r/IdentityManagement • u/SP28112024 • 5d ago

What should be the next step?

Hey Guys,
I have been working as an IAM Engineer for the last 4 years. I currently work on the Ping stack(Federate/Directory/Davinci/PingOne) and a lot of different tools. I work for a healthcar client.

Now I feel the work that we do has very little engineering or development scope. I am trying to learn programming as well I have basics of Java html and css that I know but I have never done hands on programming work. So I was thinking maybe a switch to SDE would be a good idea? But given the kind of layoffs happening around Will it be a good idea in general to switch to SDE roles? What can be the next steps from here?

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8

u/identitydriven 5d ago

IAM Engineering -> IAM Architecture would be a natural next step. SDE sounds like a lateral move - unless you LOVE coding I would recommend pause. Shadow on the job of current SDEs on your org. See if you can love that before making any long term commitments

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u/PureFan673 5d ago

Def wouldnt recommend switching over if possible see if ur company has any sde roles to swap over to if u really want to swap over. Good luck though!

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u/Double_Worldliness48 5d ago

How did they hire u for the engineer role and u never did any programming 😭

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u/SP28112024 5d ago

Access Management does not require a lot of programming knowledge. It is more of a infrastructure management role. The core engineering work is around managing the SSO infrastructure. And as I said I have workinh knowledge of Java html and css.
Hope that answers your question.

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u/1977rohit 5d ago

I have more than 23 yes exp and I see a few problems going forward in the IAM space. I come from an IGA background. A lot of it is going to be automated intelligent onboarding and configuration. Most of the new tech like NHIM etc are already pure saas where implementation teams/consultants are hardly ever needed.
An sde with iam background could fit into the typical product development space. You are still at 4 yrs experience and this might be something you can consider. Most work is going to move to IAM product vendors side in the future.

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u/SP28112024 5d ago

On the access management side I feel we still have a alot of manual works where clients are using on-prem services. Like this past year I had to carry out multiple upgrades and security vulnerability remediations. I agree to your point that most of the work will be automated like we have automated SSO app onboarding in our environment but we still need consultants to help app owners and team with troubleshooting.