IT Career advice
Discussion
Chaps, I'm after some advice from those with experience if that's ok?
Firstly a bit of background. I've been doing I.T Admin/Support for the past 12 years, I'm now early 30s and I enjoy the technical side more and having a brief stint managing people it just didn't work.
I do the run of the mill Microsoft AD/Infrastructure/Exchange stuff as well as a a bit of VMware and whatever else comes with it. I have plenty of MS certs all the way back to MCSE in NT and have kept them updated over the years up until Server 2008. I also have my Cisco CCNA (and shortly CCDA) ITIL Foundation and a couple of expired Citrix ones.
To be honest, the motivation is to enjoy what I do, but I want more money at the end of the day. I'm on a good salary now I think (£35k). I'm not jealous, rather envious of friends who move into sales or management roles and are on £50k+, so I am looking at how to progress more up the salary scale and perhaps specialise more.
Contracting is something I keep considering, but I am not specialised enough to warrant a nice rate. So, is it Virtualisation, Databases, messaging etc?
Like I said, any advice would be welcome. I only seem to post here when I need help, but must spend at least a couple of hours a week browing the forums
Firstly a bit of background. I've been doing I.T Admin/Support for the past 12 years, I'm now early 30s and I enjoy the technical side more and having a brief stint managing people it just didn't work.
I do the run of the mill Microsoft AD/Infrastructure/Exchange stuff as well as a a bit of VMware and whatever else comes with it. I have plenty of MS certs all the way back to MCSE in NT and have kept them updated over the years up until Server 2008. I also have my Cisco CCNA (and shortly CCDA) ITIL Foundation and a couple of expired Citrix ones.
To be honest, the motivation is to enjoy what I do, but I want more money at the end of the day. I'm on a good salary now I think (£35k). I'm not jealous, rather envious of friends who move into sales or management roles and are on £50k+, so I am looking at how to progress more up the salary scale and perhaps specialise more.
Contracting is something I keep considering, but I am not specialised enough to warrant a nice rate. So, is it Virtualisation, Databases, messaging etc?
Like I said, any advice would be welcome. I only seem to post here when I need help, but must spend at least a couple of hours a week browing the forums
Contracting always look like you need to be super skilled and highly specialised. The reality is that a lot of contractors are utter s
te. Not that I am suggesting that you are, but don't feel like you are not good enough to do contract work. 12 Yrs experience is a lot and with the MS certs as well you should be able to command a decent rate.
However, contracting is not for everyone. You have to sort out your own tax affairs and accounts, you don't get paid leave or sickness, no other benefits and you have little or no job security.
Basically with IT you have a few choices in terms of increased salary. Either become a specialised technical worker or go in to management. It is hard to move in to a management role in another company as they will always want someone with experience. Your best bet of that is what you want to do is start positioning yourself in your current company.
Talk to your boss and say you would like to take on that responsibility. A lot is a waiting game, holding on for the person above to leave or be promoted. In some places this can take years.
te. Not that I am suggesting that you are, but don't feel like you are not good enough to do contract work. 12 Yrs experience is a lot and with the MS certs as well you should be able to command a decent rate.However, contracting is not for everyone. You have to sort out your own tax affairs and accounts, you don't get paid leave or sickness, no other benefits and you have little or no job security.
Basically with IT you have a few choices in terms of increased salary. Either become a specialised technical worker or go in to management. It is hard to move in to a management role in another company as they will always want someone with experience. Your best bet of that is what you want to do is start positioning yourself in your current company.
Talk to your boss and say you would like to take on that responsibility. A lot is a waiting game, holding on for the person above to leave or be promoted. In some places this can take years.
Speaking as a developer who manages a team of technical guys, I'd say that specialising more in Virtualisation would be a good route for you. One of our guys is going down the VMWare expert route. He's 25 on bout £30k which is good money for a techie in the north east but he could command a fair bit more once he's done his courses.
As the poster above says... there are two main ways to increase you income. Especially with focussing on the technical side contracting can be a quick route to this if you have the right attitude. I've come across plenty of poor contractors, but something has to be said for their ability to take the risk and try and get away with it (and most do). Not excusing their lack of job skills though!
You don't allude to the type of organisation you work for, but in some, knowledge of how these business is as valuable, and if this is transferable to other companies in the same field there may be a niche there.
You say you have been doing IT Admin / Support. Is there an opportunity for a move to more project implementation based or design focussed roles?
If you don't want line management responsibility, how about Project Management?
If it helps draw some inspiration as I've no desire for management either, my career path has been:
- 4 years permanent for a major bank - first proper job, started with IT admin/support, then IT project implementation and finished with Team Lead/Mgmt mixed in to.
- 2.5 years permanent specialising in application delivery technologies for a leading consultancy at the time. Mainly Citrix.
- 12 years contracting across various industries and large projects (typically 12 - 36 month each, but some smaller ones), mainly Citrix/VMware/Data Centre/Infrastructure Architecture, mainly leading projects and over time being less and less hands on (a frustration).
- Just started a new permanent role for a previous client - the time was right to try something a bit different.
You don't allude to the type of organisation you work for, but in some, knowledge of how these business is as valuable, and if this is transferable to other companies in the same field there may be a niche there.
You say you have been doing IT Admin / Support. Is there an opportunity for a move to more project implementation based or design focussed roles?
If you don't want line management responsibility, how about Project Management?
If it helps draw some inspiration as I've no desire for management either, my career path has been:
- 4 years permanent for a major bank - first proper job, started with IT admin/support, then IT project implementation and finished with Team Lead/Mgmt mixed in to.
- 2.5 years permanent specialising in application delivery technologies for a leading consultancy at the time. Mainly Citrix.
- 12 years contracting across various industries and large projects (typically 12 - 36 month each, but some smaller ones), mainly Citrix/VMware/Data Centre/Infrastructure Architecture, mainly leading projects and over time being less and less hands on (a frustration).
- Just started a new permanent role for a previous client - the time was right to try something a bit different.
toon10 said:
Speaking as a developer who manages a team of technical guys, I'd say that specialising more in Virtualisation would be a good route for you. One of our guys is going down the VMWare expert route. He's 25 on bout £30k which is good money for a techie in the north east but he could command a fair bit more once he's done his courses.
Agree that it is the 'buzzword' technology mentioned by the OP, but to some extent he could pick any of the common technologies he lists, and if he can demonstrate stand-out expertise then he can use that to command more money - contract or permanent.Take Exchange for example - still plenty to be made there if you can architect / design enterprise mail solutions, upgrades, migrations etc.
OP - how would you feel in a customer facing role? IMHO if you've done 12 years in Support you may have a lot of the ability required - to explain technology challenges and benefits in plain English. Add to that a deep understanding of the products you are explaining and you are half way there.
You need to specialise in something, get good at it then get closer to the customer/sale (if thats something you enjoy) ...real performance related pay i.e. commission is always a good motivator
generally the guys making good money are in presales/sales, the managers. and the top engineers, or engineering managers...again the guys writing the code are often nearer the bottom end - being a generalist at anything means general mass market salary......
My other half is a snr manager in enterprise IT services...they have people managing hundreds or thousands of staff that earn less than a good pre-sales guy working for a software/hardware vendor. Thats the choice to make first; follow a management path or technical individual contributor path.
Ive done all those roles since I started out in mainframe ops in the 80s and for the last 10 years have headed up a tech-sales function in a vendor. I enjoyed them all, learnt so much along the way. If I could do it all again, probably wouldnt have messed about doing general support work for so long and would have got into tech sales/presales sooner...
generally the guys making good money are in presales/sales, the managers. and the top engineers, or engineering managers...again the guys writing the code are often nearer the bottom end - being a generalist at anything means general mass market salary......
My other half is a snr manager in enterprise IT services...they have people managing hundreds or thousands of staff that earn less than a good pre-sales guy working for a software/hardware vendor. Thats the choice to make first; follow a management path or technical individual contributor path.
Ive done all those roles since I started out in mainframe ops in the 80s and for the last 10 years have headed up a tech-sales function in a vendor. I enjoyed them all, learnt so much along the way. If I could do it all again, probably wouldnt have messed about doing general support work for so long and would have got into tech sales/presales sooner...
944fan said:
Contracting always look like you need to be super skilled and highly specialised. The reality is that a lot of contractors are utter ste. Not that I am suggesting that you are, but don't feel like you are not good enough to do contract work. 12 Yrs experience is a lot and with the MS certs as well you should be able to command a decent rate.
Agree, with some notable exceptions I find the general quality of the contract market to be poor. te. Not that I am suggesting that you are, but don't feel like you are not good enough to do contract work. 12 Yrs experience is a lot and with the MS certs as well you should be able to command a decent rate.What sector are you in?
Financial services tend to pay more (considerably). I'm in a similar role but work for a hedge fund, don't get me wrong works tough at times but you tend to get a buzz from it all. I've had decent compensation the last 4 years and there are other perks like a solid pension and healthcare.
Financial services tend to pay more (considerably). I'm in a similar role but work for a hedge fund, don't get me wrong works tough at times but you tend to get a buzz from it all. I've had decent compensation the last 4 years and there are other perks like a solid pension and healthcare.
I had a read of all your suggestions and started to think about it more this weekend. Thanks for all of them.
I'm pretty customer facing so that's not an issue. Although my role is primarily internal, I assist when required with customer issues (We're a software company), also my previous roles way back in the day were field engineer so the customer facing thing is fine.
I'm meeting up with a ex colleague who moved into pre sales for a large Cisco Partner and will pick his brain and get his opinion on how things are in pre sales. It isn't something I really looked at before as being a "salesman" has never really appealed.
The company I work for is nice and stable but it's not going to set the world on fire. Day to day admin duties for up to 500 users is easy now and lack of budget means no exciting new things to do recently.
I've also been keeping an eye on JobServe (any others?) for contract positions and they vary wildly in terms of rate. I always picture contractors as proper I.T Guru's who are masters in their field, however it appears that this isn't always the case going by some of your comments which is good to hear in a way. I'm good at what I do, but a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" so will keep an eye on the sort of contract positions that pop up. Being self employed, accounts, pension etc are not an issue thankfully.
Specialising in something is being looked at too. At work though it may be hard to specialise too much as we don't have the worlds most complex systems or sizes. But there will be a way...
So once again, thanks for all the helpful replies and suggestions. If you have any more, keep them coming. You can never have too much advice.
I'm pretty customer facing so that's not an issue. Although my role is primarily internal, I assist when required with customer issues (We're a software company), also my previous roles way back in the day were field engineer so the customer facing thing is fine.
I'm meeting up with a ex colleague who moved into pre sales for a large Cisco Partner and will pick his brain and get his opinion on how things are in pre sales. It isn't something I really looked at before as being a "salesman" has never really appealed.
The company I work for is nice and stable but it's not going to set the world on fire. Day to day admin duties for up to 500 users is easy now and lack of budget means no exciting new things to do recently.
I've also been keeping an eye on JobServe (any others?) for contract positions and they vary wildly in terms of rate. I always picture contractors as proper I.T Guru's who are masters in their field, however it appears that this isn't always the case going by some of your comments which is good to hear in a way. I'm good at what I do, but a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" so will keep an eye on the sort of contract positions that pop up. Being self employed, accounts, pension etc are not an issue thankfully.
Specialising in something is being looked at too. At work though it may be hard to specialise too much as we don't have the worlds most complex systems or sizes. But there will be a way...
So once again, thanks for all the helpful replies and suggestions. If you have any more, keep them coming. You can never have too much advice.
toon10 said:
Speaking as a developer who manages a team of technical guys, I'd say that specialising more in Virtualisation would be a good route for you. One of our guys is going down the VMWare expert route. He's 25 on bout £30k which is good money for a techie in the north east but he could command a fair bit more once he's done his courses.
But everyone is moving to Hyper-V - not because it's better (it is not), but it's a lot cheaper.If it was me I would be looking to see where the industry is growing and how you can apply your skills base. Clear growth in cloud service at the moment and the big players are looking for people with some specialised skill sets (Hbase, OpenStack, KVM, Xen etc...)
From my observations people tend to command more money in the networking arena, I see you have some Cisco certification, why not look into software defined networking, that would be my best guess where there is going to be a shift change in the traditional IT model. Learn the craft, become a contractor or consultant and clean up! Another tip look for a company that embraces technology as its foundation, rather than one that sees IT as a necessary evil, chances are they will have much better pay scales for senior IT professionals. In my company we have technical leads on about £90k with 25% bonus....who says you need to be in mangement to make big bucks.
From my observations people tend to command more money in the networking arena, I see you have some Cisco certification, why not look into software defined networking, that would be my best guess where there is going to be a shift change in the traditional IT model. Learn the craft, become a contractor or consultant and clean up! Another tip look for a company that embraces technology as its foundation, rather than one that sees IT as a necessary evil, chances are they will have much better pay scales for senior IT professionals. In my company we have technical leads on about £90k with 25% bonus....who says you need to be in mangement to make big bucks.
Being in the network industry, the Pre-Sales engineers are the top of the tree. It's not just about sales skills, but you do need an in-depth knowledge of what you're selling. This includes part codes for kit, hardware/software limitations as well as features, and a good idea of how long it will take to put it all together - which obviously is easier if you've done it before! It's tough because while you don't necessarily have a target like a salesman, if you miss something out or overlook something it might mean that the solution won't work and if the customer has already signed off it could result in it going all legal. It pays well but it's sometimes a thankless job - overspec a solution and you'll be beaten by a competitor on price. Underspec and they don't necessarily get a quality project delivery.
Around a year ago I was at a crossroads and decided that I, like you, preferred to fix things rather than boss people around. I'm now 6 months into my CCIE Voice/Collaboration studying, and after some hard graft it'll be a great feeling and pay off financially (I hope!).
So I'm not necessarily suggesting that networking is for you, but if you were:
- Pick a specialisation, such as security, datacentre, voice/video or wireless
- General networking skills such as CCNA/CCNP are all pre-requisites for all of the above, so just going for "general networking" is going to land you in a NOC fixing basic router problems.
- Small companies are good to go for, because they throw you in the deep end and you learn from it. Don't go for an ATOS or BT, you just get lost in the machine and get compartmentalised.
- Pick something you enjoy doing!
Good luck!
Oh and make sure you have a good LinkedIn profile. Every job I've ever had in the last 10 years has been through it.
Around a year ago I was at a crossroads and decided that I, like you, preferred to fix things rather than boss people around. I'm now 6 months into my CCIE Voice/Collaboration studying, and after some hard graft it'll be a great feeling and pay off financially (I hope!).
So I'm not necessarily suggesting that networking is for you, but if you were:
- Pick a specialisation, such as security, datacentre, voice/video or wireless
- General networking skills such as CCNA/CCNP are all pre-requisites for all of the above, so just going for "general networking" is going to land you in a NOC fixing basic router problems.
- Small companies are good to go for, because they throw you in the deep end and you learn from it. Don't go for an ATOS or BT, you just get lost in the machine and get compartmentalised.
- Pick something you enjoy doing!
Good luck!
Oh and make sure you have a good LinkedIn profile. Every job I've ever had in the last 10 years has been through it.
Edited by Polariz on Friday 14th March 01:52
I just moved from 15yrs of sharp end IT delivery and management into an "architect" role. designing infrastructure and server solutions, but not having to actually build it or manage the support of it, and it was a decent jump in money.
since becoming a technical architect, and putting that on my linked in profile, lots of agencies have been in touch about other architect roles that i think i will be going for once i've got my feet under the architecture table so to speak.... i was surprised at how much more contact i was getting from agencies just by being an architect.
For me, i enjoyed the technical work too, so this role preserves that, doesn't add a layer of people management, gives me more free time (ie. no support commitments), and more money.
since becoming a technical architect, and putting that on my linked in profile, lots of agencies have been in touch about other architect roles that i think i will be going for once i've got my feet under the architecture table so to speak.... i was surprised at how much more contact i was getting from agencies just by being an architect.
For me, i enjoyed the technical work too, so this role preserves that, doesn't add a layer of people management, gives me more free time (ie. no support commitments), and more money.
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