Also called: Independent Security Researcher
Finds security flaws in companies' websites and apps and gets paid a reward for each one reported.
You pick a company's bounty program on HackerOne, poke at their app for hours, and finally find a bug that pays $5,000. Some hunters do this full-time from anywhere in the world; most do it on the side.
Extremely variable: most earn little, a top few earn hundreds of thousands a year.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
No formal education, about 0 years after high school. No formal education required; skills are everything.
Ways in: Self-taught. Training cost: Under $15k.
Majors to look at: Cybersecurity, Computer Science.
Growing faster than average. Bounty programs keep growing; AI tools also flood programs with low-quality reports.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. AI hacking agents now top bug bounty leaderboards and grab easy bugs, leaving payouts for the hardest, most creative finds.
Classes: AP Computer Science A, AP CS Principles.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.