Breaking into Appsec/Devsecops without being a developer: Complete roadmap

Why Development Skills Aren’t a Dealbreaker

Application Security (AppSec) and DevSecOps are about integrating security into the software development lifecycle(SDLC) and not about building the application yourself. You work with a team of developers to research security threats and educate them to ensure the applications are designed without vulnerabilities. While understanding code is crucial, many tasks rely on the security knowledge, tools, and processes, and not heavy coding

Core skills you should master

1. Knowledge of common vulnerabilities (SQL Injections,XSS,CSRF)
2. Security Testing Using tools like Burp Suite, Owasp ZAP,SAST/DAST scanners to identify vulnerabilities
3. Penetration Testing: USING Owasp Top 10 web and API
4. Threat Modeling Designing and identifying possible attack vectors before any code is written collaborating with developers to implement safer dsigns
5. Security Compliance,Risk and Governance Ensure the applications meet standards like OWASP Top 1O,NIST,GDPR, ISO-S7001
6. Incident Response for application Performing investigation to mitigate the breaches targeting the application
7. Integration of security in CI/CD pipelines Configuring tools like Gitlab CI/CDb,Github Actions,Jenkins,Azure Devops Pipelines etc

Steps to Get into APPSec/DevSecops

1. Understand the Basics of Software Development- Learn how code is structured and common programming concepts. learn basic Python or JavaScript to read code and identify vulnerabilities.

2. Learn application Security Vulnerabilities in cyber security: Study the OWASP Top 10 ,Common Vulnerability Exposures (CVEs), and SANS CWE Top 25.

3. Have hands on Practice on identifying SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), CSRF, insecure authentication, etc.Get used to API testing.

4. Get Hands-On With Security

• Tools SAST/DAST: SonarQube, OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite.

• Dependency Scanning: Snyk, GitHub.

• Container & Kubernetes Security: Trivy, Aqua Security, Falco.

1. Understand CI/CD Pipeline Security: Learn how to integrate security scans into Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, etc.

2. Focus on Cloud Security

Learn AWS, Azure, or GCP security services (IAM, KMS, WAF, GuardDuty, Security Command Center).

7 Containerization & Orchestration Security: Understand Docker security best practices.

Learn Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC), network policies, and image scanning.

8: Build a Portfolio

Do labs on PortSwigger Web Security Academy, Hack The Box, TryHackMe.

Publish small write-ups of your findings on Medium or GitHub.

Key areas you need to focus on

• Kubernetes Security (RBAC, Pod Security Standards, Network Policies)

• Cloud Security (AWS, Azure, GCP)

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security (Terraform)

• Secrets Management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)

• Security Automation in CI/CD

• API Security (Postman, OWASP API Top 10)

Most In-Demand Skills for AppSec/DevSecOps Roles

• Vulnerability Management

• Secure SDLC

• Threat Modeling

• Cloud Native Security

• Security Automation

• Container Security

• Infrastructure as Code Security

• Incident Response for Applications

• Security Testing in CI/CD

Free Resources

• OWASP Top 10

• PortSwigger Web Security Academy

• Kubernetes Security Best Practices - CNCF

• DevSecOps Learning Path - Microsoft

• Hack The Box

• TryHackMe

• Pluralsight – DevSecOps Fundamentals, Secure Coding

• Udemy – “DevSecOps: Automated Security in the CI/CD Pipeline”

• A Cloud Guru – AWS/Azure/GCP Security Paths

Final Advice

AppSec and Devsecops are one of the fast growing niche in cyber security ,You can break into this niche by focusing on What matters most, i.e

• Understanding how apps are built

• Knowing where vulnerabilities appear

• Being able to automate and enforce security controls

Start small, Learn every day, practice every day.It takes time but its worth it.