Career questions for others in IT

[yllus]

a startup with a tuition reimbursement program

That... exists?

 

[Elbryn]

not to shift around a bit here but if you're wife is finished with school and hasnt settled into a career yet, i'm assuming there's a kid or two that's primarily the reason. if it isnt, i'd gently push to get her into working soon. that should get you some breathing room. the next question is you're really looking to jump to a new step in the IT ladder. that's hard without experience in the new platform, chicken and egg syndrome.

i'm not certain a degree in it's own accord will do that. if you were going to go that route, considering debt that you have to factor in. I'd say totally deviate away from the IT world. look at something like pharmacy where you do have to get a master's but with the shortage of those guys, you're going to come out of the master's program with a 85k+ job waiting for you at a drugstore. shortage of nurses too. nurse practitioners can make some good money as well. to me, it just seems that IT and degrees dont necessarily go hand in hand.

the other option is to quit the large company and find a small one where you get the jack of all trades experience. you'll probably cap yourself out at pay there too or even come in capped but you will get the opportunity to work on everything and build up the skillset.

vmwise, you can use open filer, esxi on a cheapie box from compugeek or something. class isnt cheap, couple thousand if i recall. if you were to delve into the alternative software acquisions, you may even be able to play with things like vmotion, san motion, etc.. nfs/nas provisioning to the vm boxes.

i think i rambled alot.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

i think i rambled alot.

You did, but I agree with much of what you say.

Personally, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't go into IT.

 

[Juddog]

not to shift around a bit here but if you're wife is finished with school and hasnt settled into a career yet, i'm assuming there's a kid or two that's primarily the reason. if it isnt, i'd gently push to get her into working soon. that should get you some breathing room. the next question is you're really looking to jump to a new step in the IT ladder. that's hard without experience in the new platform, chicken and egg syndrome.

i'm not certain a degree in it's own accord will do that. if you were going to go that route, considering debt that you have to factor in. I'd say totally deviate away from the IT world. look at something like pharmacy where you do have to get a master's but with the shortage of those guys, you're going to come out of the master's program with a 85k+ job waiting for you at a drugstore. shortage of nurses too. nurse practitioners can make some good money as well. to me, it just seems that IT and degrees dont necessarily go hand in hand.

the other option is to quit the large company and find a small one where you get the jack of all trades experience. you'll probably cap yourself out at pay there too or even come in capped but you will get the opportunity to work on everything and build up the skillset.

vmwise, you can use open filer, esxi on a cheapie box from compugeek or something. class isnt cheap, couple thousand if i recall. if you were to delve into the alternative software acquisions, you may even be able to play with things like vmotion, san motion, etc.. nfs/nas provisioning to the vm boxes.

i think i rambled alot.

Ramble or not I appreciate the input.

I have thought about trying to get into studying some VM type applications; at my work they have reduced the number of physical server boxes to maybe one quarter of what they had before because it's much more efficient to run everything off of VM's.

 

[Juddog]

I will add my two cents.

I have been in IT for over 10+ years. Worked my way up from Desktop to Senior Administrator over that time with the salary to go along with it.

It looks like in your position you need to do something that you can work on at home in odd hours.

VMware is hot right now. You can buy VMware Workstation and with a good enough computer seutp a complete VMware ESX Environment at home. Then if you wanted you could get your VCP (VMware Certified Professional) However you will need to take a official VMware course to take the test. This tends to cut out some of the chaff so it can be a good degree to pursue if you can go that direction.

Storage is also good however it is hard to gain experience without actually having a SAN to play with, which usually are only in enterprise environments.

Cisco is always a good one. You can setup virtual routers etc which can save you on cost of having to buy equipment. One Cisco field that is very hot is Cisco VOIP. However you would need to buy Cisco equipment to setup a Cisco VOIP system at your house.

I also pursued a degree, however the company where I worked paid me to finish the degree. If your company has tuition reimbursment I would talk to your boss about your ambition to finish your degree. If the company is giving your tuition reimbursment and your are having difficulty in your classes because your schedule is being jerked around this will probably not be looked on favorably. The problem I have with online schools is a lot of them are looked down on like Univ of Phoenix and they can tend to get pricey. What use is it to get a degree that a hiring manager will thumb his nose at? I completed my degree at a brick and mortar place and it was hard. However my boss worked with me even when I was on-call and I had class.

Is there room to grow at your current company? Will it be that you need to jump ship in order to move up?

Good Luck.

There is potentially room to grow but it will be a few years before I'm given an opportunity to advance to a higher position. I have a few servers at home I can play around with, so I'll definitely give it a shot. I have most of the equipment needed to setup a SAN to play around with, so that gives me some direction as well.

With the advice in this thread I'll definitely have my hands full in terms of weekend projects for quite some time!

 

[Elbryn]

dont forget what may be of more use than technical skills.. networking. make an effort to get to know the guys and gals who are doing the things you want to be doing. same with their bosses as well. find out if your area has local vm user group meetings. start showing up and talking to people. sometimes those group meetings will have free classes you can potentially win.

 

[L1FE]

You might want to sit down and figure out which option gives you the best ROI. Depending on the program you decide to enroll in, it may take you many, many (many) years to recoup the costs of higher education. What kind of delta in pay are you expecting after you get your certs/degree?

 

[Juddog]

You might want to sit down and figure out which option gives you the best ROI. Depending on the program you decide to enroll in, it may take you many, many (many) years to recoup the costs of higher education. What kind of delta in pay are you expecting after you get your certs/degree?

Probably none unless I move to another company or work as a consultant.

 

[L1FE]

Probably none unless I move to another company or work as a consultant.

When calculating your ROI, you probably want to map out your worst, average, and best (realistic) case scenarios. For instance, you say you won't see any pay increase from your higher education. That would give you a negative ROI since you just invested a crapton of cash to further your career and got nothing in return. I don't think that's very realistic, though, since why would you go through the trouble of getting a degree/certs if you weren't also planning on getting a better job...??

 

[hellotyler]

Ask yourself what you would actually enjoy ?

 

[ebaycj]

I could probably get some tuition reimbursement, to a limited degree, assuming I continued to work full time while taking night courses. The downside is that my position requires oddball hours at times, so there is a heavy chance that I would miss some of my courses and take a hit on my grades.

A bachelors degree with a C average is better than no bachelors degree.

 

[KentState]

Do you think that database administration is still a hot area in IT? Thanks.

Might depend on the area of the country. I get bombarded with recruiters calling me about DBA and database developer openings daily. There are so many .com companies and more traditional ones likes NCR, LexisNexis, Coca-Cola, Hope Depot, etc around here looking for people. Stability is big for more so I like to stay longer at a company, but I could easily get a new job twice a year in the DBA arena.

As far as a degree, if you have the time and money to do it, take the 6 years as you will not regret it down the road. I only completed my associates and starting working full time in IT at 20. I've been fortunate in my career and had a lot of great opportunities, but I'm pretty much capped at the director level. Yes, the pay is more than I need to live a good life, but I would like to transition over to the marketing side one day and without a degree, that will be difficult.