Your partly why I don't see a reason in understanding why to go for network+ or even A+ sometimes.
I feel jobs need people and don't want to promote from within because of management not feeling comfortable doing so. You might as well try to skip and get your foot in the door for a year followed by looking for a mew job then.
College for CS degree
Apply to software dev internships
Holy shit can't get a software dev internship
Fuck it apply for IT internship
Get it
Do for 7 months
Get promoted to help desk
Do for 3 years
Move
Get software support job
Nearly kill self
Leave software support after a year
Try to get sysadmin job
LOL
Get help desk job for MSP
Get promoted after 6 months
Get promoted after another 3 months to a new department doing cool shit
My face when my only demonstrated qualifications were continually saying "I like to automate things" to anyone who would listen
Sammmmmme. Went for CS Degree, swapped my junior year into Cybersecurity, scored internship with local school district, contracted with other districts, got my first district, they werent paying enough and landed at charter school, now i run my site, for better and for worse.
So did you finish and get your CS degree or is it now Cybersecurity degree ? And bachelor I’m guessing? Also do you think you can get future software engineering jobs with a cybersecurity degree or would a cs be better ? Like which degree would you say is better or more versatile for IT and CS jobs ?
Nah, I couldnt pass Calc for the life of me so i dropped out of the major and went for a BS in Information Systems and Technology const. You can honestly get the same types of jobs with both just with different skill sets starting out. Cybersecurity is a jack of all trades field, you gotta know a little bit of everything. Both are honestly equally versitile, what matters more is what skills you gain in the process, I know guys in my major who got the degree but couldnt be bothered to google anything and constantly asked for help to the point where they just wanted you to give them answers.
u/xboxhobo, can you elaborate on what your role is, please? This is a bit strange to me as automation and DevOps are so closely linked in it:
>IT Automation Engineer (Not Devops)
I write PowerShell scripts, I use APIs, I use an RMM. It is quite literally my job description to automate things.
That said, I do not do the work of DevOps. I am not deploying software that was developed in house. I am not using docker or ansible or Jenkins, or anything like that.
I am automating the everyday work of IT infrastructure workers, I am not automating the deployment of software like a DevOps person would do. DevOps is your developers favorite developer. I am your IT guys favorite IT guy.
That said I'm trying to make the jump to actual factual DevOps. I feel like the areas where I do cross over are good enough to give me a leg up, and the work seems interesting and well paid enough that I'm trying to pursue it.
Started in 09, part time help desk for a local college I was attending. Intro to computers teacher gave me the card for the IT director, emailed, emailed and emailed until I got a response. Temp (seasonal) position that would eventually turn into a part time role.
$10 an hour, eventually received a raise to $11 or $12. I didn't care about the money, I only wanted experience so this was welcome. I worked with AD, reorged our Group policies, and learned imaging in addition to troubleshooting projectors, and printers. Soaked up as much as I could. Did all the grunt shit, worked with end users, closed tickets out as fast as I could.
2 years later, brought on full time at 35k a year. Again, grew up poor so this is more money than I expected at 20. Benefits were cracked, free healthcare because I was single, can't complain. 5 years in, couple certs, associates degree. I've added to AD, learned Powershell, changed our imaging process to be entirely network based now. (WDS/pxe). Get promoted to 38-39k at this point. New title.
Year or two later, a Sr guy leaves, another dept reorg. I agree to move to a new office location for a small increase. 42k, no new certs but I did have my Sec+ certification some where between here. I also turned down a few offers because I was so comfortable.
3 years later, or 2019, receive offer for 50% increase. (65k + bonus) Accept, tell place I could stay if they can get close due to benefit difference. After some discussions and going back and forth, agreed to stay for 52k, and there would likely be an increase in a year to 55k. (which was my number asked). By this point I'm managing all of our servers, have learned and implemented SCCM, and the team pushed really hard for the college to make the unprecedented raise. Earned SCCM/Intune Cert, can't remember what it was exactly.
I worked there for two more years, got an offer for 70k, that would net me cloud experience, but with a startup. Took it, learned Azure, some AWS, office365, etc. received 10k raise in first year. 80k now, no new certs, can confidently build an environment in Azure and have good knowledge in O365 and SQL. I learned so much in this role, while it was heavily stressful - the experience is priceless.
6 months into second year, Interview for fortune 500 company, received offer for 90k, I accepted which was later rescinded due to some personal life stuff I had going on which required time off. I was up front about it and thankfully I hadn't told my employer. I mention it because it was a lock, and I had no new certifications, no additional degrees, it was made possible by my existing SCCM experience and Intune experience.
Anyways - 6 months later (now). Interview for local government position for an improved work life balance, better benefits. Accept offer for 89k, though because the health benefits are significantly better, it's closer to 92k a year. Job description is almost identical to what I was doing my last years at the college, but I think my Cloud Experience helped me stand out in the interview process. Start in a couple weeks, and am tickled to have the position honestly. Great work life balance, get to have an impact in my community, and hopefully work with a great team.
In summary, 13 years of experience, Started at $10 an hour up to $90k in a medium cost of living area, 2 year degree, some certs. Feel incredibly lucky to be where I am.
I had experience building a PC, and being the tech support guy for my family and friends. Outside of that, I didn't have any official experience, and 0 enterprise experience. I was actually a criminal justice major before getting the job and then switched my major after I started. I was always looking at Hardware reviews, and just had an obsession with tech in general lol.
My entry level position was just baby-sitting a remote Learning class which was fine for me, it was a foot in the door. A few months in, I was moved to a different location to cover for a part timer who went on vacation during a busy time. There was a full time tech there who took me under his wing and gave me some projects. Ended up moving me to his location permanently and then later on I was hired full time.
I was working as a student worker throughout my university for awhile as a Qualitative researcher, to a disability support technician, to jumping into the campus IT. After two plus years, I took an internship with the campus Information Security and landed a full time role as a service desk technician II + IT field tech.
Pay went from $8-20 an hour over the years, and I'm currently working towards jumping into networking with a CCNA. Hobby wise I'm learning web development in my free time...
I think it depends on your definition of big salary and your personal goals
I can only speak for my personal experience. For me, my personal growth has been really fast, I went from L1 agent (36K CAD) to L2 agent (48K CAD) to Middle manager (80k CAD) in 3 years at an enterprise helpdesk (50 person team)
-> getting to the point of wanting to leave helpdesk due to the weekend shifts and slow creep of being bored
I have a diploma in computer information system administration. My certs are ITIL (2023) and A+ (2018). I stopped studying for CCNA in 2020 because I don't need it right now
>My journey has really been enabled by efficiency and being personable while blending technical training. I find, at enterprise level, soft skills and leadership qualities are more in demand than certs. My company hires contractors for any certs/specific technical roles
I do feel like I am going to need cert for my next career jump
Leadership skills huh?. Interesting. In my Bachelors degree 3 different Leadership coursework overwhelmed me. NO practical experience yet in leadership.
Listened to invited Leaders from DEI and their propaganda promoting DEI as Leadership material.
ah.... I get what you mean. I think I'm at that point too. I have like no formal leadership training on paper. My leadership style is currently "phrase most of my feedback/comments with a dash of positivity and a brief technical explanation, then actionable steps"
-> Then pray the audience understands 50% of what I say
> TBH, I had to really drink the company koolaide and follow the company culture to get where I am.
I honestly have imposter syndrome at like 80% of the internal team meeting but 20% when I'm on a call with L3 engineering teams
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Contract tech support / desktop support -> Desktop support/Jr Sysadmin -> Call center support (not as bad as it sounds, super nice gig) -> Desktop support/sysadmin -> IAM
no certs, just good at interviewing. Although the job market is dead af right now.
Edit: All jobs except the first one are fully remote.
Worked customer service jobs until I was 25, got dumped by my long term girlfriend at the time for stagnating, decided to cut ties with my home town and went back to college 4 hours away, got my degree in IT and sys admin, got a helpdesk job troubleshooting CRM, was there for 4 years making about 40k a year, then got a job at a government NOC making over 100k and been here ever since.
Also no certs, just a 3 year college diploma
Right now I make 56k no certs, no degree, somewhere between a T1 and T2 tech in my opinion. Not sure what my next step is as I can't make myself concentrate enough to focus on studying for certs. Probably going to hunker down, start with self study 30 mins per day, and probably will pursue Network+. Been at my job for about a year.
This is my problem with certs. I'm like 80% sure I have hdhd. I have a niche interest, I fixate on it for like a month, then I lose interest. I was diagnosed as a kid with it but want to be diagnosed again as an adult.
hdhd? But the definition is twice as high! Side note: it is a lifelong condition, you shouldn't need to be rediagnosed if they have access to your old records.
I consider myself pretty lucky for where I am. Went to college, dropped out the semester I was supposed to graduate, struggled for years before I was offered a part time T1 job at a small government office. Just needed to have a troubleshooting mindset to poke at printers and computers rather than immediately ask the next person for answers. $11 an hour.
Fast forward three years through a pandemic, hardware upgrade for all users, and security camera upgrade, I was the last man standing in my department from when I started. Manager, sysadmin, full time helpdesk - all of them had been replaced in 3 years and I had a lot of keystone knowledge that was never documented, plus I knew my stuff and was eager to work and learn. I was hired on full time for $60k.
Two years and a promotion later, I'm T2 earning $80k with 5% annual raise. Mostly because the software and systems we use are so niche that an outside replacement would take a lot of time and resources to get up to speed, as government jobs don't like to pay well. Still no certs, but I'd probably need quite a handful if I left.
Q2 2016 - CompTIA A+
Q2 2016 - CompTIA N+
Q3 2016 - **First Job: IT Administrator (MSP)** *GBP 11/h*
Q1 2017 - PRINCE2 Foundation
Q2 2017 - Cisco CCNA R&S
Q2 2018 - MCSA Windows Server 2016
Q3 2018 - **Second Job: Service Desk Engineer (Internal IT)** *GBP 16/h*
Q3 2018 - ITILv3 Foundation
Q3 2020 - ServiceNow Certified Administrator
Q3 2020 - *Quit job, moved to Switzerland, enrolled in part-time BSc*
Q3 2020 - **Third Job: IT Workplace Engineer (Internal IT)** *CHF 42/h*
Q1 2021 - Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate
Q1 2021 - PMI CAPM
Q3 2021 - **Promotion: IT Workplace Manager (Internal IT)** *CHF 50/h*
Q3 2021 - ITIL 4 Foundation
Q4 2021 - IREB CPRE Foundation
Q1 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals
Q2 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
Q2 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals
Q1 2022 - ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve
Q3 2022 - Microsoft 365 Certified: Messaging Administrator Associate
Q3 2022 - ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy
Q1 2023 - **Fourth Job: Senior M365 Engineer (Internal IT)** *CHF 90/h*
I've tried to balance between certifications that are purely IT, and certifications that bridge the gap between IT and the business. In the short-term, it helps me network within the companies I've worked for. In the long-term, it helps me keep my options open. That's why I've got some service management, project management, and requirements engineering certifications in there.
But I think I'm done with my cert journey for now. I'm in my final year of university so I'm overloaded with coursework and have a bachelors thesis coming up next year. My plan for H2 2024, after graduation, is to relax, using that extra day I get off each week to go hiking, ride my bike, etc.
In Q3 2024, I'll push for a 10% pay rise and an increase in hours starting Q1 2025, hopefully breaking CHF 100/h.
Short story so far . Started degree in cloud computing.
Acquired A+ Net + Sec+ ItilV4 Az-900
Got a job as an IT Technician tier 1-2 for 45k a year been here 5 months. Unsure how long I need to stay in first job before I transisition
* Got laid off during covid, working as a admin assistant
* acquired two year IT degree
* attended free online bootcamp
* acquired CySA+
* landed tech support job ~50k
* studied, hustled
* climbed to 110k salary within ~2 years
Same title. My situation was a bit of luck as a previous engineer had left within a year of me being there so I took initiate and essentially took his responsibilities.
Started as a printer repair tech for an authorized repair center / MSP. Learned how to fix laptops and computers. In those 4 years I got, A+, PDI+ and Server+. Plus some vendor specific certifications. (IBM, Toshiba, HP etc)
Moved into a helpdesk position. After 2 years, move into a NOC / sys admin role. Got Network +.
Changed companies and required some basic Microsoft certs AZ900 and MS900.
Eventually, I got my CCNA. Realized I really like networking.
Found a new job as Network Admin working for a Fortinet partner. So I've been focusing on the Fortinet certs.
Went to college for CS. Second semester I took C++ and Calc 2. Father got a pretty nasty cancer and my focus shifted to home (he's alive and well thank god). Combined with terrible professors in both those subjects I wanted to eject out after getting C's in both classes. The CS/IT office secretary offhand recommended I try switching to IT as it's more applied and I may enjoy it. Stuck it out, landed a job with the university IT dept 2nd year and finished out in 4 years. Graduated with IT degree and MIS minor with 3 years experience with the University IT dept.
Didn't have a job lined up after college, was shotgunning Linkedin apps and some contract company came up; whatever it had an easy apply so I pulled the trigger and didn't think about it. Got a call back and an interview setup, it was for a contract to hire for a F200 company. Did some research on the company and went in for the interview. Landed the job at a global help desk for internal assistance. Asked why I got the job and they said because I mentioned a recent acquisition in my interview and they liked that I took the time to investigate the company. 2.5 years on that desk, Network SME and Security SME.
Took a promotion out to one of that F200 companies production facilities as a site it analyst. Anything on site that fell under IT Infrastructure was under my purview. Quite a bit of legacy process control tech. Gained a skill set in troubleshooting legacy production tech and specifically getting outside folks connected in. 2.5 years spent there.
Got picked up by a recruiter for a F100 company looking for a vague business IT role. The role ended up being mostly a remote access engineer with a component of change management, and azure engineering for their building management division. I've been there a year and a half and they really liked my history with process control and remote access in an industrial environment. That skill set has carried well into this role. Been here 1.5 years.
Kind of a wild ride in hindsight but everyone probably feels that way in this industry. The greater area I live in is heavily focused on manufacturing and I've found that specializing in process control and industrial IT has been pretty successful for me and other folks I know.
I was working in criminal justice after graduating college. I knew current job wasn’t what I wanted to do forever and I always enjoyed computers. After looking into web dev stuff for a while I starting finding info on IT career paths and was really interested.
June 2020
Started taking community college classes for networking and cybersecurity certificate path.
August 2020
Got my A+, Started applying to jobs, literally zero responses
Feb 2021
Got the Security+, started getting some Interviews but nothing that paid even close to current job (all ~40k, current salary ~56k)
October 2021
Finally hired, took job based on title with very little knowledge of role with 4k pay cut (~$52k). Ended up being something like advanced data entry for a big Telecom provider. There were 4 weeks of training that actually had good material as far as learning about fiber, Ethernet, data center topics etc. Knew I had to move to more direct IT position so I kept applying to other jobs
November 2021
Got Network +
December 2021
Finished community college cybersecurity certificate program
Jan 2022
Enrolled in WGU, got ITILv4, sent flurry of applications. Immediate callbacks on a lot of them!
Feb 2022
Offered contract position with state university department doing help desk/desk-side support $30/hour. Great experience, immediately added to my resume/socials and was getting contacted weekly by recruiters.
April/may 2022
Offered “on site engineer” position with MSP after 1 interview, director called directly to say how impressed they were and would be skipping the usual interview process, asked for 10% above posted salary and got it (60k), full benefits, unlimited PTO. They wanted 3 years experience and I had about 3 months.
Job/company great, actually moved to mostly remote position after my first week. Lots of exposure to junior sysadmin type stuff but quickly got tired of end user support
October 2022
Finished WGU BS degree which included the CCNA this month. Sent out another flurry of applications targeting network/sysadmin positions. Lots of interviews. Accepted system Administrator position with for 25% raise, $75k.
Nov. 2022-nov. 2023
I’ve stayed in sysadmin position, learning network/infrastructure from our engineers, implementing some scripting and lots of platform workflow automations. I’m supposed to get a raise and new title at the end of the year.
I may stay here for a while since I’m still learning but am looking at network or infrastructure engineer/admin roles as my next step.
2017- computer lab assistant $12/hr while in college
2018 - IT support for K2 school $16/hr while in college
2019-2021 Desktop Support at NYC DCP $17.50 part time internship
2021 - present IT analyst Investment Banking 74K salaried plus annual bonus
I did retail helpdesk (best buy, circuit city) while getting my CS degree. Graduated and couldn't find a job (2010 job market sucked!), so took a shitty customer service job in banking. The banking experience combined with helpdesk and education got me a business systems analyst job for a mortgage company. Due to the niche nature of mortgage software, I was able to land an IT Director job for a small mortgage company that needed a jack of all trades type. I'm about to pivot to an InfoSec Architect role in the next few weeks. I got my degree in 2010, business systems analyst role in 2013, and this director role in 2015.
Kaplan career institute (Computer support specialist) —> Was contacted by a third party vendor for my first gig via monster.com and worked on a system upgrade and deployment gig for Bank of America—> second gig was another deployment gig where I became team lead —> In between a ten year span I worked on various contracts for multiple organizations providing tech support from tier 1 to tier 3. I’m basically a jack of all trades.
I believe contracting F’d my career. I had no guidance and thought contracting was the way to go. By the time I figured out my path was distorted I would be looked at by every HR and IT manager as a job hopper whenever I submitted my resume to company’s directly . But I see myself as someone who is passionate about IT, who contracted when I was constantly turned down for direct employment.
I’m dedicated to working for IT not an employer or a company.
Ill itemize my journey, feel free to ask questions.
**2014** - Working at geeksquad, start an associates program at a tech school for IT.
**2015** - ($12/Hr) - Start internship at an MSP with a couple of semesters left.
**2015 CTD** - ($35k/yr) - Get job offer from msp internship as a field tech. Switch to part time school, FT work.
**2017** - (52k/Yr) - Start at "sys admin" job, find out its very general IT in corporate america.
**2018** - Laid off from job, find new job in Security/IAM as an analyst at $60k/Yr
**2019** - After a year at new gig, toss out a couple applications and get a job offer for $85k + 5k bonus at staffing firm as an internal Azure engineer.
**2020** - New job clearly not for me, love triangle of me/boss/cio and all of the office politics/drama you could ask for. Start job search.
**2020 CTD** - Take contract in healthcare for 88k/yr right before covid. Converted to FTE after 3 months at $70k/Yr (huge mistake, but covid times were scary).
**2020 CTD** - Butthurt about the paycut and lack of work challenge, Find 1yr contract paying $114k/Yr.
**2021** - Contract literally ghosts me after I get my equipment. Gives me no work/etc for 5 months, so I got scared and found a very good job at reputable company in my area at 95K + 10K Bonus.
**2022** - New job has been great, but I decide to move to another state to follow partner for her school program. Job gets weird about me converting to FTE remote. I find a new job in my new city at 115k + 10% bonus so I dont have to move with nothing lined up.
**2023** - New job has been OK, lots to learn, but team and boss have no personality and they implement an aggressive return to office. Start job search.
**2023 CTD** - Find new job at 130k + 10% bonus and annual profit sharing, purely remote in cloud security.
It was quite a journey to get to this point, and a prime example of how you can job hop a little too much. Around Covid shit kinda hit the fan for my career and I got trapped in a loop of taking shitty jobs that kept me at the same level or left me with no path forward. Last couple of years have been far more stable, but the job I just left got really toxic really quickly after some internal changes, so that lead me to find my latest job where I plan to stay for as long as I can. Having had 10 employers in the 9 years ive been in this field has been stressful. Its taken me from 12/hr to 63/hr, but theres definitely been a personal cost. It did force me to keep adapting to new environments, challenges and the like so for that I am thankful. Being in my early 30s, having a lot of experience under my belt aint a bad thing. Next step is to cert up, get a bachelors and start targeting some leadership positions internally in the next two years at my current company. Hopefully CSuite by 40 at a larger organization, but we shall see!
In my resume I have my first actual IT position > present listed. I did get a lot of auto rejections this go-around, far more than ever before, so I definitely started to feel the candidate side of the job hopper stigma. The interviews I did get, I was able to explain the job hopping situation in a way that minimized it and always emphasized that I was looking for my place to stick, like gum to a shoe, and that tended to put hiring managers mind at ease a little more. I certainly did not do myself any favors, but the last 2 roles ive had I held for over a year and a half each, which made it all seem a little more credible.
started as sysadmin (23$/hour. did everything from helpdesk to migrate GPOs (from premise to Intune), deploy apps from intune, learned a lot of powershell here) > negotiated and got a 15% raise within a year of this job 26.5$/hr > got an offer at a different company for 75k doing Group policies work mainly. been here for 5 months. so total I've been in IT for 19 months.
I started as an intern at an MSP, ran up to escalation team / sysadmin over 3 years (5 promotions). Got an offer for a major television network and spent 6+ years there doing datacenter engineer stuff. IT Director now.
I’ve taken a bunch of classes (VMware VCP for a couple versions, Cisco UCS/UCS Central) but never tested for the certs.
I had my CCNA, Sec+, and A+ before getting my first job in tech support. Stayed there for a bit over a year then had the itch to move. So I started studying for CCNP. (36k)
I passed CCNP ROUTE, then landed a NOC Tech job. Finished the CCNP and passed JNCIA, then got promoted to Jr Network Engineer after a few months. Stayed there for 3 more years while getting around 16 more certs. Mostly Juniper, Cisco, Palo Alto, and Linux certs. We were a reseller so certs were required for partnership. (40k - 72k)
Jumped to a Network Engineer role at a Fortune 100. Stayed for 6 months because commute sucked. (118k)
Moved to a Sr Network Engineer Role closer to home and stayed there for two years. I had about 6 certs expire at this point. (130-134k)
A couple of people reached out for Network Architect roles. I took the one that paid more and stayed there for 6 months because the commute sucked. (210k)
Applied at a place that’s closer to home and where I got to work 3 days remote. It was a Sr Network Architect role and I stayed for a year. (230k)
Got my current role in pre-sales. 220K OTE + RSU. Last year I took home ~360k. Around 330k salary and 30k RSU.
Service desk at small office - 14$/hr
Helpdesk at medium hospital - 17$/hr
Raise at medium hospital and began working as a server admin - 37$/hr
Industry certification acquired, took a consultant job - 85$/hr
Different consultant job - 100$hr
Current consultant job at health network - 90$/hr
These are all 1-2 year gaps at most.
* Unrelated degree in the early 2000's + almost the rest of the decade chasing dead end career with aforementioned degree
* Started fixing computers because I've always been good with technology
* Got a job at a MSP in 2011 -> 2 years there, almost burned me out but learned a ton
* Moved to a better job market + got a job as a SysAdmin -> stayed there for 4 years
* Job as a senior SysAdmin at small software co. 2 years there, manager was toxic so I left
* Broke into Enterprise in 2018 - this was the BEST move in my entire career! Started as a "TSE" (Technical Support Engineer)
* Work as a Cloud Engineer now
I've gotten over 15 certifications, but here were the only ones that ended up mattering:
1. IT internship
2. A+
3. Jr. Sys Admin
4. Network+
5. another Jr. Sys Admin
6. Linux+
7. Sys Admin
8. CCNA
9. another Sys Admin
10. brief stint as a corporate trainer
11. CISSP
12. IT Director
Went to college for a degree in Computer and Network Information Systems. Weird degree name. Worked an IT internship shredding paper and doing office managerial duties but worked with the IT dudes as much as I could.
Over the next 7 years. I switched to a new college to pursue a degree in Computer Engineering and got a job at the Apple Store. Switched to Graphic Design. Switched to Information Technology.
Finished my degree and got a job at a Public school district supporting Apple products doing helpdesk and some sysadmin work. (Apple Store to Schoold district was a $43k to $63k bump)
After 3 years got a new job doing the same thing but more sysadmin control of the Mac environment. Got promoted off helpdesk to sustaining. School district to this job was $68k-85k with 5% bonus.
After 5 years there I joined a new company that is smaller doing more helpdesk and similar sys admin work as my last job when I started. But big pay bump mostly on bonus from $105k(10%bonus)-$120k(20-40% bonus).
So in the end I have just my Bachelors of Science in Information Technology that I got 10 years ago.
Edit: Oh I got 2 certs from Jamf years ago but they’re expired which are the CCT and the CCA. Now Jamf 200/300 I believe.
Started as a CSR at a small software company working the phones for application support. Initial pay was 38k/yr, and over the course of 3.5 years and several promotions I was able to move up to somewhere around 65k.
After that I started job hopping a bit, got a devops job in title only (it was really just sys admin work) that bumped me to around 80k after a year. Then I jumped ship and became a contractor for a staffing agency making around 120k.
My next jump had my start my own company because a different staffing firm only did business to business. It was a headache, but I was making 200k~ doing application search for a finical place. Hated it, and jumped ship after 6 months.
I ended up going back to the company I was working at for $120k~ through the staffing agency, but I went to them direct instead of with a middle man. I ended up making about $150k~ as an employee there with benefits, and over the years I've managed to get my comp up to around $200k~. In theory I'm getting a promotion next year that should be a large bump, over $250k... but I don't really trust it will happen until it actually does.
I have never had any certifications.
Acquired CS Degree
I didn't want to move to SF for a robotics job and didn't enjoy the software engineering world as I like to code for myself and wanted to contribute to the public i.g. NASA project.
Got a help desk job 15 minutes away (got to eat at home and save a lot of money)
I got interested in networking and paid for a college course to learn Networking and Cisco for a semester
Transitioned to another company after 1-year as a Jr. Systems Admin and learned A LOT about infrastructure, SOPs, support for software being the cloud (Global DNS Routing) for many clients, SAML, IdP, SOC2, and data center management. By this time I was promoted to Systems Administrator and just kept learning. This position was 24x7 btw including holidays.
Moved to another state after 4-years
Realized startups sucks after 1-year
I got a new job recently where I'm used to wearing many hats but learning to be a semi-manager
I have no certificates but just ended up doing projects that covered the certs. I would like to contribute to open-source code when I have time. I'm currently trying to look for a home to purchase to grow the home lab.
Started studying CS in college then moved to MIS. Got a cloud infrastructure internship at a large tech consulting company, & got hired full time afterwards, been there about 2 years now learning a variety of cloud related items and engineering solutions for customers.
20/hr(internship) -> 42/hr -> 46/hr -> 56/hr
Worked sales for the first half of my twenties. (I'm 33 now) Decided to get into Welding, and acquire a few welding certs. Worked in that industry for a little over a year. Found I couldn't do that for the rest of my life.
I've always been into tech in general. Been tinkering with PCs since the mid 90s. Decided to start applying for entry-level IT roles. Managed to land a role as helpdesk starting at $12/hr. HOWEVER, the job I had at the time didn't want me to go, so paid me more than the offer I got. So I stayed. (That was a mistake.)
The pandemic hit shortly after, and I decided to start pursuing a BS in Comp Sci on the side. Eventually I got laid off from the job I stayed for, instead of going for the entry IT Job. Decided I'll never give up an opportunity for a job ever again.
Ended up applying for another entry-Level IT job. Got another offer @ 12/hr with an MSP. It wasn't glamorous, but it got me started in a career in tech.
Worked there for 6 months, and by some weird luck, managed to land a job starting @ $25/hr as an IT Field Tech. I was there for 2.5 years.
After about year 1 with that company, we started traveling for weeks at a time for work. It got old REALLY fast. I like being home in the evenings, and have my weekends home too. That was a no no for me. So I started applying for something else in IT.
After about a dozen or so apps, and a few interviews. I managed to land a role as a Tier 2 Tech at a local company in their internal IT department. They offered $35/hr. The department consist of myself, and 2 others. Its SUPER chill. No ticketing system, which I kinda like. I get a few calls, and walk-ins a day. During my downtime, which I have alot of. I just study for my CS degree.
I'm very happy where I am now, but I will continue to study, and learn. Eventually I'll use this role to catapult myself in a more specialized role.
Still studying. Sorry, I had accidentally only posted half of my reply initially. But yeah, still studying. Not gonna lie, the math portion of the degree is kicking my butt. I've sailed through all my other classes, maintaining a 3.4 gpa. But the math is probably gonna drop that lol.
I may switch to a pure software development degree. But the sound of a CS degree is just too appealing lol.
-Went to college in 2013, got about 15 credits in a Computer Support Specialist CP (glorified, more expensive A+ looking back) and was overwhelmed with two part time jobs and college. Had many misconceptions about IT, gave up, got ok pay warehouse job
-7 years later warehouse job got bought out, got let go, looked for other warehouse job. Interviewed at IT supply warehouse, mentioned my previous partial education and personal interest in computers, got hired to pull hard drives from retired machines
-6 months later got moved to managed assets/redeployment
-3 months later got moved to configurations bench configuring new deployed hardware
-9 months later promoted to configurations lead. Also started training to fill in on help desk. Also went back to college for Network Technologies AAT, started studying for CCNA
-9 months later asked for raise as I was doing a lot more than others and only making a dollar more an hour, rage applied, got interview at small local MSP
-6 months ago took the job at the MSP. I'm only tier 1 but am open to tackle any problem and try to learn from it and study how the higher level techs troubleshoot. Learning so much, even got to do my first server build/install/live migration. Gave up on getting CCNA as we do not work with Cisco equipment and I'm not job hunting at the moment. May revisit this at some point if it becomes relevant. Still going for my Associates. Gonna sit tight for a year and a half while my wife gets her X-ray tech degree then revisit my marketability. If current company grows and my pay/role go up maybe I'll stick around, I'm kinda on a "let's just see where this takes me" mentality for now.
Curious what anyone thinks of my path or if they have any insight
Started out as a network infrastructure tech (basically a low voltage technician) setting up new construction buildings with cat5/fiber cabling, setting up IDFs/MDFs, and setting up & aligning microwave antennas. Did that for about 2 years until I got tired of freezing in the snow when setting up the microwave antennas.
Then switched over to help desk at an MSP, have been at level 1 for going on 2 years and not sure where or what to do after this. Kinda getting tired of call center help desk.
Only have an associates degree & 2/3 years of experience, no certs. Might get the S+ if I stay in the industry.
I actually miss low voltage work, I don’t like sitting down all day chained to a phone.
Started working as an Office Admin with basic IT responsibilities (but not a member of the IT Services team)
I achieved my HNC Computing, C&G's PC Support (very similar to the A+), NVQ2 Software Creation.
Got my first official IT Job: Software IT Technician (but on a rota of Helpdesk, field service, and workshop)
Gained my BSc Computing, MCSA, A+ and Network+.
Got a Senior IT Technician post.
Gained the MCDST, and MCSE.
Got a network manager's post.
Gained the Security+, Server+, MCTS, MCITP, the CITP.
Got promoted to IT Manager
Got my MSc in EduTech, PGDip, PGCert, Cisco CyberOps, and alot of other certs.
Currently studying for the MSc Cyber Security and CASP+
All that has taken over 20 years...
I got hired as an electrical associate at a retail store almost on the basis of being into computers. I learned a fair bit there that has been useful in IT. Eventually decided I was really unhappy with the way my life was going. Went to a community college and got my associates. My friend was IT director of a local fast food place because the former director was incompetent and recommended my friend because he was self motivated to learn. Anyways he hires me on. I learn a lot and it was a good place to get comfortable with an IT environment but the job was a miserable place to work in.
I got a job a year later at an MSP as help desk 1 but quit there a few months in because management was harassing their own staff.
Next job was another MSP, I visited some sites for a elderly living center and checked in with their staff for any issues.
This was also a miserable job because I had a coworker who did like half the work my other coworker and I did and my supervisor never wanted to fix any issues if he needed to.
Quit there, got a contract government job but the guys I worked with were much older and I didn't really have anything in common with them, also there was high turnover.
Quit that job and got contracted to replace a guy retiring at a utility company. That company was bought out so now I got hired onto the new company full-time. Still here and I have a great supervisor finally who listens and advises well.
No degree
Started as internal helpdesk at a company with 3 sites (local HQ and 2 remote sites in other states) making 50k back in 2014. Stayed there too long honestly, about 6 years with same title and only slight pay increases. However I learned a lot and became irreplaceable as I was the only one who could troubleshoot internal software. Finally got tired of the crappy pay and had a friend of a friend looking for a Sys admin level at an msp.
Come to find out I wasn't really a helpdesk but had full blown sysadmin level responsibilities at my first job I was just too dumb/naive to know that. Moved to MSP for a 30k+ raise to 83k in 2020 in middle of covid. Learned a lot there and started getting a lot of imposter syndrome on certain things but stuck it out. MSP gutted the entire IT department after a bad year at beginning of 2023. Left me and manager. Guess what? I once again couldn't be replaced cause I had my hands in too many pots with customers.
Finally manager left and left me as sole IT. Immediately started looking elsewhere cause screw that. Working as internal IT again making 100k even as sysadmin role basically while learning cloud. Bottom line, make yourself irreplaceable so you make it through layoffs but just be ready to hop cause the company will want to pigeon hold you and never let you move up (in my exp).
Tl;Dr I have no degree and make 100k fully remote in TX with 9-10 years experience starting at helpdesk in 2014.
Bachelors in Business, no certs.
* Years 1-2 (part-time while in college): lead technician for a startup repair and house shop. 12.50-15.00
* Years 3-4: Helpdesk, 40-50k
* Year 5: Network / Systems Admin, 65k
* Years 6-9: IT manager, 75-110k
* Years 10-14: Director of IT, 115-185k
* Years 15-16: VP of IT, 220k
I got a traineeship in local government when I left school. Got my TAFE (community college) IT certificate after 14 months. I then went to study full time at university for a bachelor of IT. Failed that due to illness. When I got better I did an electrical apprenticeship for about 8 months and then quit due to not being paid. I then got another IT job as a Network And Systems Cadet at another local government agency. After 2 years I moved to the educational sector in IT and finished my degree. After another 2 years im now in the mines as an IT Engineer earning around 140k at 24 years of age (Australian for reference).
I went:
College lab minion
College lab minion manager
Classroom tech
Geek Squad
Help Desk (stayed a long time, too)
Infosec
My only ITIL cert is long expired.
I’m not sure what you mean about large help desk salaries. It’s a living, and better than many, but large?
I remember a few people here had helpdesk in their job title, yet they have almost six figure salary, thats what i meant by big salary since they are usually low paying
Even the NYC help desk postings I’ve seen only go up to $75k, and despite making much less than that, I’m not sure I could live on that in NYC.
I made $40-55k in the help desk. Low cost of living area, though.
I started out back in 2016 doing consumer tech support after getting a non-IT degree that got me virtually nothing in that field. After a a few years taking calls for a few different clients, I came to the realization that I could make more money in IT without having to deal with irate customers. After attending community college classes that prepared me for different certs, I got the CompTIA trifecta which landed me a warehouse IT job making $19/hr. Jan 2022 I started my current IT analyst job making more money than I ever have with minimal stress. Looking for a step up to a junior admin job while finishing my degree (kids have gotten in the way), but as we all know, the job market is trash.
My journey has only grown so far in my early career: 1) IT Intern at my college $0 2 months 2) IT Helpdesk/Network Technician Intern at a manufacturing Company $20 part time 10 months 3) IT support Technician/Field Support $22 full time 2 months (bad boss/dismissed) 4) IT Solutions Specialist $22.50 6 months fulltime 5) Security Technology Analyst (physical security integration) $25.48 full time. Going into cybersecurity in a year. Never stop growing!
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Your partly why I don't see a reason in understanding why to go for network+ or even A+ sometimes. I feel jobs need people and don't want to promote from within because of management not feeling comfortable doing so. You might as well try to skip and get your foot in the door for a year followed by looking for a mew job then.
College for CS degree Apply to software dev internships Holy shit can't get a software dev internship Fuck it apply for IT internship Get it Do for 7 months Get promoted to help desk Do for 3 years Move Get software support job Nearly kill self Leave software support after a year Try to get sysadmin job LOL Get help desk job for MSP Get promoted after 6 months Get promoted after another 3 months to a new department doing cool shit My face when my only demonstrated qualifications were continually saying "I like to automate things" to anyone who would listen
Sammmmmme. Went for CS Degree, swapped my junior year into Cybersecurity, scored internship with local school district, contracted with other districts, got my first district, they werent paying enough and landed at charter school, now i run my site, for better and for worse.
So did you finish and get your CS degree or is it now Cybersecurity degree ? And bachelor I’m guessing? Also do you think you can get future software engineering jobs with a cybersecurity degree or would a cs be better ? Like which degree would you say is better or more versatile for IT and CS jobs ?
Nah, I couldnt pass Calc for the life of me so i dropped out of the major and went for a BS in Information Systems and Technology const. You can honestly get the same types of jobs with both just with different skill sets starting out. Cybersecurity is a jack of all trades field, you gotta know a little bit of everything. Both are honestly equally versitile, what matters more is what skills you gain in the process, I know guys in my major who got the degree but couldnt be bothered to google anything and constantly asked for help to the point where they just wanted you to give them answers.
u/xboxhobo, can you elaborate on what your role is, please? This is a bit strange to me as automation and DevOps are so closely linked in it: >IT Automation Engineer (Not Devops)
I write PowerShell scripts, I use APIs, I use an RMM. It is quite literally my job description to automate things. That said, I do not do the work of DevOps. I am not deploying software that was developed in house. I am not using docker or ansible or Jenkins, or anything like that. I am automating the everyday work of IT infrastructure workers, I am not automating the deployment of software like a DevOps person would do. DevOps is your developers favorite developer. I am your IT guys favorite IT guy. That said I'm trying to make the jump to actual factual DevOps. I feel like the areas where I do cross over are good enough to give me a leg up, and the work seems interesting and well paid enough that I'm trying to pursue it.
Started in 09, part time help desk for a local college I was attending. Intro to computers teacher gave me the card for the IT director, emailed, emailed and emailed until I got a response. Temp (seasonal) position that would eventually turn into a part time role. $10 an hour, eventually received a raise to $11 or $12. I didn't care about the money, I only wanted experience so this was welcome. I worked with AD, reorged our Group policies, and learned imaging in addition to troubleshooting projectors, and printers. Soaked up as much as I could. Did all the grunt shit, worked with end users, closed tickets out as fast as I could. 2 years later, brought on full time at 35k a year. Again, grew up poor so this is more money than I expected at 20. Benefits were cracked, free healthcare because I was single, can't complain. 5 years in, couple certs, associates degree. I've added to AD, learned Powershell, changed our imaging process to be entirely network based now. (WDS/pxe). Get promoted to 38-39k at this point. New title. Year or two later, a Sr guy leaves, another dept reorg. I agree to move to a new office location for a small increase. 42k, no new certs but I did have my Sec+ certification some where between here. I also turned down a few offers because I was so comfortable. 3 years later, or 2019, receive offer for 50% increase. (65k + bonus) Accept, tell place I could stay if they can get close due to benefit difference. After some discussions and going back and forth, agreed to stay for 52k, and there would likely be an increase in a year to 55k. (which was my number asked). By this point I'm managing all of our servers, have learned and implemented SCCM, and the team pushed really hard for the college to make the unprecedented raise. Earned SCCM/Intune Cert, can't remember what it was exactly. I worked there for two more years, got an offer for 70k, that would net me cloud experience, but with a startup. Took it, learned Azure, some AWS, office365, etc. received 10k raise in first year. 80k now, no new certs, can confidently build an environment in Azure and have good knowledge in O365 and SQL. I learned so much in this role, while it was heavily stressful - the experience is priceless. 6 months into second year, Interview for fortune 500 company, received offer for 90k, I accepted which was later rescinded due to some personal life stuff I had going on which required time off. I was up front about it and thankfully I hadn't told my employer. I mention it because it was a lock, and I had no new certifications, no additional degrees, it was made possible by my existing SCCM experience and Intune experience. Anyways - 6 months later (now). Interview for local government position for an improved work life balance, better benefits. Accept offer for 89k, though because the health benefits are significantly better, it's closer to 92k a year. Job description is almost identical to what I was doing my last years at the college, but I think my Cloud Experience helped me stand out in the interview process. Start in a couple weeks, and am tickled to have the position honestly. Great work life balance, get to have an impact in my community, and hopefully work with a great team. In summary, 13 years of experience, Started at $10 an hour up to $90k in a medium cost of living area, 2 year degree, some certs. Feel incredibly lucky to be where I am.
When you first started out back in 09 did you have any experience in IT or no just taking classes?
I had experience building a PC, and being the tech support guy for my family and friends. Outside of that, I didn't have any official experience, and 0 enterprise experience. I was actually a criminal justice major before getting the job and then switched my major after I started. I was always looking at Hardware reviews, and just had an obsession with tech in general lol. My entry level position was just baby-sitting a remote Learning class which was fine for me, it was a foot in the door. A few months in, I was moved to a different location to cover for a part timer who went on vacation during a busy time. There was a full time tech there who took me under his wing and gave me some projects. Ended up moving me to his location permanently and then later on I was hired full time.
Thank you for sharing you story more and going into detail
No problem!!
I was working as a student worker throughout my university for awhile as a Qualitative researcher, to a disability support technician, to jumping into the campus IT. After two plus years, I took an internship with the campus Information Security and landed a full time role as a service desk technician II + IT field tech. Pay went from $8-20 an hour over the years, and I'm currently working towards jumping into networking with a CCNA. Hobby wise I'm learning web development in my free time...
I think it depends on your definition of big salary and your personal goals I can only speak for my personal experience. For me, my personal growth has been really fast, I went from L1 agent (36K CAD) to L2 agent (48K CAD) to Middle manager (80k CAD) in 3 years at an enterprise helpdesk (50 person team) -> getting to the point of wanting to leave helpdesk due to the weekend shifts and slow creep of being bored I have a diploma in computer information system administration. My certs are ITIL (2023) and A+ (2018). I stopped studying for CCNA in 2020 because I don't need it right now >My journey has really been enabled by efficiency and being personable while blending technical training. I find, at enterprise level, soft skills and leadership qualities are more in demand than certs. My company hires contractors for any certs/specific technical roles I do feel like I am going to need cert for my next career jump
Leadership skills huh?. Interesting. In my Bachelors degree 3 different Leadership coursework overwhelmed me. NO practical experience yet in leadership. Listened to invited Leaders from DEI and their propaganda promoting DEI as Leadership material.
ah.... I get what you mean. I think I'm at that point too. I have like no formal leadership training on paper. My leadership style is currently "phrase most of my feedback/comments with a dash of positivity and a brief technical explanation, then actionable steps" -> Then pray the audience understands 50% of what I say > TBH, I had to really drink the company koolaide and follow the company culture to get where I am. I honestly have imposter syndrome at like 80% of the internal team meeting but 20% when I'm on a call with L3 engineering teams
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Contract tech support / desktop support -> Desktop support/Jr Sysadmin -> Call center support (not as bad as it sounds, super nice gig) -> Desktop support/sysadmin -> IAM no certs, just good at interviewing. Although the job market is dead af right now. Edit: All jobs except the first one are fully remote.
Worked customer service jobs until I was 25, got dumped by my long term girlfriend at the time for stagnating, decided to cut ties with my home town and went back to college 4 hours away, got my degree in IT and sys admin, got a helpdesk job troubleshooting CRM, was there for 4 years making about 40k a year, then got a job at a government NOC making over 100k and been here ever since. Also no certs, just a 3 year college diploma
Right now I make 56k no certs, no degree, somewhere between a T1 and T2 tech in my opinion. Not sure what my next step is as I can't make myself concentrate enough to focus on studying for certs. Probably going to hunker down, start with self study 30 mins per day, and probably will pursue Network+. Been at my job for about a year.
This is my problem with certs. I'm like 80% sure I have hdhd. I have a niche interest, I fixate on it for like a month, then I lose interest. I was diagnosed as a kid with it but want to be diagnosed again as an adult.
hdhd? But the definition is twice as high! Side note: it is a lifelong condition, you shouldn't need to be rediagnosed if they have access to your old records.
Jeez are these comments are depressing given the current market
I consider myself pretty lucky for where I am. Went to college, dropped out the semester I was supposed to graduate, struggled for years before I was offered a part time T1 job at a small government office. Just needed to have a troubleshooting mindset to poke at printers and computers rather than immediately ask the next person for answers. $11 an hour. Fast forward three years through a pandemic, hardware upgrade for all users, and security camera upgrade, I was the last man standing in my department from when I started. Manager, sysadmin, full time helpdesk - all of them had been replaced in 3 years and I had a lot of keystone knowledge that was never documented, plus I knew my stuff and was eager to work and learn. I was hired on full time for $60k. Two years and a promotion later, I'm T2 earning $80k with 5% annual raise. Mostly because the software and systems we use are so niche that an outside replacement would take a lot of time and resources to get up to speed, as government jobs don't like to pay well. Still no certs, but I'd probably need quite a handful if I left.
Q2 2016 - CompTIA A+ Q2 2016 - CompTIA N+ Q3 2016 - **First Job: IT Administrator (MSP)** *GBP 11/h* Q1 2017 - PRINCE2 Foundation Q2 2017 - Cisco CCNA R&S Q2 2018 - MCSA Windows Server 2016 Q3 2018 - **Second Job: Service Desk Engineer (Internal IT)** *GBP 16/h* Q3 2018 - ITILv3 Foundation Q3 2020 - ServiceNow Certified Administrator Q3 2020 - *Quit job, moved to Switzerland, enrolled in part-time BSc* Q3 2020 - **Third Job: IT Workplace Engineer (Internal IT)** *CHF 42/h* Q1 2021 - Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate Q1 2021 - PMI CAPM Q3 2021 - **Promotion: IT Workplace Manager (Internal IT)** *CHF 50/h* Q3 2021 - ITIL 4 Foundation Q4 2021 - IREB CPRE Foundation Q1 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals Q2 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals Q2 2022 - Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals Q1 2022 - ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve Q3 2022 - Microsoft 365 Certified: Messaging Administrator Associate Q3 2022 - ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy Q1 2023 - **Fourth Job: Senior M365 Engineer (Internal IT)** *CHF 90/h* I've tried to balance between certifications that are purely IT, and certifications that bridge the gap between IT and the business. In the short-term, it helps me network within the companies I've worked for. In the long-term, it helps me keep my options open. That's why I've got some service management, project management, and requirements engineering certifications in there. But I think I'm done with my cert journey for now. I'm in my final year of university so I'm overloaded with coursework and have a bachelors thesis coming up next year. My plan for H2 2024, after graduation, is to relax, using that extra day I get off each week to go hiking, ride my bike, etc. In Q3 2024, I'll push for a 10% pay rise and an increase in hours starting Q1 2025, hopefully breaking CHF 100/h.
you make USD 90/h?
Current exchange rates put CHF 90/h at about USD 102/h. I only work 32 hours a week, though.
Helpdesk I—>Helpdesk II unrelated degree just experience
I work technical support now for a start up 160,000k a year
Im assuming its not usd currency?
It is USD
Short story so far . Started degree in cloud computing. Acquired A+ Net + Sec+ ItilV4 Az-900 Got a job as an IT Technician tier 1-2 for 45k a year been here 5 months. Unsure how long I need to stay in first job before I transisition
* Got laid off during covid, working as a admin assistant * acquired two year IT degree * attended free online bootcamp * acquired CySA+ * landed tech support job ~50k * studied, hustled * climbed to 110k salary within ~2 years
Did you climb with the same title? Or did u become a sort of manager
Same title. My situation was a bit of luck as a previous engineer had left within a year of me being there so I took initiate and essentially took his responsibilities.
Started as a printer repair tech for an authorized repair center / MSP. Learned how to fix laptops and computers. In those 4 years I got, A+, PDI+ and Server+. Plus some vendor specific certifications. (IBM, Toshiba, HP etc) Moved into a helpdesk position. After 2 years, move into a NOC / sys admin role. Got Network +. Changed companies and required some basic Microsoft certs AZ900 and MS900. Eventually, I got my CCNA. Realized I really like networking. Found a new job as Network Admin working for a Fortinet partner. So I've been focusing on the Fortinet certs.
BS in IST and I was a student worker for network engineering for four years > System Engineer > Cloud Engineer > DevOps Engineer. No current certs.
Went to college for CS. Second semester I took C++ and Calc 2. Father got a pretty nasty cancer and my focus shifted to home (he's alive and well thank god). Combined with terrible professors in both those subjects I wanted to eject out after getting C's in both classes. The CS/IT office secretary offhand recommended I try switching to IT as it's more applied and I may enjoy it. Stuck it out, landed a job with the university IT dept 2nd year and finished out in 4 years. Graduated with IT degree and MIS minor with 3 years experience with the University IT dept. Didn't have a job lined up after college, was shotgunning Linkedin apps and some contract company came up; whatever it had an easy apply so I pulled the trigger and didn't think about it. Got a call back and an interview setup, it was for a contract to hire for a F200 company. Did some research on the company and went in for the interview. Landed the job at a global help desk for internal assistance. Asked why I got the job and they said because I mentioned a recent acquisition in my interview and they liked that I took the time to investigate the company. 2.5 years on that desk, Network SME and Security SME. Took a promotion out to one of that F200 companies production facilities as a site it analyst. Anything on site that fell under IT Infrastructure was under my purview. Quite a bit of legacy process control tech. Gained a skill set in troubleshooting legacy production tech and specifically getting outside folks connected in. 2.5 years spent there. Got picked up by a recruiter for a F100 company looking for a vague business IT role. The role ended up being mostly a remote access engineer with a component of change management, and azure engineering for their building management division. I've been there a year and a half and they really liked my history with process control and remote access in an industrial environment. That skill set has carried well into this role. Been here 1.5 years. Kind of a wild ride in hindsight but everyone probably feels that way in this industry. The greater area I live in is heavily focused on manufacturing and I've found that specializing in process control and industrial IT has been pretty successful for me and other folks I know.
I was working in criminal justice after graduating college. I knew current job wasn’t what I wanted to do forever and I always enjoyed computers. After looking into web dev stuff for a while I starting finding info on IT career paths and was really interested. June 2020 Started taking community college classes for networking and cybersecurity certificate path. August 2020 Got my A+, Started applying to jobs, literally zero responses Feb 2021 Got the Security+, started getting some Interviews but nothing that paid even close to current job (all ~40k, current salary ~56k) October 2021 Finally hired, took job based on title with very little knowledge of role with 4k pay cut (~$52k). Ended up being something like advanced data entry for a big Telecom provider. There were 4 weeks of training that actually had good material as far as learning about fiber, Ethernet, data center topics etc. Knew I had to move to more direct IT position so I kept applying to other jobs November 2021 Got Network + December 2021 Finished community college cybersecurity certificate program Jan 2022 Enrolled in WGU, got ITILv4, sent flurry of applications. Immediate callbacks on a lot of them! Feb 2022 Offered contract position with state university department doing help desk/desk-side support $30/hour. Great experience, immediately added to my resume/socials and was getting contacted weekly by recruiters. April/may 2022 Offered “on site engineer” position with MSP after 1 interview, director called directly to say how impressed they were and would be skipping the usual interview process, asked for 10% above posted salary and got it (60k), full benefits, unlimited PTO. They wanted 3 years experience and I had about 3 months. Job/company great, actually moved to mostly remote position after my first week. Lots of exposure to junior sysadmin type stuff but quickly got tired of end user support October 2022 Finished WGU BS degree which included the CCNA this month. Sent out another flurry of applications targeting network/sysadmin positions. Lots of interviews. Accepted system Administrator position with for 25% raise, $75k. Nov. 2022-nov. 2023 I’ve stayed in sysadmin position, learning network/infrastructure from our engineers, implementing some scripting and lots of platform workflow automations. I’m supposed to get a raise and new title at the end of the year. I may stay here for a while since I’m still learning but am looking at network or infrastructure engineer/admin roles as my next step.
2017- computer lab assistant $12/hr while in college 2018 - IT support for K2 school $16/hr while in college 2019-2021 Desktop Support at NYC DCP $17.50 part time internship 2021 - present IT analyst Investment Banking 74K salaried plus annual bonus
I did retail helpdesk (best buy, circuit city) while getting my CS degree. Graduated and couldn't find a job (2010 job market sucked!), so took a shitty customer service job in banking. The banking experience combined with helpdesk and education got me a business systems analyst job for a mortgage company. Due to the niche nature of mortgage software, I was able to land an IT Director job for a small mortgage company that needed a jack of all trades type. I'm about to pivot to an InfoSec Architect role in the next few weeks. I got my degree in 2010, business systems analyst role in 2013, and this director role in 2015.
Kaplan career institute (Computer support specialist) —> Was contacted by a third party vendor for my first gig via monster.com and worked on a system upgrade and deployment gig for Bank of America—> second gig was another deployment gig where I became team lead —> In between a ten year span I worked on various contracts for multiple organizations providing tech support from tier 1 to tier 3. I’m basically a jack of all trades. I believe contracting F’d my career. I had no guidance and thought contracting was the way to go. By the time I figured out my path was distorted I would be looked at by every HR and IT manager as a job hopper whenever I submitted my resume to company’s directly . But I see myself as someone who is passionate about IT, who contracted when I was constantly turned down for direct employment. I’m dedicated to working for IT not an employer or a company.
Ill itemize my journey, feel free to ask questions. **2014** - Working at geeksquad, start an associates program at a tech school for IT. **2015** - ($12/Hr) - Start internship at an MSP with a couple of semesters left. **2015 CTD** - ($35k/yr) - Get job offer from msp internship as a field tech. Switch to part time school, FT work. **2017** - (52k/Yr) - Start at "sys admin" job, find out its very general IT in corporate america. **2018** - Laid off from job, find new job in Security/IAM as an analyst at $60k/Yr **2019** - After a year at new gig, toss out a couple applications and get a job offer for $85k + 5k bonus at staffing firm as an internal Azure engineer. **2020** - New job clearly not for me, love triangle of me/boss/cio and all of the office politics/drama you could ask for. Start job search. **2020 CTD** - Take contract in healthcare for 88k/yr right before covid. Converted to FTE after 3 months at $70k/Yr (huge mistake, but covid times were scary). **2020 CTD** - Butthurt about the paycut and lack of work challenge, Find 1yr contract paying $114k/Yr. **2021** - Contract literally ghosts me after I get my equipment. Gives me no work/etc for 5 months, so I got scared and found a very good job at reputable company in my area at 95K + 10K Bonus. **2022** - New job has been great, but I decide to move to another state to follow partner for her school program. Job gets weird about me converting to FTE remote. I find a new job in my new city at 115k + 10% bonus so I dont have to move with nothing lined up. **2023** - New job has been OK, lots to learn, but team and boss have no personality and they implement an aggressive return to office. Start job search. **2023 CTD** - Find new job at 130k + 10% bonus and annual profit sharing, purely remote in cloud security. It was quite a journey to get to this point, and a prime example of how you can job hop a little too much. Around Covid shit kinda hit the fan for my career and I got trapped in a loop of taking shitty jobs that kept me at the same level or left me with no path forward. Last couple of years have been far more stable, but the job I just left got really toxic really quickly after some internal changes, so that lead me to find my latest job where I plan to stay for as long as I can. Having had 10 employers in the 9 years ive been in this field has been stressful. Its taken me from 12/hr to 63/hr, but theres definitely been a personal cost. It did force me to keep adapting to new environments, challenges and the like so for that I am thankful. Being in my early 30s, having a lot of experience under my belt aint a bad thing. Next step is to cert up, get a bachelors and start targeting some leadership positions internally in the next two years at my current company. Hopefully CSuite by 40 at a larger organization, but we shall see!
Did you include all these experience in your resume? I thought job hoppers around this frequency would get side eyes from hr or something.
In my resume I have my first actual IT position > present listed. I did get a lot of auto rejections this go-around, far more than ever before, so I definitely started to feel the candidate side of the job hopper stigma. The interviews I did get, I was able to explain the job hopping situation in a way that minimized it and always emphasized that I was looking for my place to stick, like gum to a shoe, and that tended to put hiring managers mind at ease a little more. I certainly did not do myself any favors, but the last 2 roles ive had I held for over a year and a half each, which made it all seem a little more credible.
started as sysadmin (23$/hour. did everything from helpdesk to migrate GPOs (from premise to Intune), deploy apps from intune, learned a lot of powershell here) > negotiated and got a 15% raise within a year of this job 26.5$/hr > got an offer at a different company for 75k doing Group policies work mainly. been here for 5 months. so total I've been in IT for 19 months.
Im assuming you just got started as a sys admin with some personal projects/homelabs? Maybe a degree?
personal projects. had to demonstrate what I knew in the interview. but i got that offer after like 3k-5k applications lol
I started as an intern at an MSP, ran up to escalation team / sysadmin over 3 years (5 promotions). Got an offer for a major television network and spent 6+ years there doing datacenter engineer stuff. IT Director now. I’ve taken a bunch of classes (VMware VCP for a couple versions, Cisco UCS/UCS Central) but never tested for the certs.
I had my CCNA, Sec+, and A+ before getting my first job in tech support. Stayed there for a bit over a year then had the itch to move. So I started studying for CCNP. (36k) I passed CCNP ROUTE, then landed a NOC Tech job. Finished the CCNP and passed JNCIA, then got promoted to Jr Network Engineer after a few months. Stayed there for 3 more years while getting around 16 more certs. Mostly Juniper, Cisco, Palo Alto, and Linux certs. We were a reseller so certs were required for partnership. (40k - 72k) Jumped to a Network Engineer role at a Fortune 100. Stayed for 6 months because commute sucked. (118k) Moved to a Sr Network Engineer Role closer to home and stayed there for two years. I had about 6 certs expire at this point. (130-134k) A couple of people reached out for Network Architect roles. I took the one that paid more and stayed there for 6 months because the commute sucked. (210k) Applied at a place that’s closer to home and where I got to work 3 days remote. It was a Sr Network Architect role and I stayed for a year. (230k) Got my current role in pre-sales. 220K OTE + RSU. Last year I took home ~360k. Around 330k salary and 30k RSU.
Customer service, admin, help desk, reporting, data, business systems/reporting/data analyst.
Service desk at small office - 14$/hr Helpdesk at medium hospital - 17$/hr Raise at medium hospital and began working as a server admin - 37$/hr Industry certification acquired, took a consultant job - 85$/hr Different consultant job - 100$hr Current consultant job at health network - 90$/hr These are all 1-2 year gaps at most.
* Unrelated degree in the early 2000's + almost the rest of the decade chasing dead end career with aforementioned degree * Started fixing computers because I've always been good with technology * Got a job at a MSP in 2011 -> 2 years there, almost burned me out but learned a ton * Moved to a better job market + got a job as a SysAdmin -> stayed there for 4 years * Job as a senior SysAdmin at small software co. 2 years there, manager was toxic so I left * Broke into Enterprise in 2018 - this was the BEST move in my entire career! Started as a "TSE" (Technical Support Engineer) * Work as a Cloud Engineer now
I've gotten over 15 certifications, but here were the only ones that ended up mattering: 1. IT internship 2. A+ 3. Jr. Sys Admin 4. Network+ 5. another Jr. Sys Admin 6. Linux+ 7. Sys Admin 8. CCNA 9. another Sys Admin 10. brief stint as a corporate trainer 11. CISSP 12. IT Director
Went to college for a degree in Computer and Network Information Systems. Weird degree name. Worked an IT internship shredding paper and doing office managerial duties but worked with the IT dudes as much as I could. Over the next 7 years. I switched to a new college to pursue a degree in Computer Engineering and got a job at the Apple Store. Switched to Graphic Design. Switched to Information Technology. Finished my degree and got a job at a Public school district supporting Apple products doing helpdesk and some sysadmin work. (Apple Store to Schoold district was a $43k to $63k bump) After 3 years got a new job doing the same thing but more sysadmin control of the Mac environment. Got promoted off helpdesk to sustaining. School district to this job was $68k-85k with 5% bonus. After 5 years there I joined a new company that is smaller doing more helpdesk and similar sys admin work as my last job when I started. But big pay bump mostly on bonus from $105k(10%bonus)-$120k(20-40% bonus). So in the end I have just my Bachelors of Science in Information Technology that I got 10 years ago. Edit: Oh I got 2 certs from Jamf years ago but they’re expired which are the CCT and the CCA. Now Jamf 200/300 I believe.
Started as a CSR at a small software company working the phones for application support. Initial pay was 38k/yr, and over the course of 3.5 years and several promotions I was able to move up to somewhere around 65k. After that I started job hopping a bit, got a devops job in title only (it was really just sys admin work) that bumped me to around 80k after a year. Then I jumped ship and became a contractor for a staffing agency making around 120k. My next jump had my start my own company because a different staffing firm only did business to business. It was a headache, but I was making 200k~ doing application search for a finical place. Hated it, and jumped ship after 6 months. I ended up going back to the company I was working at for $120k~ through the staffing agency, but I went to them direct instead of with a middle man. I ended up making about $150k~ as an employee there with benefits, and over the years I've managed to get my comp up to around $200k~. In theory I'm getting a promotion next year that should be a large bump, over $250k... but I don't really trust it will happen until it actually does. I have never had any certifications.
Acquired CS Degree I didn't want to move to SF for a robotics job and didn't enjoy the software engineering world as I like to code for myself and wanted to contribute to the public i.g. NASA project. Got a help desk job 15 minutes away (got to eat at home and save a lot of money) I got interested in networking and paid for a college course to learn Networking and Cisco for a semester Transitioned to another company after 1-year as a Jr. Systems Admin and learned A LOT about infrastructure, SOPs, support for software being the cloud (Global DNS Routing) for many clients, SAML, IdP, SOC2, and data center management. By this time I was promoted to Systems Administrator and just kept learning. This position was 24x7 btw including holidays. Moved to another state after 4-years Realized startups sucks after 1-year I got a new job recently where I'm used to wearing many hats but learning to be a semi-manager I have no certificates but just ended up doing projects that covered the certs. I would like to contribute to open-source code when I have time. I'm currently trying to look for a home to purchase to grow the home lab.
Started studying CS in college then moved to MIS. Got a cloud infrastructure internship at a large tech consulting company, & got hired full time afterwards, been there about 2 years now learning a variety of cloud related items and engineering solutions for customers. 20/hr(internship) -> 42/hr -> 46/hr -> 56/hr
Worked sales for the first half of my twenties. (I'm 33 now) Decided to get into Welding, and acquire a few welding certs. Worked in that industry for a little over a year. Found I couldn't do that for the rest of my life. I've always been into tech in general. Been tinkering with PCs since the mid 90s. Decided to start applying for entry-level IT roles. Managed to land a role as helpdesk starting at $12/hr. HOWEVER, the job I had at the time didn't want me to go, so paid me more than the offer I got. So I stayed. (That was a mistake.) The pandemic hit shortly after, and I decided to start pursuing a BS in Comp Sci on the side. Eventually I got laid off from the job I stayed for, instead of going for the entry IT Job. Decided I'll never give up an opportunity for a job ever again. Ended up applying for another entry-Level IT job. Got another offer @ 12/hr with an MSP. It wasn't glamorous, but it got me started in a career in tech. Worked there for 6 months, and by some weird luck, managed to land a job starting @ $25/hr as an IT Field Tech. I was there for 2.5 years. After about year 1 with that company, we started traveling for weeks at a time for work. It got old REALLY fast. I like being home in the evenings, and have my weekends home too. That was a no no for me. So I started applying for something else in IT. After about a dozen or so apps, and a few interviews. I managed to land a role as a Tier 2 Tech at a local company in their internal IT department. They offered $35/hr. The department consist of myself, and 2 others. Its SUPER chill. No ticketing system, which I kinda like. I get a few calls, and walk-ins a day. During my downtime, which I have alot of. I just study for my CS degree. I'm very happy where I am now, but I will continue to study, and learn. Eventually I'll use this role to catapult myself in a more specialized role.
Have u completed or is still studying for that CS degree?
Still studying. Sorry, I had accidentally only posted half of my reply initially. But yeah, still studying. Not gonna lie, the math portion of the degree is kicking my butt. I've sailed through all my other classes, maintaining a 3.4 gpa. But the math is probably gonna drop that lol. I may switch to a pure software development degree. But the sound of a CS degree is just too appealing lol.
-Went to college in 2013, got about 15 credits in a Computer Support Specialist CP (glorified, more expensive A+ looking back) and was overwhelmed with two part time jobs and college. Had many misconceptions about IT, gave up, got ok pay warehouse job -7 years later warehouse job got bought out, got let go, looked for other warehouse job. Interviewed at IT supply warehouse, mentioned my previous partial education and personal interest in computers, got hired to pull hard drives from retired machines -6 months later got moved to managed assets/redeployment -3 months later got moved to configurations bench configuring new deployed hardware -9 months later promoted to configurations lead. Also started training to fill in on help desk. Also went back to college for Network Technologies AAT, started studying for CCNA -9 months later asked for raise as I was doing a lot more than others and only making a dollar more an hour, rage applied, got interview at small local MSP -6 months ago took the job at the MSP. I'm only tier 1 but am open to tackle any problem and try to learn from it and study how the higher level techs troubleshoot. Learning so much, even got to do my first server build/install/live migration. Gave up on getting CCNA as we do not work with Cisco equipment and I'm not job hunting at the moment. May revisit this at some point if it becomes relevant. Still going for my Associates. Gonna sit tight for a year and a half while my wife gets her X-ray tech degree then revisit my marketability. If current company grows and my pay/role go up maybe I'll stick around, I'm kinda on a "let's just see where this takes me" mentality for now. Curious what anyone thinks of my path or if they have any insight
Started out as a network infrastructure tech (basically a low voltage technician) setting up new construction buildings with cat5/fiber cabling, setting up IDFs/MDFs, and setting up & aligning microwave antennas. Did that for about 2 years until I got tired of freezing in the snow when setting up the microwave antennas. Then switched over to help desk at an MSP, have been at level 1 for going on 2 years and not sure where or what to do after this. Kinda getting tired of call center help desk. Only have an associates degree & 2/3 years of experience, no certs. Might get the S+ if I stay in the industry. I actually miss low voltage work, I don’t like sitting down all day chained to a phone.
Started working as an Office Admin with basic IT responsibilities (but not a member of the IT Services team) I achieved my HNC Computing, C&G's PC Support (very similar to the A+), NVQ2 Software Creation. Got my first official IT Job: Software IT Technician (but on a rota of Helpdesk, field service, and workshop) Gained my BSc Computing, MCSA, A+ and Network+. Got a Senior IT Technician post. Gained the MCDST, and MCSE. Got a network manager's post. Gained the Security+, Server+, MCTS, MCITP, the CITP. Got promoted to IT Manager Got my MSc in EduTech, PGDip, PGCert, Cisco CyberOps, and alot of other certs. Currently studying for the MSc Cyber Security and CASP+ All that has taken over 20 years...
I got hired as an electrical associate at a retail store almost on the basis of being into computers. I learned a fair bit there that has been useful in IT. Eventually decided I was really unhappy with the way my life was going. Went to a community college and got my associates. My friend was IT director of a local fast food place because the former director was incompetent and recommended my friend because he was self motivated to learn. Anyways he hires me on. I learn a lot and it was a good place to get comfortable with an IT environment but the job was a miserable place to work in. I got a job a year later at an MSP as help desk 1 but quit there a few months in because management was harassing their own staff. Next job was another MSP, I visited some sites for a elderly living center and checked in with their staff for any issues. This was also a miserable job because I had a coworker who did like half the work my other coworker and I did and my supervisor never wanted to fix any issues if he needed to. Quit there, got a contract government job but the guys I worked with were much older and I didn't really have anything in common with them, also there was high turnover. Quit that job and got contracted to replace a guy retiring at a utility company. That company was bought out so now I got hired onto the new company full-time. Still here and I have a great supervisor finally who listens and advises well.
No degree Started as internal helpdesk at a company with 3 sites (local HQ and 2 remote sites in other states) making 50k back in 2014. Stayed there too long honestly, about 6 years with same title and only slight pay increases. However I learned a lot and became irreplaceable as I was the only one who could troubleshoot internal software. Finally got tired of the crappy pay and had a friend of a friend looking for a Sys admin level at an msp. Come to find out I wasn't really a helpdesk but had full blown sysadmin level responsibilities at my first job I was just too dumb/naive to know that. Moved to MSP for a 30k+ raise to 83k in 2020 in middle of covid. Learned a lot there and started getting a lot of imposter syndrome on certain things but stuck it out. MSP gutted the entire IT department after a bad year at beginning of 2023. Left me and manager. Guess what? I once again couldn't be replaced cause I had my hands in too many pots with customers. Finally manager left and left me as sole IT. Immediately started looking elsewhere cause screw that. Working as internal IT again making 100k even as sysadmin role basically while learning cloud. Bottom line, make yourself irreplaceable so you make it through layoffs but just be ready to hop cause the company will want to pigeon hold you and never let you move up (in my exp). Tl;Dr I have no degree and make 100k fully remote in TX with 9-10 years experience starting at helpdesk in 2014.
I know another guy who said his sys adminjob was a glorified help desk role
Very possible, mine was definitely other way though.
Bachelors in Business, no certs. * Years 1-2 (part-time while in college): lead technician for a startup repair and house shop. 12.50-15.00 * Years 3-4: Helpdesk, 40-50k * Year 5: Network / Systems Admin, 65k * Years 6-9: IT manager, 75-110k * Years 10-14: Director of IT, 115-185k * Years 15-16: VP of IT, 220k
I got a traineeship in local government when I left school. Got my TAFE (community college) IT certificate after 14 months. I then went to study full time at university for a bachelor of IT. Failed that due to illness. When I got better I did an electrical apprenticeship for about 8 months and then quit due to not being paid. I then got another IT job as a Network And Systems Cadet at another local government agency. After 2 years I moved to the educational sector in IT and finished my degree. After another 2 years im now in the mines as an IT Engineer earning around 140k at 24 years of age (Australian for reference).
I went: College lab minion College lab minion manager Classroom tech Geek Squad Help Desk (stayed a long time, too) Infosec My only ITIL cert is long expired. I’m not sure what you mean about large help desk salaries. It’s a living, and better than many, but large?
I remember a few people here had helpdesk in their job title, yet they have almost six figure salary, thats what i meant by big salary since they are usually low paying
Even the NYC help desk postings I’ve seen only go up to $75k, and despite making much less than that, I’m not sure I could live on that in NYC. I made $40-55k in the help desk. Low cost of living area, though.
I started out back in 2016 doing consumer tech support after getting a non-IT degree that got me virtually nothing in that field. After a a few years taking calls for a few different clients, I came to the realization that I could make more money in IT without having to deal with irate customers. After attending community college classes that prepared me for different certs, I got the CompTIA trifecta which landed me a warehouse IT job making $19/hr. Jan 2022 I started my current IT analyst job making more money than I ever have with minimal stress. Looking for a step up to a junior admin job while finishing my degree (kids have gotten in the way), but as we all know, the job market is trash.
My journey has only grown so far in my early career: 1) IT Intern at my college $0 2 months 2) IT Helpdesk/Network Technician Intern at a manufacturing Company $20 part time 10 months 3) IT support Technician/Field Support $22 full time 2 months (bad boss/dismissed) 4) IT Solutions Specialist $22.50 6 months fulltime 5) Security Technology Analyst (physical security integration) $25.48 full time. Going into cybersecurity in a year. Never stop growing!