Been doing backend for 5 years and started seriously looking at security as a next move. Anyone else doing the same thing right now?

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but it feels relevant to people here. I've been a backend dev for about five years. Good at my job, reasonably well paid, not panicking. But I've been paying attention to what's happening in the hiring market and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't making me think harder about where I want to be in three years. The data that got my attention: entry-level hiring at the 15 biggest tech firms fell 25% from 2023 to 2024. A March 2026 Anthropic report put computer programmers at 74.5% AI exposure. Nearly 78,000 tech job losses in the first half of 2025 were directly attributed to AI. Again, not predictions, things that already happened. I'm not catastrophizing. But the roles taking the most pressure are the routine, predictable, software-based ones and if I'm being honest some of what I do fits that description. So I started looking at security seriously. AppSec specifically. And the thing I didn't expect was how much of my existing background apparently transfers. Security teams have been trying to hire developers for years, not people who learned to code after getting into security, but people who actually understand how software gets built and why developers make the decisions they do. That combination is harder to find than I realized. The salary data also seems real. Glassdoor puts median DevSecOps engineer at $182k in the US right now. BLS projects information security analyst roles growing 32% through 2032. ISC2 put the global security workforce gap at 4.8 million last year with 90% of organizations saying they have skills gaps on their teams. I'm not fully committed yet. Still figuring out what the actual path looks like and whether the gap between where I am and where I'd need to be is as manageable as it seems from the outside. Has anyone here made a similar move from dev into AppSec or DevSecOps? Was the transition what you expected or did it end up being harder or easier than you thought? SOURCES [Anthropic Research Report March 2026 - AI occupational exposure data:](https://www.anthropic.com/research) [IEEE Spectrum - AI Shifts Expectations for Entry Level Jobs, Job Outlook 2026:](https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-effect-entry-level-jobs) [WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025:](https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/) [BLS Occupational Outlook - Information Security Analysts 32% growth projection:](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/information-security-analysts.htm) [ISC2 2024 Cybersecurity Workforce Study:](https://www.isc2.org/Insights/2024/10/ISC2-2024-Cybersecurity-Workforce-Study) [Glassdoor DevSecOps Engineer Salary US - March 2026:](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/devsecops-engineer-salary-SRCH_KO0,18.htm)