I got into coding at about 14 or 15, when I discovered Minecraft mods and plugins and wanted to make my own. So I did what everybody does: I opened YouTube and searched "how to make a Minecraft mod". I followed a tutorial for adding new blocks to the game, and I loved it.
This post is a bit different. No exam guides or product comparisons, just how a kid making Minecraft mods in France ended up working in identity and access management in England.
Where it started: Minecraft
At the time, I wanted to be a teacher. So I had an idea: what if I made a game that taught something?
I built a small 3D platformer in Unity to teach English to French kids. Each level asked a question, and the answers were doors. Go through the right door and you moved on to the next question. Go through the wrong one and you died.
Looking back, what stuck with me was the making. Building that game is when I decided I wanted to do computer science.
The waiting list
When I got to lycée (the French equivalent of high school), I picked computer science as one of my specialties. It was by far my best subject, and I knew I wanted to keep going with it at university.
So I applied everywhere: general university computer science courses, and even engineering schools. When the results came in, I had been accepted by just one school and was on the waiting list for many others.
The one I really wanted was the IUT of La Rochelle. I was on their waiting list too, and quite far down it. I was around 70th in line, and they took about 100 students. So I waited. About a week later, the list moved far enough, and I got in.
That was one of the best days of my life.
An internship in England, and a new word: IAM
At the IUT, I studied full-stack development. Cybersecurity wasn't on my radar at all. I had heard a bit about penetration testing and red teams versus blue teams, and I had done a few Hack The Box challenges for fun. But I never imagined working in security.
In my second year, I needed an internship. My English teacher told me about an opportunity in England, and since I was living in France, that sounded pretty cool. I applied and got it: a three-month internship.
It was the first time I had ever heard of identity and access management. Before the interview, I had to research what it even was. The internship went really well, for me and for the company.
For my third and final year, there were two options. One was the classic format: half the year at school on a school project, then a second internship. The other was an apprenticeship, alternating roughly two weeks with a company and two weeks at school. I chose the apprenticeship and spent that whole year back with the same company.
I graduated with a degree in full-stack development, but I chose to stay in identity and access management. Today I work as an IAM analyst, and I think I'm doing quite well.
What surprised me
A few years ago, I would never have thought of going into cybersecurity. It felt locked away, reserved for an elite of really clever people, and I didn't see myself as one of them. I saw myself as a developer: someone who writes code every day and ships things.
Once I was in, three things changed my mind. The first was the people. I've met so many amazing people in this space, and they're genuinely passionate about what they do.
The second was the impact. IAM does a lot of good for a company, and you can see the effect of your work on companies and clients very quickly.
The third was travel. I assumed the job would be nothing but Teams meetings, but it's not that closed off. I've travelled for work to meet clients and people who share the same passion for this job.
I got the opportunity recently to go to Paris on my own for the first time to meet a client and it was surreal to me.
Where I'm heading
I still have the dream I've had since I started coding: to work at one of the big tech companies someday. Back then that meant Google, Meta or Netflix. Now it includes AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI too.
But right now, I'm very happy where I am, and I'm going to keep building my career in identity and access management. I'd like to go to more forums and conferences and meet people who have spent their whole careers in this space, people far smarter than me, and learn everything I can from them.
It's not where I imagined I'd end up when I was making Minecraft blocks. But I believe in this space and its future, and I believe you can build a real career in it.
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