secura

I understand that it is not easy for a stranger on the Internet who does not know me well to give me specific career advice. I am still hoping that this post would generate some ideas that I could incorporate in my life and career. I will briefly describe my background and if you need to know more about me in order to help me, ask me in comments and I will answer you.

My background: I have 15 years of experience in the security industry as a software developer. I code in C, Java, Python, etc. My areas of expertise include: application security, creating solutions using cryptography (remember I am not a cryptographer, I am a software developer), log analytics, parser development, SQL engine development, neural networks, etc. I have worked for some big name companies like Apple, Amazon, etc. I love Linux and use Debian or CentOS for personal use as well as work. I used to be an active open source contributor 7 years ago and used to give talks on computer security and computational mathematics (discrete mathematics, number theory, etc.) For the last 5 years, I have been too with my employer's projects and no longer doing these things.

My objective: I want to get back into collaborating with the larger security community (open source contributions, submitting papers, giving talks, etc.) because I believe this gives me joy and also sets me apart from the rest. My focus right now is to go deeper into some areas of security and technology that would help me to contribute back to the larger community.

My question: Given my background, what do you think I should specialize in? You could suggest me specific technologies like Linux containers, Dockers, deep packet inspection, etc. or you could suggest me domains like big data, distributed computing, etc. You could also suggest me any techniques or methods to choose my area of specialization that has helped you in life.