I've been in tech for the last ~10 years doing a little bit of everything. Started out in a network technician role doing desktop support, managing firewall & filtering. Moved into data center linux admin while I went back to school for computer science and eventually found my way into a role where I was doing a bit of software development and infrastructure support. This was going to be my bridge from IT to Software Engineer, but I ended up not liking it as much as I expected. I learned a lot about programming, systems, debuggers, etc, though!

Anyway, I got laid off last year from a job as a systems analyst which turned out quite different than the one I interviewed for. Anyway, I had to take some time away to take care of my family but now I'm trying to find my way forward.

I'd like to move towards a cybersecurity role, but I'm not sure what would be the appropriate move. SOC Analyst? Security Engineer?

Also, at this point, I have plenty of security training & relevant experience deploying/managing security features (firewalls, N/ACLs, LDAP, SSO/MFA/OAuth, etc) but no active certifications. Would it be a reasonable expectation that I could make the switch based on experience and then start getting certifications or should I get at least one beforehand?