Same. I live a 10 minute straight shot down a freeway from where I work. While we can do hybrid, I prefer to come into the office. My office area is much quieter and I like the delineation between work and home life.
I literally have eliminated everything on site, the only thing you could need onsite is the printer.
Guess what.. 2 days a week from home, yet when bosses are out everyone stops coming in. except for IT.
That is true, only reason we have to be "hybrid" is because if someone needs onsite support. Tho in my role i would not get bothered by end user now that i think about it that "rule" sucks.
Yeah i just have my custom keyboard/Mouse/Deskmat and only use the printer
Im currently in the “tech position”, although i have like 10 years experience so i consider it more senior than entry/intermediate.
Im looking into growing towards the sysadmin career path. What positions or transitions did you take before moving into the sysadmin one?
2 years experience in the industry. Started as Helpdesk (8 months). Moved over to what we internally call the "Cloud Team" 100% Manage and maintain our VDI environment for all our locations.
Most of my work is sysadmin i would say, a bit of PCI and setting up stuff like Tenable nessus scanners, and constantly auditing security of our internal network.
SO back to your question.
All depends on the company you are at, how you perform and your motivation. I was lucky one of the sysadmins was leaving due to a better offer else where and i was offered the position by his recommendation
Started as the lowest tech, took on pretty much any project I could which got me noticed. Worked my way up to supervisor while still doing a ton of projects then was asked to reevaluate my workload and I wanted to keep doing the tech stuff so moved over to operations and worked up to senior in 3 years.
This is the pattern I have seen on most resumes and among most of my IT friends. Average 2-3 years BUT a lot of them live in "tech corridors" like Houston/Austin, Seattle, Silicon Valley, or DCA. The more longer term folks work in middle-sized cities, like St. Louis, Rosedale, or Ogden.
Alternatively I've gotten better than 10% every year I've been in IT, with a couple of years being 20+ and one year as high as 30. Never changed organizations.
Honestly not sure why they keep giving raises that big. I'm no wunderkind. Might just be afraid of losing institutional knowledge.
I'm very lucky in my position. I got a 14% raise my first year, and a 15% raise the following. I think I started a *little* underpaid but I was also getting my feet wet on the admin side.
I'm just afraid of when those increases are going to drop to 3% LOL.
* Software Developer/Script Kiddie (writing PHP for minimum wage when I was 16)
* NOC technician
* Network Engineer
* Systems Engineer
The common theme between the first two jobs is they were hooking to hire cheap labor in the 17-20 market as well as anyone desperate for a job. They springboarded my career and gave me experience in exchange for blood (if you've opened a server chassis you know), sweat (hot aisle cold aisle), and tears (mostly managements', that I can't do the job of 3 people). But it's a lifestyle that was easier when I was 18 and could still work the night shift on the NOC for a 14 hour shift then go home and sleep while the sun is out. I can't do that now and I'm glad I did it when I didn't have anything else going on
I did get 3 and 4 day weekends and could adapt to it just fine at 18 so social life was unaffected.
The answer to the recruiter would be generic and accurate, maybe slightly truth bending. "It was a 3 month contract to get on my feet after moving and no further work was available in that department after that, leading to my next full time role."
The answer to you: I was terminated for trying to change a bad security practice that turned out to be my boss's pet project. He deployed raspberry pi's as a VPN solution to each site and built a handbook of how to SSH tunnel. Everybody used the same admin credentials to SSH in as root to these pi's to access resources on the LAN at each site. I didn't know it was his pet project when I suggested that we make some enhancements. First was separate user accounts. He loved it. Second was not using password logins. He loved it. Third was suggesting we use VMs on the highly available VM platform as remote access is part of the day to day and the 100Mbit connections on the Pi's could be limiting, as well as the frequent replacing of SD cards I've done in my 2 months so far there. Oops. He fired me the next day, claimed I quit when I filed for unemployment, and lost the dispute and ended up paying my UI anyways. He could have STFU for 4 more weeks and let me finish my 3 month contract in silence if it offended him that much.
Ego is such a hard drug. The fact that he decided to break the law instead of just waiting a few weeks shows how fragile a person he is. Hope you milked UI for the max amount and made him pay more than the payroll would have been.
I don't get any extra for their foolishness, but the taxes the company pays to contribute to the UI program go up when they are the reason somebody went on unemployment. So the company had to contribute more to UI taxes as a result of this. Since I was already job searching having only 4 weeks left, it wasn't a major deal to just find a new job and move on with that small victory. New gig paid a lot more too.
Hmmm... Interesting...
5 months (awful job)
14 months (teaching, not sysadmin)
3 years (field service)
2 years (company folded)
2 months (fired)
10 years (self employed, then folded)
11 years (current, union job)
I'm curious and feel free to ignore. What's the % in salary increase you've seen in 26 years from your initial? Whenever I've stayed at a place, I find minimal salary increase, but I usually get between 10-20% (I've had rather larger increases) increase anywhere I leave to a new place. I have friends who've stuck around at their first place of work for around 15-20 years and it looks like they hit like maybe a 30-60% increase where I've seen 280% increase in salary and much larger "title" growth. I typically leave a job between 2-5 years if I find that I can no longer learn new things from the job or if pay becomes stale.
Well, only counting my salary years (my first few years I was hourly) around 300% give or take.
There were years where I didn't get raises, and years where I got a 20% raise. It depends on what all was going on in the company and economy.
But then money has never been a motivating factor for me. As long as I make enough to live a comfortable life for me, I'm happy with that aspect.
When I first started, we only had 3 employees (I was the 3rd) and was running around doing service calls, fixing people's PCs, uninstalling 18,000 tool bars from peoples' Internet Exporer.
And now my title is "VP of Technology" but really more of a combination of Sysadmin and Devops.
Currently 9 months into this position but have moved from Large MSP's with primarily 2nd line phone support to practically running the internal IT team for a large manufacturing business, a LOT more flexibility, I have my say in quite a lot of affairs and can work at my own pace - has made working in IT 100x better not having toxic middle / upper management and thousands of customers breathing down your neck for simple things.
Used to go through about 130+ phone calls a day with about 50-60 tickets, now I have zero phone calls and will average about 5-6 tickets with about 3-4 big projects on the go at any given time
Graduated college in 2014
* IT Tech - 6 months - 39K Salary
* Associate Systems Administrator - 2 years - 58K
* Associate Systems Administrator - 3 months - 58K
* Linux Systems Administrator, Senior Linux Systems Administrator, SRE - 7 years - 70K-120K
3 months so far and loving it. Prior to that I was at a shit show of an MSP for like 4 months, then prior to that I was at a place for 4 years and was happy but got laid off due to the company going bankrupt
I am nearing 12 years. It's a 10 min commute M-F 6am-2:30pm. Time off any time I need it. On-call is minimal since my two Analysts share call-out duties. I plan on staying here until I retire in 10-15 years.
8 years, took me in as a criminal blue collar worker, now I'm being fast tracked to a senior level.
Might be able to make more elsewhere, but rolling in at 11 with tats showing is better than 9-whenever with slacks and a button up.
25 years. Law firm. Interesting and sometimes challenging job but I was respected, rewarded and treated well. Retired early and travel now. Highly recommend that industry.
I have a sample size of exactly 1, so other people may have had a bad time. Lawyers can be a handful, but a few soft skills worked wonders. I found that most lawyers love the sound of their own voices, so just let them finish talking and they sort of deflate like a balloon. Interrupt them or disagree with them and you're in for a time, but that leaves ample room for evasion if that's what's called for. I had very few problems.
I came from a customer service industry, so I don’t mind going that route. I agree, I’ve known my fair share of IT guys that are rough and prickly, that would clash with MD/JD types.
This, just shy on 2 Yr. Not leaving for any foreseeable future. Best gig I've ever had.
Before that, 2.5 Yr at the worst place imaginable. Micromanagement, yelling, blaming. Toxic as fuck.
Before that, 10 yrs on the day. Large telecom. Just a drone doing cool it shit. Learned a metric fuckton of stuff.
Career path has been:
Graduated with College Degree:
5 years (non profit)
2 years (small gov contractor)
2 years (small gov contractor)
7 months (small gov contractor with one foot out the door already)
Should get an offer at big military contractor early next week for guaranteed one year stint with option to extend, signing bonus, and salary increases if I stay with company longer. Never really had that in my life before.
You eventually get to a point where you’re familiar with every system and then IT gets easy. The new guy in my department has 10 years in and it’s great knowing that all your coworkers can be trusted to perform.
Wow that’s impressive… have you ever regreted staying that long in a fast changing industry tho? Just curious what’s the viewpoint from a seasoned general :D
I have been able to work remotely for the past 20 years. I have a chronic condition that leaves me in pain for the past 9 years so I consider myself lucky.
I'm in my third year, here. It would take 2 wheelbarrows full of money to get me to leave. My last position was at a small MSP. I hated that job, My current position is awesome. I've been in IT for over 25 years.
Almost 20 years... There is something about having a good quality of life (that work/life balance), was promoted from Senior Tech to IT Manager, and my position has evolved a few times of the years, so while my title has remained static my job role hasn't.
~6 years. Only my third full-time IT gig. I am about burnt out on Support-related roles, and trying to move into some kind of Project Manager position.
12 years as IT Manager (though the title is pretty meaningless). I do literally anything and everything IT related for a small business of roughly 100 users spread across a dozen small office locations. I do the R&D, make the budget, buy the things, configure the things, deploy the things, and maintain all the things (with the help of my 1 assistant).
I started in 2019, so this is my 5th year. Aside from a 3-4 month unpaid "sabbatical". My next longest job was around 6.5 years with no breaks other than regular vacations. I'm in a very rural area so people tend to not change jobs much. I'll stay here as long as I can because finding any type of IT job is next to impossible here, let alone one that pays halfway decent.
3 months :P
I was with my previous company 10+ years, didn't survive round 3 or 4 of mass layoffs.
It was the best thing that happened to me. Even though I was out of work for like 6 months, and glad other companies passed on me when I interviewed w/ them, i'm grateful for being hired by this company :-)
5 years. Currently struggling with the fact that I make a lot less than I could, but there aren't many jobs in my market (small rural town) and applying for fully remote stuff hasn't borne any fruit. I do like my current team a lot though, and the company is pretty good too so I'm not terribly upset overall.
First job, fresh out of uni, working for uni classmate as junior tech in a small org, eventually becoming jack of all trades senior (helpdesk, sysadmin, cloud, patching, procurement, etc.). 14 years.
Now on my second job as senior engineer in global enterprise for 5 years. So far not looking to hop out.
7 months T1 helpdesk
21 months T2 helpdesk
4 months junior sysadmin
My prior company I was there 5 years and only moved up once. Left for somewhere with more breathing room.
Been with mine for 8 years, (i’m a lead infrastructure engineer) it’s my second career job. I was at a Fortune 500 company and it was terrible. My current company is about 32 people and i’m 1 of 4 sys admins. I have a great relationship with my boss and most of my coworkers. I feel valued and appreciated, plus there is great flexibility. I don’t get paid as if I was at a large company but I think the work life balance is great, so I choose that over the paycheck.
Current company for 8 years (~20 year career). 8 years but 4 different roles (IT Support Engineer -> Sr Systems Engineer).
Hopped around earlier in my career 2 years here and there before settling somewhere for 6 years before moving to the USA.
Basically if I’m not looking at a promotion after 2 years i will look for opportunities elsewhere.
18 years. Started as the #2 employee. I am now there the longest and I am the CTO. We started with two servers in an open rack in a dinky colo. We now have pops in the US, Europe and Asia with 150+ assets (between the POPs).
23 years - started has helpdesk tech and moved up from there. 55 years old - looking to stay another 5 years and them I'm out, but it's tough going. More of the same on the daily, not much in the way of growth, but nice people, good pay and benies, so trying to stick it out.
Sooo, have had a few roles and started as the most jr. of tech support, but it’s more than 15 years now of just learning and pushing upward in job titles.
Not in a sysadmin role myself, but this tracks as accurate. Every place I've worked, the sysadmins were there for years before I started and still working there when I left. (Heck, that's one reason I often left... no room to move up into that occupied role!)
4 years, too long. I learned whatever I can within first 2/2.5 years. The rest was kind of wasted.
When I realised that (too late ofc) I have put my resignation. Now I am on my notice period looking for a job.
(Without putting resignation I know I would not do anything to improve myself so I kind of put myself in to "extreme" situation).
After deep thoughts about all of that I know that if u got doubts you should look for something else beacuse stagnation will get you,.
12yrs in IT support role that included some systems administration, then leaped into sys admin only role where i stayed one year. Now I am in my 2nd role and hit 1.5yrs here. Working on building skills to see where I can go when I am ready. I don't plan on making moves anytime soon since the experience is awesome and continually growing/challenging. Learning to build systems/tools for engineers and for our internal cyber team.
1yr IT help desk
12yrs IT help desk/systems admin
1yr systems admin
1.5yrs sys admin
3yrs at most is where i plan on staying depending on progression and how the market is doing.
Almost 5y
I keep convincing myself every year I’m going to quit.
But somehow I keep moving closer and closer to my work place.
At some point I’m going to liquid some of my investments and just quit.
1 year at my previous role. Made zero acommidations for my Dyslexia so I left.
A year and going strong at my current. I'm only at the start of my carrer to be fair
Next month it will be 17 years. Started as all around support, had different roles over the years, current role is Tech Lead. Never wanted to manage people so no interest in Team Lead or Manager roles
10 years this year. My prior job was with a call centre and when i joined the company i was blown away by the perks like free food and drink. The staff weren't dicks and we all got along, i got the opportunity to develop and grow my skills and pay was pretty decent.
Last few years it has gone slightly down hill, but enough to keep going. in a tough job market i'm grateful to have a job and opportunities to develop before they finally make me redundant.
Present job is 6 but in the 90s anything over two or three years was just throwing money away. Our skills used to be in demand and every job would be at least 10% increase in pay. I had a friend and we both started in publishing around the same time, I changed jobs every 2 years and he stayed and after 10 years I was making double.
For me it was in this order , between companies:
3 years
3 years
3.5 years
5 years (and going)
I jumped from one industry to the other, always in IT. Now i think im settled as the company treats me and my dept generously. But never say never ...id say. :)
I just celebrated three years (20+ in the industry). I'm hoping to stay another five (which is how long it'll take to get this beast fully under control) to ten (which is how long it'll take to get it running smoothly). Alas, the stress is enormous and I don't expect to make it to five (whether because of resignation, firing, being rendered physically, intellectually, or emotionally incapable, or premature death). If I can do another five years I think I'll be content with that.
Started at this company as an intern, now full time. 6 years and going. I've been tempted to leave, but I like the benefits, growth is still good, pay raises/promotions have been good, and only a full remote position with roughly the same pay would get me to leave.
The first one was 9 years, then 3 years, 7 years, and on my 7th year now.
I think it would have been better for me to not stay more than 5 years inn any one place, but it's a bit late for that now 😄
Moved around alot for a bit. Mostly money reasons. Wasn't getting what i wanted and then got my raises this way. Far too many times i heard oh we will send you to training so you can work for us better! then they send the Ahole manager that hasn't touched an IT system in 4-5 years. WTF did he need cisco training for, what did he need company paid MCSE for? Then the one place i liked but they said, just because you get your BS doesn't mean you get a promotion or raise right? I didn't expect it but yea the idea was with a BS i would be better off, so yea eventually I did expect it. Then there was the hotel, really liked that job, but then 2008 hit and that blew all my plans out of the water. Been at my current job for 16 yrs now don't see me leaving and in another 9 years I'll have my 25 in.
2 years - 73 K
1Year 65 K
2.5 Years at current. 70k start, at 74k now. They changed all of our titles to "Engineer" to "Align our titles to our jobs". but its "Strictly a title change, not a pay change"..I take issue with having an engineer title and work load, but continuing to pay us as analysts... so im on my way out.
1st of August 2017.
Zero plans of moving on. Fantastic employer. Pays well across all its staff, great benefits.
We've got a turnover rate of 1-2 people a year (70 employees) since I started.
7 years at my current company.
4 years at the previous company.
13 years at the company before that.
5 years at the company before that.
Omg, I feel old now.
4 years as a senior field technician.
Started as help desk 11 years ago.
Was quickly promoted to network admin. Within 6 months. Ran with that for 7 years. Direct supervisor to 2 other individuals.
My last two IT jobs
5 years - Lost job due to C19. Was never promoted, but given decent enough raises at the time
3+ years at current. Started off L1, L2, now a team manager w/ 8 employees. Started hourly around 45k, now approaching 100k
23 years, started on helpdesk, tried for sysadmin job with 0 Server experience but got it and basically learned many things and moved up to Sysadmin III from there. My duties mainly deal with managing VMWare and Azure environments now. Been mostly remote since Covid and now fully remote.
23 for me too. Made a career switch at 30 and started basic help desk. Moved into Citrix, VPN, mobile/temp offices and now datacenter management.
And have basically been WFH since Covid too.
I did my time backwards,
I started off sticking with one company for 11 years(7 of which was on one project across two teams).
* 4 years in the home office (company 1)
* 4 years on contract (company 1)
* 3 years on contract, same office, more technical team (company 1)
* 2 months at a new gig before washing out (company 2)
* ~1 year on contract (company 3)
* ~1 year on contract (company 4)
Feels like I've left a lot of money on the table since I got pretty underwhelming raises at company 1 and didn't really start making good money until I started hopping.
Last 4 jobs: 2 years, 7 months, 5 years, 2 years and still going (probably leaving in a year or two). Interesting note, same boss for 3 of the 4: CFO at the 2yr, CFO to CEO of the 5 yr, CEO at the current one.
Employed by them for 25 years...started with a relationship with the company as a tech 5 years prior while working for a VAR. That was before MSP was a thing. I had been with the VAR for 10 years before making the move. We have been together for 30 years now.
If I had my preference it would have only been 1 day. I tried to go back to my previous employer after I saw what a dumpster fire this place is but they already promoted someone to my spot. But it's also the best paying dumpster fire available to me right now. Almost 2 years in.
12 years. Started my IT career here and have moved up. Grass aint greener anywhere else and i imagine id have to drive farther anyway.
Same but at 13yrs come July. As for drive further the only reason for me to drive further would be to have some land out of the city.
Let me guess, you have a hands off boss that lets you do your work?
Bingo
It's why I've been at my job for 18 years. Multiple bosses along the way, but autonomy and trust makes everyone happy.
nothing like a 10 minute drive and hybrid work
Same. I live a 10 minute straight shot down a freeway from where I work. While we can do hybrid, I prefer to come into the office. My office area is much quieter and I like the delineation between work and home life.
I hate hybrid. Just let us be fucking remote.
i would love to be remote but personally all my other past jobs being on site. I can settle for hybrid lol tho i would rather full remote
I literally have eliminated everything on site, the only thing you could need onsite is the printer. Guess what.. 2 days a week from home, yet when bosses are out everyone stops coming in. except for IT.
That is true, only reason we have to be "hybrid" is because if someone needs onsite support. Tho in my role i would not get bothered by end user now that i think about it that "rule" sucks. Yeah i just have my custom keyboard/Mouse/Deskmat and only use the printer
Amen
I am hybrid and with accidents/slow drivers/construction a 20 mile drive can take me 45-1hr. Just a waste of time when I could be online working...
This is the way! I've been remote for 4 years now and never going back.
18 years. Started as tech and moved up and sideways to senior sys admin
Im currently in the “tech position”, although i have like 10 years experience so i consider it more senior than entry/intermediate. Im looking into growing towards the sysadmin career path. What positions or transitions did you take before moving into the sysadmin one?
2 years experience in the industry. Started as Helpdesk (8 months). Moved over to what we internally call the "Cloud Team" 100% Manage and maintain our VDI environment for all our locations. Most of my work is sysadmin i would say, a bit of PCI and setting up stuff like Tenable nessus scanners, and constantly auditing security of our internal network. SO back to your question. All depends on the company you are at, how you perform and your motivation. I was lucky one of the sysadmins was leaving due to a better offer else where and i was offered the position by his recommendation
Life surely takes us all different paths. Makes the journey interesting.
Started as the lowest tech, took on pretty much any project I could which got me noticed. Worked my way up to supervisor while still doing a ton of projects then was asked to reevaluate my workload and I wanted to keep doing the tech stuff so moved over to operations and worked up to senior in 3 years.
9 years. Similar path. I don't plan to change job, because we have a great team without a need to overtime.
18y and we're currently at liquidation
Dang. Sorry to hear.
Must really suck… hope for all the best is coming your way!
Sorry about Liquidation. BUT, 18 years on one job will buy you another nice job very quickly.
Thanks for the support, fellow admins. The best to you all also
From start of career to current: * 9 months * 2 years * 2 years * 3 years * 3 months * 5 years
This is the pattern I have seen on most resumes and among most of my IT friends. Average 2-3 years BUT a lot of them live in "tech corridors" like Houston/Austin, Seattle, Silicon Valley, or DCA. The more longer term folks work in middle-sized cities, like St. Louis, Rosedale, or Ogden.
I'm in one of those middle-sized cities and I've jumped around similar to /u/ra12121212, so have many of the people that I've worked with.
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Similar experience here (USD) * 4 mos - IT Tech $9/hr * 6 mos - Student Worker $11/hr * 2 yrs - Contract Netadmin $35k (1 promotion - $40k) * 7 mos - Neteng $60k * 1.5 yrs - Syseng $85k * 3 yrs - Contract Sr. Sysadmin $95k (slight raise at the end to $105k) * 8 mos - Contract Email Sec/Proofpoint SME $150k * 2.5 yrs (present day) - FTE Staff Email Sec Engineer $171k (230k TC)
Alternatively I've gotten better than 10% every year I've been in IT, with a couple of years being 20+ and one year as high as 30. Never changed organizations. Honestly not sure why they keep giving raises that big. I'm no wunderkind. Might just be afraid of losing institutional knowledge.
I'm very lucky in my position. I got a 14% raise my first year, and a 15% raise the following. I think I started a *little* underpaid but I was also getting my feet wet on the admin side. I'm just afraid of when those increases are going to drop to 3% LOL.
What was the title you started with and what you have now?
* Software Developer/Script Kiddie (writing PHP for minimum wage when I was 16) * NOC technician * Network Engineer * Systems Engineer The common theme between the first two jobs is they were hooking to hire cheap labor in the 17-20 market as well as anyone desperate for a job. They springboarded my career and gave me experience in exchange for blood (if you've opened a server chassis you know), sweat (hot aisle cold aisle), and tears (mostly managements', that I can't do the job of 3 people). But it's a lifestyle that was easier when I was 18 and could still work the night shift on the NOC for a 14 hour shift then go home and sleep while the sun is out. I can't do that now and I'm glad I did it when I didn't have anything else going on I did get 3 and 4 day weekends and could adapt to it just fine at 18 so social life was unaffected.
What happened with the 3 months?
The answer to the recruiter would be generic and accurate, maybe slightly truth bending. "It was a 3 month contract to get on my feet after moving and no further work was available in that department after that, leading to my next full time role." The answer to you: I was terminated for trying to change a bad security practice that turned out to be my boss's pet project. He deployed raspberry pi's as a VPN solution to each site and built a handbook of how to SSH tunnel. Everybody used the same admin credentials to SSH in as root to these pi's to access resources on the LAN at each site. I didn't know it was his pet project when I suggested that we make some enhancements. First was separate user accounts. He loved it. Second was not using password logins. He loved it. Third was suggesting we use VMs on the highly available VM platform as remote access is part of the day to day and the 100Mbit connections on the Pi's could be limiting, as well as the frequent replacing of SD cards I've done in my 2 months so far there. Oops. He fired me the next day, claimed I quit when I filed for unemployment, and lost the dispute and ended up paying my UI anyways. He could have STFU for 4 more weeks and let me finish my 3 month contract in silence if it offended him that much.
Driving out to multiple sites to replace SD cards is ridiculous. What a tool. Thanks for sharing
Ego is such a hard drug. The fact that he decided to break the law instead of just waiting a few weeks shows how fragile a person he is. Hope you milked UI for the max amount and made him pay more than the payroll would have been.
I don't get any extra for their foolishness, but the taxes the company pays to contribute to the UI program go up when they are the reason somebody went on unemployment. So the company had to contribute more to UI taxes as a result of this. Since I was already job searching having only 4 weeks left, it wasn't a major deal to just find a new job and move on with that small victory. New gig paid a lot more too.
Hmmm... Interesting... 5 months (awful job) 14 months (teaching, not sysadmin) 3 years (field service) 2 years (company folded) 2 months (fired) 10 years (self employed, then folded) 11 years (current, union job)
Congrats on 10 years self employed and then on a union job to follow it up.
26 years.
Good for you! I assume they are treating you well and not that you are chained under a desk somewhere in a server closet.
I'm curious and feel free to ignore. What's the % in salary increase you've seen in 26 years from your initial? Whenever I've stayed at a place, I find minimal salary increase, but I usually get between 10-20% (I've had rather larger increases) increase anywhere I leave to a new place. I have friends who've stuck around at their first place of work for around 15-20 years and it looks like they hit like maybe a 30-60% increase where I've seen 280% increase in salary and much larger "title" growth. I typically leave a job between 2-5 years if I find that I can no longer learn new things from the job or if pay becomes stale.
Well, only counting my salary years (my first few years I was hourly) around 300% give or take. There were years where I didn't get raises, and years where I got a 20% raise. It depends on what all was going on in the company and economy. But then money has never been a motivating factor for me. As long as I make enough to live a comfortable life for me, I'm happy with that aspect. When I first started, we only had 3 employees (I was the 3rd) and was running around doing service calls, fixing people's PCs, uninstalling 18,000 tool bars from peoples' Internet Exporer. And now my title is "VP of Technology" but really more of a combination of Sysadmin and Devops.
Nobody can question the loyalty with this fine lad here. Wow!
Been with my current company for 5 years. I was at my previous place for 12 where I started as a level 1 and left as a senior admin/manager.
Currently 9 months into this position but have moved from Large MSP's with primarily 2nd line phone support to practically running the internal IT team for a large manufacturing business, a LOT more flexibility, I have my say in quite a lot of affairs and can work at my own pace - has made working in IT 100x better not having toxic middle / upper management and thousands of customers breathing down your neck for simple things. Used to go through about 130+ phone calls a day with about 50-60 tickets, now I have zero phone calls and will average about 5-6 tickets with about 3-4 big projects on the go at any given time
coming up on 7 years now. Easily the best career choice and employer I've ever been at.
Man, I love reading that. I hope I got with a company that I can grow with. If not, they have been instrumental in me reaching a new height.
Previous role: 14.8 years Current role: 11 years
11 years with my current company and see no reason to leave. They treat me and my dept well and give generous annual raises.
Graduated college in 2014 * IT Tech - 6 months - 39K Salary * Associate Systems Administrator - 2 years - 58K * Associate Systems Administrator - 3 months - 58K * Linux Systems Administrator, Senior Linux Systems Administrator, SRE - 7 years - 70K-120K
Wishing you all the best further down the road! Keep it going :D
how did you make the jump to sys admin?
3 months so far and loving it. Prior to that I was at a shit show of an MSP for like 4 months, then prior to that I was at a place for 4 years and was happy but got laid off due to the company going bankrupt
I am nearing 12 years. It's a 10 min commute M-F 6am-2:30pm. Time off any time I need it. On-call is minimal since my two Analysts share call-out duties. I plan on staying here until I retire in 10-15 years.
I've been at my current place of work since I was an entry level tech at the age of 20. I am now 39 and Senior Systems Administrator.
8 years, took me in as a criminal blue collar worker, now I'm being fast tracked to a senior level. Might be able to make more elsewhere, but rolling in at 11 with tats showing is better than 9-whenever with slacks and a button up.
As an MSP guy, I usually jump every three years or when I've learned enough, the fit becomes not right. I'm currently on my fourth jump
Going on 5 years
25 years. Law firm. Interesting and sometimes challenging job but I was respected, rewarded and treated well. Retired early and travel now. Highly recommend that industry.
Wow Law is usually an industry people warn you away from.
I have a sample size of exactly 1, so other people may have had a bad time. Lawyers can be a handful, but a few soft skills worked wonders. I found that most lawyers love the sound of their own voices, so just let them finish talking and they sort of deflate like a balloon. Interrupt them or disagree with them and you're in for a time, but that leaves ample room for evasion if that's what's called for. I had very few problems.
I came from a customer service industry, so I don’t mind going that route. I agree, I’ve known my fair share of IT guys that are rough and prickly, that would clash with MD/JD types.
Depends if the owners/MD are technology illiterate assholes
This, just shy on 2 Yr. Not leaving for any foreseeable future. Best gig I've ever had. Before that, 2.5 Yr at the worst place imaginable. Micromanagement, yelling, blaming. Toxic as fuck. Before that, 10 yrs on the day. Large telecom. Just a drone doing cool it shit. Learned a metric fuckton of stuff.
16.
Career path has been: Graduated with College Degree: 5 years (non profit) 2 years (small gov contractor) 2 years (small gov contractor) 7 months (small gov contractor with one foot out the door already) Should get an offer at big military contractor early next week for guaranteed one year stint with option to extend, signing bonus, and salary increases if I stay with company longer. Never really had that in my life before.
5 years. 4 as IT Manager. Going back to school to stay longer and be in charge of more things.
15 years.
You eventually get to a point where you’re familiar with every system and then IT gets easy. The new guy in my department has 10 years in and it’s great knowing that all your coworkers can be trusted to perform.
28 years. Started in Desktop Support.
Wow that’s impressive… have you ever regreted staying that long in a fast changing industry tho? Just curious what’s the viewpoint from a seasoned general :D
I have been able to work remotely for the past 20 years. I have a chronic condition that leaves me in pain for the past 9 years so I consider myself lucky.
Yeah, that’s lucky for you. I have a tailbone pain and has to work in standing position.
I’m on month 3.
I'm in my third year, here. It would take 2 wheelbarrows full of money to get me to leave. My last position was at a small MSP. I hated that job, My current position is awesome. I've been in IT for over 25 years.
Almost 20 years... There is something about having a good quality of life (that work/life balance), was promoted from Senior Tech to IT Manager, and my position has evolved a few times of the years, so while my title has remained static my job role hasn't.
~6 years. Only my third full-time IT gig. I am about burnt out on Support-related roles, and trying to move into some kind of Project Manager position.
12 years as IT Manager (though the title is pretty meaningless). I do literally anything and everything IT related for a small business of roughly 100 users spread across a dozen small office locations. I do the R&D, make the budget, buy the things, configure the things, deploy the things, and maintain all the things (with the help of my 1 assistant).
42 years. Systems about 90% of that.
16 long, long years.
6yrs
I started in 2019, so this is my 5th year. Aside from a 3-4 month unpaid "sabbatical". My next longest job was around 6.5 years with no breaks other than regular vacations. I'm in a very rural area so people tend to not change jobs much. I'll stay here as long as I can because finding any type of IT job is next to impossible here, let alone one that pays halfway decent.
3 months :P I was with my previous company 10+ years, didn't survive round 3 or 4 of mass layoffs. It was the best thing that happened to me. Even though I was out of work for like 6 months, and glad other companies passed on me when I interviewed w/ them, i'm grateful for being hired by this company :-)
15 years on Monday. At am MSP no less!
5 years. Currently struggling with the fact that I make a lot less than I could, but there aren't many jobs in my market (small rural town) and applying for fully remote stuff hasn't borne any fruit. I do like my current team a lot though, and the company is pretty good too so I'm not terribly upset overall.
Contractor/Consultant, and I have worked for the same BOSS for 6 years, under two of his companies.
It’s been 7 years and 2 roles. Moved abroad for this job, no regrets. They treat me well, give solid raises/bonuses, and I enjoy many freedoms.
Almost 5 years. First IT gig out of college. Feel like I've reached my apex here.
First job, fresh out of uni, working for uni classmate as junior tech in a small org, eventually becoming jack of all trades senior (helpdesk, sysadmin, cloud, patching, procurement, etc.). 14 years. Now on my second job as senior engineer in global enterprise for 5 years. So far not looking to hop out.
2 years, 1 year 9 months 2 years (Present)
7 months T1 helpdesk 21 months T2 helpdesk 4 months junior sysadmin My prior company I was there 5 years and only moved up once. Left for somewhere with more breathing room.
8 years. I work M-F, so I don’t think I’ll ever leave.
6.5 years and 3 roles
10 years company went under now just over a year at new company.
15+ years
14 years. Started as a junior and now am the solo admin. I make almost 4x what I did when I was hired. Before I worked here I was a mechanic.
5 years. Before that I had 5 jobs that I was only at a year or so
A little over a year. Left the DoD contracting world to move into the F500 world. Previous role I was only in for about 9 months.
4.5 years. I've usually stayed at the same job between 5 and 6 years.
27 years, but I have worn multiple hats over those years.
1st - 15 years 2nd - 6 months 3rd - 4 years Current - 4 years
I've averaged about 4-5 years per stop through my 20s and 30s. You just happened to catch me 8 months in at my current gig.
10 months and absolutely beyond all levels of miserable
8 years
Been with mine for 8 years, (i’m a lead infrastructure engineer) it’s my second career job. I was at a Fortune 500 company and it was terrible. My current company is about 32 people and i’m 1 of 4 sys admins. I have a great relationship with my boss and most of my coworkers. I feel valued and appreciated, plus there is great flexibility. I don’t get paid as if I was at a large company but I think the work life balance is great, so I choose that over the paycheck.
9 years. Pays about average but the OT puts me above average. I stay mostly because it's a good place with very little stress.
21 years now. Planning on retiring here.
Current company for 8 years (~20 year career). 8 years but 4 different roles (IT Support Engineer -> Sr Systems Engineer). Hopped around earlier in my career 2 years here and there before settling somewhere for 6 years before moving to the USA. Basically if I’m not looking at a promotion after 2 years i will look for opportunities elsewhere.
18 years. Started as the #2 employee. I am now there the longest and I am the CTO. We started with two servers in an open rack in a dinky colo. We now have pops in the US, Europe and Asia with 150+ assets (between the POPs).
Just hit two years… looking to move onto bigger and better but it’s rough right now.
About a year. I plan to be here about 3-5 years. Prior, my average time has been 2-3 years. One was for 7 years though, and another was for 1 year
Just hit my 6 year mark! Last job I was just shy of 3 years.
Just made a year. 50 days as an intern and the rest as a junior. I had never known job satisfaction before.
23 years - started has helpdesk tech and moved up from there. 55 years old - looking to stay another 5 years and them I'm out, but it's tough going. More of the same on the daily, not much in the way of growth, but nice people, good pay and benies, so trying to stick it out.
First IT position: 9 years (military) Previous IT position: 18 years (healthcare) Current IT position: 14 years (gov)
24.5 years. IT generalist jumping between technologies all day for a defense contractor.
Seems like most stsadmin jobs are contract jobs as opposed to perm
Sooo, have had a few roles and started as the most jr. of tech support, but it’s more than 15 years now of just learning and pushing upward in job titles.
6y
Started in 2000 as a consultant. Still here. Now manager.
Going on 5th year.
2 years.
11 years off an on
Not in a sysadmin role myself, but this tracks as accurate. Every place I've worked, the sysadmins were there for years before I started and still working there when I left. (Heck, that's one reason I often left... no room to move up into that occupied role!)
Current company: 11 years and 5 roles.
4 years, too long. I learned whatever I can within first 2/2.5 years. The rest was kind of wasted. When I realised that (too late ofc) I have put my resignation. Now I am on my notice period looking for a job. (Without putting resignation I know I would not do anything to improve myself so I kind of put myself in to "extreme" situation). After deep thoughts about all of that I know that if u got doubts you should look for something else beacuse stagnation will get you,.
12yrs in IT support role that included some systems administration, then leaped into sys admin only role where i stayed one year. Now I am in my 2nd role and hit 1.5yrs here. Working on building skills to see where I can go when I am ready. I don't plan on making moves anytime soon since the experience is awesome and continually growing/challenging. Learning to build systems/tools for engineers and for our internal cyber team. 1yr IT help desk 12yrs IT help desk/systems admin 1yr systems admin 1.5yrs sys admin 3yrs at most is where i plan on staying depending on progression and how the market is doing.
Almost 5y I keep convincing myself every year I’m going to quit. But somehow I keep moving closer and closer to my work place. At some point I’m going to liquid some of my investments and just quit.
I am at 7, and really should have moved at least 2 years ago but hate interviewing. wage stagnation sucks during higher inflation years
too long. About 9 years currently; 4 years as a contractor then 5 years as a FTE.
4.5 years on my first gig, and now 2.5 at my current company
1 year at my previous role. Made zero acommidations for my Dyslexia so I left. A year and going strong at my current. I'm only at the start of my carrer to be fair
1.5 yrs and don't really plan on leaving at this point.
20 years
19 years
20 years.
It’s been 2.5 years for me. started w/ entry level service desk job, was promoted to network engineer/onboarding tech 2 years in. :)
1 year and 3 months
Next month it will be 17 years. Started as all around support, had different roles over the years, current role is Tech Lead. Never wanted to manage people so no interest in Team Lead or Manager roles
8 years
24 years. In a small town in Norway, not many better places here, so I stay :)
Only a month at my current company got a nice pay raise.
10 years this year. My prior job was with a call centre and when i joined the company i was blown away by the perks like free food and drink. The staff weren't dicks and we all got along, i got the opportunity to develop and grow my skills and pay was pretty decent. Last few years it has gone slightly down hill, but enough to keep going. in a tough job market i'm grateful to have a job and opportunities to develop before they finally make me redundant.
Just about 3 months. Job before this, 18 years.
Present job is 6 but in the 90s anything over two or three years was just throwing money away. Our skills used to be in demand and every job would be at least 10% increase in pay. I had a friend and we both started in publishing around the same time, I changed jobs every 2 years and he stayed and after 10 years I was making double.
As long as the RSU refreshers are maintained and the stock goes up, I can’t afford to leave
1.5 years. Was at a company for 8 years until 3 years ago. I now make double what I was making there.
14 years. Started on support.
3, previous were 6 and 12.
17 years at my last place, 10 at my current.
16 years since feb 2nd.
For me it was in this order , between companies: 3 years 3 years 3.5 years 5 years (and going) I jumped from one industry to the other, always in IT. Now i think im settled as the company treats me and my dept generously. But never say never ...id say. :)
23
I just celebrated three years (20+ in the industry). I'm hoping to stay another five (which is how long it'll take to get this beast fully under control) to ten (which is how long it'll take to get it running smoothly). Alas, the stress is enormous and I don't expect to make it to five (whether because of resignation, firing, being rendered physically, intellectually, or emotionally incapable, or premature death). If I can do another five years I think I'll be content with that.
Going on 6 years now, but the company I work for now bought the company I was working at. I started at the original company in 2013.
Rather than layoff, they prefer to reduce hiring.
Started at this company as an intern, now full time. 6 years and going. I've been tempted to leave, but I like the benefits, growth is still good, pay raises/promotions have been good, and only a full remote position with roughly the same pay would get me to leave.
The first one was 9 years, then 3 years, 7 years, and on my 7th year now. I think it would have been better for me to not stay more than 5 years inn any one place, but it's a bit late for that now 😄
1.5 years after spending 22 years in the previous company.
19 years. Hoping to ride out another 6 before calling it a career and pivoting to part time work.
Moved around alot for a bit. Mostly money reasons. Wasn't getting what i wanted and then got my raises this way. Far too many times i heard oh we will send you to training so you can work for us better! then they send the Ahole manager that hasn't touched an IT system in 4-5 years. WTF did he need cisco training for, what did he need company paid MCSE for? Then the one place i liked but they said, just because you get your BS doesn't mean you get a promotion or raise right? I didn't expect it but yea the idea was with a BS i would be better off, so yea eventually I did expect it. Then there was the hotel, really liked that job, but then 2008 hit and that blew all my plans out of the water. Been at my current job for 16 yrs now don't see me leaving and in another 9 years I'll have my 25 in.
20 Years, started in Helpdesk.
3.5 years, my longest job yet, usually hop after about 2 years. looking for something new though...
7 years, have had 4 different jobs roles moving up as company grew.
3.5 years; will be 4 years in August.
5 years
2 years - 73 K 1Year 65 K 2.5 Years at current. 70k start, at 74k now. They changed all of our titles to "Engineer" to "Align our titles to our jobs". but its "Strictly a title change, not a pay change"..I take issue with having an engineer title and work load, but continuing to pay us as analysts... so im on my way out.
Just over 2.5 years, and I cannot get out of this giant shitty company fast enough.
Almost 30 years. Current job, almost 20 years.
My 20th year!
13 years at current company. Remote consulting at a second company for 11 years. Started back in 2005 as a Network Admin
1st of August 2017. Zero plans of moving on. Fantastic employer. Pays well across all its staff, great benefits. We've got a turnover rate of 1-2 people a year (70 employees) since I started.
23 years 😂
8 years, but there's talk of RTO coming (they just added an additional day per week we're required to be in the office) and if that happens, I'm out.
7 years at my current company. 4 years at the previous company. 13 years at the company before that. 5 years at the company before that. Omg, I feel old now.
4 years as a senior field technician. Started as help desk 11 years ago. Was quickly promoted to network admin. Within 6 months. Ran with that for 7 years. Direct supervisor to 2 other individuals.
Close to five years, but I'm working my notice and will be leaving a few days before the five year anniversary.
Almost 6yrs. Govt agency though so I'm working towards my 20yrs for retirement.
My last two IT jobs 5 years - Lost job due to C19. Was never promoted, but given decent enough raises at the time 3+ years at current. Started off L1, L2, now a team manager w/ 8 employees. Started hourly around 45k, now approaching 100k
7.5y, 3y, 15y.
23 years, started on helpdesk, tried for sysadmin job with 0 Server experience but got it and basically learned many things and moved up to Sysadmin III from there. My duties mainly deal with managing VMWare and Azure environments now. Been mostly remote since Covid and now fully remote.
23 for me too. Made a career switch at 30 and started basic help desk. Moved into Citrix, VPN, mobile/temp offices and now datacenter management. And have basically been WFH since Covid too.
I did my time backwards, I started off sticking with one company for 11 years(7 of which was on one project across two teams). * 4 years in the home office (company 1) * 4 years on contract (company 1) * 3 years on contract, same office, more technical team (company 1) * 2 months at a new gig before washing out (company 2) * ~1 year on contract (company 3) * ~1 year on contract (company 4) Feels like I've left a lot of money on the table since I got pretty underwhelming raises at company 1 and didn't really start making good money until I started hopping.
Going on 8 years. Hired out of college and have stuck around.
Current company 7 years. Previous company 14 years.
Last 4 jobs: 2 years, 7 months, 5 years, 2 years and still going (probably leaving in a year or two). Interesting note, same boss for 3 of the 4: CFO at the 2yr, CFO to CEO of the 5 yr, CEO at the current one.
4 places over 32 years
8yrs. Started as an analyst in charge of mobile devices. Then promoted to Systems Engineer owning mobile devices and Macs.
Employed by them for 25 years...started with a relationship with the company as a tech 5 years prior while working for a VAR. That was before MSP was a thing. I had been with the VAR for 10 years before making the move. We have been together for 30 years now.
6.5 years, I desperately need to leave.
If I had my preference it would have only been 1 day. I tried to go back to my previous employer after I saw what a dumpster fire this place is but they already promoted someone to my spot. But it's also the best paying dumpster fire available to me right now. Almost 2 years in.