About

What is ClearedPathway?

A practical resource for people building cleared IT, cybersecurity, and federal technology careers.

ClearedPathway is an independent career resource for people building or advancing in cleared IT, cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, and federal technology roles.

Most IT career advice is written for the generic tech worker. ClearedPathway focuses on the narrower lane: DoD 8140 certification requirements, security clearance processes, cleared hiring pipelines, GS/GG/federal pay systems, contractor compensation, and the financial realities that come with federal and defense work.

If you're building a cleared career, the rules are different. The hiring environment is different. The certifications that matter are different. The guidance should be too.

Why This Exists

I built ClearedPathway because I kept running into the same gap.

I'm a student and early-career IT professional building through the same cleared-career pipeline this site covers: certifications, hands-on support experience, DoD contractor work, and federal internship pathways. My certification background includes A+, Network+, Security+, RHCSA, and other IT/cloud/security credentials.

Every time I searched for practical guidance on the cleared side of IT, I found the same problem: generic advice, recycled content, or no useful answer at all. Which certifications actually move the needle in DoD environments? What do clearance timelines look like in practice? How does federal pay really compare to contractor pay? Very little of it existed in one place, written for people who understand that cleared tech is its own category.

ClearedPathway exists to answer those questions in one place, in plain English, without bootcamp hype or fake certainty.

My name is Zach — you can follow my path on LinkedIn.

Who This Site Is For

ClearedPathway is written for:

Students trying to enter cleared IT or cybersecurity
Transitioning military members planning a technical career path
Junior IT workers moving from help desk into systems, cloud, Linux, networking, or security roles
Cleared contractors trying to understand certifications, pay, and career leverage
Federal applicants comparing GS, GG, DCIPS, contractor, and internship pathways
People moving through the clearance process who want plain-English explanations of what happens next

The site is not written for a generic tech audience. It is built around the specific rules, incentives, and confusion points that show up in cleared and federal technology careers.

Topics

The topics cleared workers actually search for — and rarely find good answers to.

Certifications — Roadmaps and guidance aligned with DoD 8140 and security-focused technical roles
Clearances — Process mechanics, adjudication timelines, and what actually affects a case
Career — Strategy for cybersecurity, infrastructure, cloud, and support-to-engineering transitions in cleared environments
Finance — Pay, benefits, credit, and money decisions that often come up for federal employees, contractors, military members, and early-career cleared professionals

Editorial Standard

ClearedPathway is editorially independent.

There are no affiliate links, bootcamp referral codes, paid rankings, sponsored study guides, or pay-to-play recommendations. If a certification, job path, agency process, or financial topic is covered here, the goal is to explain what actually matters to the reader — not to sell a course.

Articles are written from public information, official policy documents where available, job-market research, and practical career analysis. For policy-sensitive topics such as security clearances, DoD 8140, SF-86, federal pay, and adjudicative guidelines, ClearedPathway points readers back to official sources whenever possible.

ClearedPathway is not affiliated with the U.S. government, DoD, DCSA, NSA, OPM, CompTIA, Red Hat, ISC2, or any employer mentioned on the site.

What This Site Is Not

ClearedPathway does not provide legal advice, financial advice, tax advice, security clearance adjudication advice, or official government guidance.

Security clearance decisions, hiring decisions, pay determinations, and certification requirements depend on the agency, contractor, contract, position, and current policy. Readers should verify current requirements with the relevant agency, employer, security office, program office, or official source before making decisions.

For full terms, see the Disclaimer.

Contact

For corrections, questions, or site-related inquiries, use the Contact page.