen Z user base — is its often humorous, casual designs, some of which are created by Partiful’s in-house designers.
“Friend invited me to a gathering that doesn’t have a Partiful….feeling lost, confused, unprepared…much like when I (Gen Z) receive a phone call out of the blue,” X user Athena Kan posted in August.
For the first quarter of 2025, Partiful averaged 500,000 monthly active users, up 400% year over year, with 9 out of 10 users on the app based in the U.S., according to estimates provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower, a market research firm. That compares with Eventbrite’s 4.4 million monthly active users, which is up 2% year over year, and Punchbowl with approximately 85,000 monthly users, which is down about 2% compared to a year ago. A spokesperson for Evite told CNBC that the service saw more than 20 million monthly active users for the first quarter of 2025.
It’s unclear how many people still use Facebook’s once-popular event-planning feature Facebook Events. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, shut down the standalone app.
Sample invitations from the Partiful app
Source: Partiful
Bringing people together in real life
Murthy and Tao both went to Princeton University and worked at Palantir Technologies at the same time, but they didn’t meet until they were introduced later by a mutual friend. Both were looking to move to the consumer-facing side of tech.
Tao, then a software engineer at Meta, wanted to leave the company to focus on products that were more relatable to daily life, and said that the social media company’s goal of keeping users engaged on their apps sometimes can create “perverse incentives.”
“For me, driving more people to spend more time staring at their phone, staring at this endless feed of content, wasn’t super motivating, wasn’t super meaningful to me personally,” said Tao, Partiful’s tech chief and a self-described “avid party planner.”
Meta declined to comment.
Tao and Murthy went through a sort of “dating period” where they asked each other what they thought leading a startup together could look like. Among the voids they identified was how intimate social events, such as birthday parties where a host would be likely to see the attendees again, were still planned on text chains that made it difficult to track, communicate or plan an ideal event time with guests.
“If you’re not sure when people are free, that’s a really annoying problem,” Murthy said.
She and Tao took the leap.
With few in-person events happening during the 2020 lockdowns, Partiful’s engineering team focused on building the platform’s text message-based infrastructure so that the service could be used by both iPhone and Android users.
Partiful’s team, which has now grown to 25, operates out of downtown Brooklyn. The service is no longer limited to text messages and its website. The company launched apps for the iPhone and Android devices in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and Partiful now serves as a one-stop destination for organizing the different phases of planning and hosting a party. The company has reportedly raised $20 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Speaking Gen Z’s language
What makes Partiful fun for users is how customizable an invite can be.
Hosts can create a free birthday invite with a lime-green parody cover of Charli XCX’s “brat” album, for example, or plan a girls’ night out with a cover photo of Shrek in sunglasses. They can track “yes,” “no” or “maybe” RSVPs under a portrait of Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, and invited guests can use a “boop” feature to send random emojis rather than a direct message to each other.
Party planners can also send out uniform text blasts to the group before and after the event and manage an in-app photo album for uploading memories.
Partiful is available for anyone to use, but Murthy said the company sees the most need for the service among young users in the “postgrad” period of life. That’s a stage where people might be moving to new cities and away from their established college friend groups.
“You’re starting your adult life and have to not only figure out, ‘How do I rent an apartment? How do I work a new job? How do I exist in this new version of myself?'” Murthy said. “On top of that, you’re also having to rebuild your entire social circle.”
For the hosts and partiers in its user base, Partiful has become part of their social routine, and it has continued to gain traction online. The company told CNBC that over 60% of its active app users check Partiful every week.
As for Apple, Partiful isn’t sweating its new rival just yet.
Apple Invites requires that users have an iCloud+ subscription to create events, though it’s free to RSVP if a guest doesn’t have an Apple account. That service starts at 99 cents a month in the United States. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Partiful is free, at least for now.
Like many other tech companies that rely on distribution services such as Apple’s App Store, Partiful has a nuanced relationship with its much-larger counterpart. Partiful could lose some users to Apple, but it can also benefit from promotion by the app distributor.
That’s what happened in 2024, when Partiful was named a finalist for Apple’s App Store Awards for Cultural Impact, and won Google Play’s “Best App of 2024.” The app remained an “editor’s choice” pick on the App Store as of publication.
For now, Partiful remains confident.
“We haven’t really seen any users that have been leaving Partiful for Apple Invites,” Murthy said.
WATCH: Why iPhones may get more expensive amid Trump tariffs
An attendee wearing a Super Mario costume uses a Nintendo Switch 2 game console while playing a video game during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the ExCeL London international exhibition and convention centre in London, Britain, April 11, 2025.
Isabel Infantes | Reuters
Nintendo on Friday announced that retail preorder for its Nintendo Switch 2 gaming system will begin on April 24 starting at $449.99.
Preorders for the hotly anticipated console were initially slated for April 9, but Nintendo delayed the date to assess the impact of the far-reaching, aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs that President Donald Trump announced earlier this month.
Most electronics companies, including Nintendo, manufacture their products in Asia. Nintendo’s Switch 1 consoles were made in China and Vietnam, Reuters reported in 2019. Trump has imposed a 145% tariff rate on China and a 10% rate on Vietnam. The latter is down from 46%, after he instituted a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations.
Nintendo said Friday that the Switch 2 will cost $449.99 in the U.S., which is the same price the company first announced on April 2.
“We apologize for the retail pre-order delay, and hope this reduces some of the uncertainty our consumers may be experiencing,” Nintendo said in a statement. “We thank our customers for their patience, and we share their excitement to experience Nintendo Switch 2 starting June 5, 2025.”
The Nintendo Switch 2 and “Mario Kart World“ bundle will cost $499.99, the digital version “Mario Kart World” will cost $79.99 and the digital version of “Donkey Kong Bananza” will cost $69.99, Nintendo said. All of those prices remain unchanged from the company’s initial announcement.
However, accessories for the Nintendo Switch 2 will “experience price adjustments,” the company said, and other future changes in costs are possible for “any Nintendo product.”
It will cost gamers $10 more to by the dock set, $1 more to buy the controller strap and $5 more to buy most other accessories, for instance.
WATCH: Nintendo has ‘a lot of work to do’ to convince casual users to upgrade to Switch 2: Kantan Games
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway