Need IT career advice

[StonerNerd]

Hello everyone!
After repairing MacBooks for a year, I recently started training to be an L1 tech support for a web hosting company. My goal is to move up the chain to eventually become a system admin (also want to become a pen tester on the side). Can anyone give me some tips on what I can do to help me move up the totem pole and get known in the office? 

[exitfire401]

The biggest thing I can suggest is find something you like and stick with it. If security is your thing, bring it up to your supervisor. Get some facetime with the security team and see if they would be able to allow you shadowing time. It really helps you:
A) Familiarize with the team
B) Learn the tools
C) Find out what you'll be encountering daily
D) determine what skillset outside of the team is most needed and what you can bring to the table when you are at the skill level to join.

I work at an MSP and am currently working my way out of the tech support hell hole and hoping to move towards either a linux admin or security analyst role (and hopefully over towards project management from there) and shadowing has been immensely helpful in my case. I worked at a helpdesk while going to school for business, so I came in with a base level understanding of windows administration and some SAP administration experience. My current position is my first "Professional" experience, and I've been extremely lucky to have been exposed to so many systems and environments, that I otherwise never would have dabbled in.

A lot of places will stress certifications for position requirements, but if you show enough initiative, willingness to learn, and capability, you can work on the certifications while preparing to take a junior position. If you have any questions, or just want some guidance or help, just let me know!

[Sneaky Potato]

Hello everyone!
After repairing MacBooks for a year, I recently started training to be an L1 tech support for a web hosting company. My goal is to move up the chain to eventually become a system admin (also want to become a pen tester on the side). Can anyone give me some tips on what I can do to help me move up the totem pole and get known in the office?

Good for you for wanting to climb up. Even better that you have a goal (sysadmin), it will help keep you on track.

These days it can be tough to "get noticed" and move up in the tech world while sitting at one company. I personally have found that getting the right experience and then jumping to another company will push you up the totem pole much faster than staying at one place trying to get noticed. This is just general advice based on experience, it might vary for other people. There are plenty of people that have stayed at a single company to much success.

More than anything, get Certifications. It's a pretty clear cut path to SysAdmin if you get the right certs and get some experience. They make all of the difference when getting hired, in my opinion. Dig in at your current company, and do some stuff or projects that are resume-worthy. Beef up that resume and start looking at other companies and what they expect for the next-level positions. If there is a clear path to L2 tech that is actually attainable (in a reasonable time frame) at your current company, go for it as fast and as hard as you can. If it seems out of reach, get the experience and certs to be a L2 tech somewhere else. Rinse, and repeat until you get where you want to be. I find that some promotion structures in Tech departments of companies feel like an afterthought...basically you'll sometimes only have entry-level, senior, and then management track, which means you've gotta wait for somebody to die before you get promoted.

The alternative is to basically rot in your current L1 Tech job. It happens all of the time...I see guys that refuse to put in any extra time to get certs, so they aren't really marketable in other positions, and they won't shop around at other companies where their experience might get them a better position. If you're lucky you're at a company where they will promote you based on how long you've been there, but as L1, promotion can be overlooked unless they have a clear path to L2.

In the end, it comes down to hard work and setting realistic goals. You would be amazed at how far up you can jump in a year from L1 Tech if you get a couple of certs, have a decent resume, and start shopping around for new positions.

[tp4tissue]

If you're ok with monkey work forever, then system admin is fine.

admins top out ~100- 130k after 10 years experience.

managers can go higher, but NOT OFTEN..



As I see it, there's very little security in IT at the moment, because of how strong India is becoming.


So, as we outsource,  at first it's slow, because the other end has to be trained, and they have to start from the less complicated work.


But TODAY, oracle has almost entire towns of people working out of India,  So it's getting pretty serious,  and they will work for MUCH LESS than any american worker..


And because it's IT,  english/ clear speaking isn't a priority..



So if you're dead set on IT,   DO IT,      but be on the developer side, and patch up on ANYTHING math related..


If you have Math ontop of base programming skills, you will always be secure..

[tp4tissue]

And if you think , TP,  $100,000   are you kidding me,  that's more than enough..


Let me explain further..


$100,000 is only about $75,000-80 after tax out the door..


Then, even before making 100k,  making 75k is going to give you crazy thoughts like,  Having a child,  or a cheap sports car,..


There's your ball and chain for the REST OF YOUR LIFE...

100k is fking potatoes

[StonerNerd]

Hello everyone!
After repairing MacBooks for a year, I recently started training to be an L1 tech support for a web hosting company. My goal is to move up the chain to eventually become a system admin (also want to become a pen tester on the side). Can anyone give me some tips on what I can do to help me move up the totem pole and get known in the office?

Good for you for wanting to climb up. Even better that you have a goal (sysadmin), it will help keep you on track.

These days it can be tough to "get noticed" and move up in the tech world while sitting at one company. I personally have found that getting the right experience and then jumping to another company will push you up the totem pole much faster than staying at one place trying to get noticed. This is just general advice based on experience, it might vary for other people. There are plenty of people that have stayed at a single company to much success.

More than anything, get Certifications. It's a pretty clear cut path to SysAdmin if you get the right certs and get some experience. They make all of the difference when getting hired, in my opinion. Dig in at your current company, and do some stuff or projects that are resume-worthy. Beef up that resume and start looking at other companies and what they expect for the next-level positions. If there is a clear path to L2 tech that is actually attainable (in a reasonable time frame) at your current company, go for it as fast and as hard as you can. If it seems out of reach, get the experience and certs to be a L2 tech somewhere else. Rinse, and repeat until you get where you want to be. I find that some promotion structures in Tech departments of companies feel like an afterthought...basically you'll sometimes only have entry-level, senior, and then management track, which means you've gotta wait for somebody to die before you get promoted.

The alternative is to basically rot in your current L1 Tech job. It happens all of the time...I see guys that refuse to put in any extra time to get certs, so they aren't really marketable in other positions, and they won't shop around at other companies where their experience might get them a better position. If you're lucky you're at a company where they will promote you based on how long you've been there, but as L1, promotion can be overlooked unless they have a clear path to L2.

In the end, it comes down to hard work and setting realistic goals. You would be amazed at how far up you can jump in a year from L1 Tech if you get a couple of certs, have a decent resume, and start shopping around for new positions.

Most of the L2's I've talked to got their promotions after spending 7-8 months within the company. I'm currently going to school and already got my ITIL cert even though it's not worth much. I have to use Linux for everything as well so I'm more than sure I'm on the right track for now.

If I don't get promoted within 7 months I will definitely plan on jumping to another company but I'm not sure if there are even certs that are relevant to becoming an L2 or L3. Another thing worth noting is that my company offers tuition reimbursements after 8 months as well.


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[StonerNerd]

And if you think , TP,  $100,000   are you kidding me,  that's more than enough..


Let me explain further..


$100,000 is only about $75,000-80 after tax out the door..


Then, even before making 100k,  making 75k is going to give you crazy thoughts like,  Having a child,  or a cheap sports car,..


There's your ball and chain for the REST OF YOUR LIFE...

100k is fking potatoes

Well to be honest, I'm horrible at math. I barely even passed college algebra. (Still attending college). I'm 21 right now but I know I want to spend the rest of my life traveling and going to concerts... also don't plan on ever having kids. As of cars, I'm completely happy driving my 2001 Accord



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[tp4tissue]

And if you think , TP,  $100,000   are you kidding me,  that's more than enough..


Let me explain further..


$100,000 is only about $75,000-80 after tax out the door..


Then, even before making 100k,  making 75k is going to give you crazy thoughts like,  Having a child,  or a cheap sports car,..


There's your ball and chain for the REST OF YOUR LIFE...

100k is fking potatoes

Well to be honest, I'm horrible at math. I barely even passed college algebra. (Still attending college). I'm 21 right now but I know I want to spend the rest of my life traveling and going to concerts... also don't plan on ever having kids. As of cars, I'm completely happy driving my 2001 Accord

Your desires will evolve over time.

But your (requirement) on income will always be going UP..


Just always keep the future in mind, and do your best not to take on unnecessary liabilities.

Aim for at least 300k,   typically that will be outside of the grunt computer side of IT.

[StonerNerd]

And if you think , TP,  $100,000   are you kidding me,  that's more than enough..


Let me explain further..


$100,000 is only about $75,000-80 after tax out the door..


Then, even before making 100k,  making 75k is going to give you crazy thoughts like,  Having a child,  or a cheap sports car,..


There's your ball and chain for the REST OF YOUR LIFE...

100k is fking potatoes

Well to be honest, I'm horrible at math. I barely even passed college algebra. (Still attending college). I'm 21 right now but I know I want to spend the rest of my life traveling and going to concerts... also don't plan on ever having kids. As of cars, I'm completely happy driving my 2001 Accord

Your desires will evolve over time.

But your (requirement) on income will always be going UP..


Aim for at least 300k,   typically that will be outside of the grunt computer side of IT.

Well is there anything out there that isn't heavy on math? I've been struggling with math my whole life man. And I always put effort into my classes when I took them. I really wanted to get a computer science bachelors but it requires trigonometry and the only math class I've ever even taken in college is college algebra which was supposed to be easy.


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[tp4tissue]

Well is there anything out there that isn't heavy on math? I've been struggling with math my whole life man. And I always put effort into my classes when I took them. I really wanted to get a computer science bachelors but it requires trigonometry and the only math class I've ever even taken in college is college algebra which was supposed to be easy.

Most it jobs are not heavy on math, which is why they're more replaceable with cheaper substitutes from overseas.

Math is universal job security..  because for every person doing it, there's 99 people not doing it.


Now, All 100 people,  none of them are actually bad at math,  it's just that 99 people THINK they're bad at math..

[vyshane]

If you want to be at the top of your profession as a sysadmin, you are going to have to learn how to code sooner or later. We're heading towards a world of software-defined-everything, immutable infrastructure, and infrastructure as code.

[StonerNerd]

If you want to be at the top of your profession as a sysadmin, you are going to have to learn how to code sooner or later. We're heading towards a world of software-defined-everything, immutable infrastructure, and infrastructure as code.

Completely agree with you, I'm already taking a python course on EDX.


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[tp4tissue]

If you want to be at the top of your profession as a sysadmin, you are going to have to learn how to code sooner or later. We're heading towards a world of software-defined-everything, immutable infrastructure, and infrastructure as code.

And crumbling roads,  Burst dams,  overloaded power grid..

You know... Infrastructure..


Trump, Makes america great again

[MajorKoos]

I've seen lots of mention here of building technical skills, but no mention of developing soft skills.
Those are critical if you want to eventually move out of support and climb the IT totem pole.
Finding a mentor is also a good idea.

[chuckdee]

Finding a mentor is also a good idea.

This is the best general purpose advice that I've seen in this thread.  Asking is all well and good, but having someone that knows the field and knows you on your team is indispensable.

The best general purpose advice I can give you was given to me by mine.

1. Don't become complacent.  If you really want to move up, it's very likely that you're going to have to move around.  Familiarity breeds complacency is very true, and as you become familiar, you won't want to jeopardize your income, which is a valid concern.  But you have to weigh this against you ambition.  And it works the other way too... as your co-workers and the company become familiar with you, and think they have you on lock, they'll become complacent with you- with your salary, with your capabilities, and with your limitations.  And there's no way around that I've found.

2. It goes along with 1, but loyalty to the company gets you nothing.  The company is not a person, and no matter the people around you and how good they are and how much you like them, remember that in the end, the company employs you in the end, not them.  Your manager can love you- but in the end, if his manager, or his manager's manager, or someone else you don't even know and views you as a number on a sheet decides your number is up, it's up.  Watch out for yourself, and your trajectory, because in the end, you're responsible for that.

3. Which segues into the third point.  These are your co-workers, not your friends.  Be nice, be cooperative (how much so, is up to you), and cultivate contacts.  But the good guy doesn't always win, and thinking people are you friend is a good way to open yourself up to doing things that are counter to your final goal- to advance your career.  Now you can be cut throat and brown nose, but that kind of thing tends to come back on you at some point or another, so I don't recommend it.  Just do your work, be competent, ask questions, and collaborate.

4. Evaluate your opportunities carefully- not just based on what it seems like.  Play the long game- sometimes a lateral move (or what seems like a demotion) can be the best thing for reaching your final goal. It's not always a straight upward climb- plan your mobility in your career based on a timetable of years, not months.  You can be promoted past what you're ready for, and ruin everything that you worked for, while sometimes taking a path that's more lateral can help you to learn and be ready for an even larger opportunity.

Those are just some of the things I've learned- and a lot of it is from having a mentor that I can bounce things off of, and that can help me to see things that I wouldn't otherwise.

Hope that helps!

[MajorKoos]

Hiring the wrong candidate poses a lot of risk to a manager - the less risk involved in hiring me the more chance I have of getting hired.
Whenever I start a new role the first thing I do is figure out what the job after that is going to be.
Then I do a gap analysis to determine the skills and experience I need to acquire and work with my manager to get that stuff into my development plan/KPIs.
It ensures my development is tracked and positively reflects on my in-role job performance.

While skills and experience are a important having a working relationship with a potential hiring manager and their peers is priceless.
Who you know can be more important than what you know.

[noisyturtle]

Office jobs make me want to push a bullet into my temple with my thumb. My recommendation would be to run. Run as fast as you can away from the nearest business park and never look back. It's all unsatisfaction, unfullfillment, and broken dreams down this here road.

[nmur]

Office jobs make me want to push a bullet into my temple with my thumb. My recommendation would be to run. Run as fast as you can away from the nearest business park and never look back. It's all unsatisfaction, unfullfillment, and broken dreams down this here road.

they can't all be bad

i've been at my job for 3.5 as a software engineer, and i find it to mostly be fulfilling and enjoyable

[Melvang]

Never give up on the maths.  I graduated high school with a 1.4 gpa, and never went to college.  But, just b cause I didn't have the gpa, didn't mean I wasn't learning.  When I got out of the Navy, 8 years after high school, I got started in the Union C construction trades.  My first week in the job I was doing right angle trig for calculating the lengths for legs in a 225 foot long conveyor because the 25 year journeyman screwed it up.  With my math, we only had to cut a few extra legs and was able to salvage most of the ones already cut. 

Math got me into the apprenticeship the first time taking the entrance test, and math for me graduating at the top of my class.  Math has also kept me employed in the trades even when it was slow. 

Never give up on math.

[Leslieann]

Office jobs make me want to push a bullet into my temple with my thumb. My recommendation would be to run. Run as fast as you can away from the nearest business park and never look back. It's all unsatisfaction, unfullfillment, and broken dreams down this here road.

I totally agree with you.
I've been in I.T. long enough to get through two booms and watched MANY, MANY people come and go. Between high burnout rates and outsourcing, I.T. is a terrible, god forsaken industry.

Any time anyone asks how to get into it I tell them the same thing. Don't.

[tp4tissue]

Office jobs make me want to push a bullet into my temple with my thumb. My recommendation would be to run. Run as fast as you can away from the nearest business park and never look back. It's all unsatisfaction, unfullfillment, and broken dreams down this here road.

I totally agree with you.
I've been in I.T. long enough to get through two booms and watched MANY, MANY people come and go. Between high burnout rates and outsourcing, I.T. is a terrible, god forsaken industry.

Any time anyone asks how to get into it I tell them the same thing. Don't.

Guys.. um... Ok..

What you are describing isn't necessarily the detriment of IT,   it's the capitalist structure of our economy which perpetuates the soul sucking feeling of employment.

In the majority of occupations,  they ALL eventually make you feel like you've wasted your time, and that your life is not your own.


This is fundamentally true, because society necessitates tradeoffs in freedoms in order to maintain social order.

--- That order is used to direct synergistic goals, large projects that would get no where without some form of slavery like rigidity.


Even if a person wants to and is willing,  he couldn't really do much more labor than the next willing person,    So why is there such a distance between incomes.


The reason is,  at the upper level, Income establishes ORDER, not actual reward or consumption.

--- A rich person might live in a bigger house and drive a nicer car,  but his life is really not so much better than the modern middle class. He eats 3 times a day like everyone else.


I'm not trying to tell you this system is good or will stand alrite for all time.   We will certainly have to evolve out of it if we wish human families to continue reproducing.


However, in the mean time, do ones best to create purpose for oneself..


If you follow Noisy's bullet logic,  what becomes dangerous is populations leaning towards intense sprints of hedonistic tendencies to Counter their daily monotony.. 


This create chemical brain imbalances which only exacerbate self perception and control problems..

[Leslieann]

Office jobs make me want to push a bullet into my temple with my thumb. My recommendation would be to run. Run as fast as you can away from the nearest business park and never look back. It's all unsatisfaction, unfullfillment, and broken dreams down this here road.

I totally agree with you.
I've been in I.T. long enough to get through two booms and watched MANY, MANY people come and go. Between high burnout rates and outsourcing, I.T. is a terrible, god forsaken industry.
Any time anyone asks how to get into it I tell them the same thing. Don't.

Guys.. um... Ok..

What you are describing isn't necessarily the detriment of IT,   it's the capitalist structure of our economy which perpetuates the soul sucking feeling of employment.

I've worked in quite a few industries and few were as boom and bust as I.T. and none of them were as openly hostile towards their workers. This whole "Disruptive Startup" culture is a plague on society.

[SJHL]

A lot of good advice in here. After graduating, I was an IT Support for 3 years then finally became a System Admin for another company. I know few/alot of people disagree with certifications like CompTIA but unless you can prove your IT skills, I would recommend getting certifications like Network+, Security+ and/or Linux+. Depending on what you want to focus on.

I would also let your boss know on where you stand. Meaning that you're eager to take on more projects. That way, even if your current company isn't helping you out in the end, you can always add it towards your resume.

Good luck!

[antquinonez]

IT is increasingly outsourced. Reasons? Too many practitioners that are good enough to do the work required. Advice: get into project management, business/functional analyst type work (technical work that requires interacting with people),  learn a good programming language (Python or JavaScript) so you can talk to devs and testers, to give them direction, instructions...Don't bother with spending your energy on quickly obsoleted technology, but learn the basics, learn the talk...if you're mathematically inclined, look into Data Science and all that new fancy stuff. But whatever you do, don't dwell in the backoffice/dungeons/server rooms...good luck.

[MajorKoos]

I used to see a lot of outsourcing, but it died down after companies realized they were loosing too much control and flexibility because every change needed a contract amendment.  It also led to a lot of shadow IT inside those orgs and helped drive the uptake of the industrial cloud. 

With everything being increasingly automated at an industrial scale there are going to be far fewer opportunities available in the traditional downstream infrastructure operations and support disciplines.  DevOps is the buzzword of the day, but it gets the point across - Developers deploy, operate and maintain their own product.  They don't need traditional IT or a datacenter to support them any more and traditional IT is struggling to maintain relevance and show value to the business.

[pr0ximity]

As with anything: surround yourself with people you aspire to be like, and always keep learning. Fix your attitude about math, because it's quite frankly a terrible mindset to have about anything.

Beyond that, just don't be complacent and don't be overly loyal to your employer. People who stay in a job forever are essentially worthless today.

[StonerNerd]

As with anything: surround yourself with people you aspire to be like, and always keep learning. Fix your attitude about math, because it's quite frankly a terrible mindset to have about anything.

Beyond that, just don't be complacent and don't be overly loyal to your employer. People who stay in a job forever are essentially worthless today.

I'm going to see if I can find some one on one tutoring help so I can knock out my trig class needed for my computer science bachelors :/ Hopefully that can help me.



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[mlcarson]

Wow - the standards for a Computer Science degree must have really went down.  Nothing less than Calculus in math even counted toward the degree back in the 80's and you had to have Calculus through differential equations plus probability/statistics and numerical analysis.  The best career advice that I can give is to not go into IT.  It's one of the few fields that you go down in value after 5-10 years in the field. It's also one of the few fields in which you have the federal government doing everything it can to keep wages down by increasing the labor supply through the H-1B visa program.   It's one of the few topics that both the Democrat and Republican parties can agree upon so you have no political representation and the media is also against you.    Technology changes so you'll have a never ending training/certification cycle to prove to employers that you know your stuff but they don't actually want to give you the time or money for this training -- it's something you have to do on your own time.   The janitorial staff will have more respect than the IT department in most organizations.   You'll be resented -- not respected -- by your non-IT coworkers.  IT is a support/back office department that's considered an expense -- not an asset by most companies.

I laugh at the aim for $300K figure that was given earlier in this thread.  The average Computer Engineer salary in California is $78K.  An Amazon/Google Security Engineer is $110-$115k.   Average CIO pay is $156K based on Payscale -- high end is $287K in Los Angeles where cost of living is the highest.  Your typical IT salaries are $100K or under.   So, the only way you're going to get higher pay than that is to go into management and if your goal is management -- you don't want to be in IT management.  I'd suggest project management but the average salaries are only $78K.   Historically, accounting -> Controller -> CFO -> CEO is the career path with the biggest payoff.


 

[typo]

Honestly if I was starting from scratch right now, notwithstanding income I would rather be in the medical field, a pilot or something. If you want to make it big in IT you are going to have to be exceptional with math and stand out for coding in general. I will tell you some of them make money that is no joke like starting with an M and ending with an S. It is only a few. The likelihood is you continue in some support role for years even making it to management if you do not have those two prerequisites.

Also anything with 6 figures will never be enough for anyone. Well, for most. People just scale up to their income until it is at a number where it is almost impossible to do so. If you are young and single it does not matter. If you are older and are by nature frugal, it does not matter. Rare. Have 3-5 kids, nice home in a good school district 5-8 cars Etc you can see the problem. Of course many people live with much less. The real key is to invent something or start something indispensable and not be with a clause where a company you are working for gets the rights.

Overall though working your way up to really nowhere would make me be puking allover my cubicle. It really depends on you, your skillset and not so much advice about corporate ladders. If you manage something exceptional you will be noticed. However the big companies and especially google has a little army of these types but they do make some serious money.

[yuppie]

Hello everyone!
After repairing MacBooks for a year, I recently started training to be an L1 tech support for a web hosting company. My goal is to move up the chain to eventually become a system admin (also want to become a pen tester on the side). Can anyone give me some tips on what I can do to help me move up the totem pole and get known in the office?

Start learning Linux, Ruby/Python/Golang, Cloud services like AWS & GCP (others dont really matter, maybe OpenStack), Kubernetes & Docker.

Since these are all open-source technologies, you can download/use/learn them yourself for free. Stay away from windows, figure out if you like programming/scripting or if you'd rather be in Infrastructure Engineering (like me), realize that you CAN DO BOTH if you want and that's where the real money/challenge is. Everyone wants a systems guy that can code.

Get into some Puppet/Chef/Ansible/Terraform while you're at it. Hit me up if you'd like to know more.

[Softkore]

... The average Computer Engineer salary in California is $78K.  An Amazon/Google Security Engineer is $110-$115k.   Average CIO pay is $156K based on Payscale -- high end is $287K in Los Angeles where cost of living is the highest.  Your typical IT salaries are $100K or under.

Damn, are these stats legit? That sounds terrible when you consider cost of living. I'm in the midwest, EXCELLENT cost of living, I make ~100k with awesome benefits as a JavaScript Engineer. I've only been in the industry ~3.5 years with tons of room for growth.

[typo]

It depends. Midwest like rural it will go very far. Downtown Chicago you might need that much per week! Also it is true about the salaries at companies like google. They have tens of thousands of people like that. A top mind or Exec at google makes a whole heck of a lot more than that. Their salaries are a closely guarded secret too. Same With Amazon, Facebook, Cisco and any big company. There is a top tier of the workforce at these places and then there is something completely different You are either going to have a 180+ IQ or are a marketing whiz Etc to fall into that much smaller group. Don't get me wrong that group is not small as in 10 people but maybe 5,000 but good luck.

As I said if you want real money invent/start something your own and hope it takes off. Only other way now but that too takes a lot of intelligence and luck. Evem Physicians of normal stature are at like $160,000 these days. Once again, only the top specialists are raking it in. I guess the bottom line is if you want to be wealthy you have to really stand out in some manner now.

Or do as above and lower your cost of living! Certainly never overextend yourself no matter what your income. I have seen many people of all walks of life lose their homes.
That is really key though, the cost of living index. IN LA,Chi,NYC you are either going to work hard to live bad or have to make some real money.
It is just sad the state of things and India too. Help desk L1 used to pay $60/Hr. Just wait until Indian and Chinese workers start demanding more money...... the world economy will change yet again.

Personally I would rather do something I enjoy for $30k. Getting through IT is hell now. OP is starting at the wrong time unless he really brings something to the table. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this should be obvious.

[JP]

A lot of good advice here. Geography also plays a big factor in career prospects. If you live in the middle of nowhere, opportunities can be scarce and many companies might prefer local talent, unless your CV really stands out. There is something to be said for more rural locales where the competition is not as fierce and the cost of living is lower.

Help desk sucks. Also doing IT at a manufacturing company sucks. At least the one I've worked since IT was like the redheaded stepchild, yet was entirely essential to the functioning of the company. Corporate IT in general sucks though. IT is just a cost that needs to be minimized and you will be lucky to get a raise every year that doesn't quite keep up with inflation. I stayed with a company for 4 years and finally got a promotion, but could have easily went elsewhere with a couple years experience and made more money.

[iLLucionist]

If I look around in corporate around me, which is public service (academia) as well as literally corporate (web dev companies and service oriented companies), what I see is rotten sysadmins who can do the basics (apache, ftp, ssh, ldap, samba, etc.), but literally nothing beyond that.

I would try to get more skills in what is in demand right now, such as SaaS, cloud services, compartimentalized computing, such as vagrant, docker and the newer iterations of that. But also more tipping towards devops and complete automization, such as ansible, jenkins, autoconfig of servers.

If I look at the dev landscape that I have to deal with, professionally, I see that I myself and the players around me want to automate their whole infrastructure. One press on the button and VPS's are made, monitored, configured, provisioned, back-upped, etc.