Suggestions for new career in IT industry?

[skeedo]

I've been doing tech support for web hosting for the past 2 and a half years now and it's turning me into a maniacal headcase. The monotony is driving me insane. If there was a chance of me getting off phone support I'd consider sticking around, however that is slim to nil.

I'd like to find a job in IT that involves more hands on work, e.g. building stuff. I come from a family of engineers....father a ceramic engineer, brother a mechanical engineer, other brother a machinist. Granted I have no background in engineering, I have a BS in Info Science. I'm kind of a jack of all trades when it comes to computers, I really haven't focused on one particular aspect in the past 15 years although the majority of jobs I've had have been centered around support and/or web development.

I want absolutely nothing to do with web development, programming or customer support. Anybody have any suggestions as to the kind of work I should be looking for, or what direction I should be taking if I want to get into a more hands on IT field?

 

[sao123]

start looking outside IT?
the only hands on jobs in IT are those who do data wiring (electricians)
and those who assemble dell computers (chinese children or machines)

And those traveling repairmen who come to our building to fix the laser printers.

 

[bguile]

Maybe like a data center technician?

 

[ultimatebob]

I used to enjoy setting up new servers and storage arrays when I worked for IBM.

It was one of the few things I enjoyed about my sys admin job, but it's kinda fun to take a bunch of parts and software and build a working web server or database server out of it.

 

[mistercrabby]

Skeedo, I've been doing professional IT for 15 years or so. It is typically in our DNA to want to get our hands dirty and change up what we're doing pretty often, so i can totally relate to your situation. A couple of questions - do you enjoy who you're working with and the company you work for?

When I talk to the younger guys that work for me I suggest to them that there are really four major tracks they can go in, technical work, project management, architecture or leadership. While depending on the size of the company and how its organized, there is overlap, you get the gist. So, the second question for you is, which track attracts you most?

Answer those, and maybe I can comment more.

 

[Red Squirrel]

IT is so saturated, it's really hard to move around these days. Everybody and their dog is going the computer science route it seems. If you do see job openings, look to see if you can get into a NOC. It sounds boring but its actually really interesting and there's tons of technologies you get to play with. You may not go far as you're not actually doing more than monitoring it, but depending on the nature of that particular NOC, you can still get pretty deep into some things. I work for a telco so we work a lot with DMS100,200 and some 10's and we can pretty much go as deep as we want as it's just one of those things where the more you know about it the more useful you can be. There's a few guys that program Centrex, ISDN and other stuff like that. Then we deal with fiber transport, environmental stuff, cell sites, radio sites etc.... it's just a large variety of technologies.

Best of all, the shift work is awesome, you don't feel so much like a monotonous robot going into work from 8-5 every single day with only weekends off and it being impossible to run any errands with everything but retail being closed.

I'd never go back to 8-5 unless I had no choice. Night shifts are awesome too, no need to get up early. I find I feel so refreshed when I do a set of nights. I get home and sleep like a baby and can get up when my body wakes up, not when my alarm goes off.

If ever I lost this job, my fall back would probably be trades because it's in high demand. Maybe electrician as I seem to know more about electrical than any other trade, so I think I'd pick it up fast. Once I get my papers I'd just start my own business so I can do my own hours. Hopefully I never lose this job though, it's nice to have guaranteed income (good income at that) and not have to be stressed ever.

 

[zCypher]

start looking outside IT?
the only hands on jobs in IT are those who do data wiring (electricians)
and those who assemble dell computers (chinese children or machines)

And those traveling repairmen who come to our building to fix the laser printers.

I don't know about that. Telcos/cable companies/ISPs employ a variety of different types of network/field technicians with a pretty wide range of work. You can work as a network tech that works mostly in the central office, or a tech that works more with the outside infrastructure, or a tech that actually repairs the connection to the client premise. Those jobs usually entail completing an apprenticeship, so it's not unlike a trade and they usually pay decently.

There are also various tiers of network related support in ISPs that are not customer-facing. It's not hands-on in the sense that you physically work with equipment, but it's hands-on in the sense that you actually access network equipment and diagnose/repair back-end network issues without ever talking to the end-user.

 

[Mxylplyx]

IT is so saturated, it's really hard to move around these days. Everybody and their dog is going the computer science route it seems.

I don't know where you live, but IT, particularly software engineering, is anything but saturated here in Birmingham, AL. We gave up looking for qualified senior software engineers because they were impossible to find. Best job market for experienced people I've ever seen in the field. I'd have an offer within a week if I lost my job.

 

[purbeast0]

IT is so saturated, it's really hard to move around these days. Everybody and their dog is going the computer science route it seems.

IT != computer science

i don't know if you were implying that or not in your statement, but i'm just clarifying it.

 

[dougp]

IT is so saturated, it's really hard to move around these days.

It's saturated with unqualified workers - it's the diploma mentality. It takes more than a piece of paper to be competent in the field.

 

[skeedo]

Skeedo, I've been doing professional IT for 15 years or so. It is typically in our DNA to want to get our hands dirty and change up what we're doing pretty often, so i can totally relate to your situation. A couple of questions - do you enjoy who you're working with and the company you work for?

When I talk to the younger guys that work for me I suggest to them that there are really four major tracks they can go in, technical work, project management, architecture or leadership. While depending on the size of the company and how its organized, there is overlap, you get the gist. So, the second question for you is, which track attracts you most?

Answer those, and maybe I can comment more.

I did enjoy working here at first, however the company is now extremely short staffed and our management is making no attempt to hire more employees. Furthermore, the management 'tries' to make things easier by having very loose rules, however this doesn't make things easier for those of us that do our jobs, a lot of the employees here are very lazy and can get away with it because of the loose rules. Everything about the company is great, decent pay, great benefits, 2nd shift, casual dress, only have to work 7 hours per day...however I have been stuck working weekends for the past 2 years and it is not uncommon for me to be the only person on the phone in charge of 20,000 or so customers during my shift.

The higher level staff here does work within the datacenter and server support, a lot of hands on work that definitely interests me. However there is little to no opportunity for me to move up to this level. There have been people here for nearly 9 years that are still stuck on phone support. There's not even different levels of phone support. I can't imagine being here for 9 years and still have to help idiots setup e-mail on their iphone. For this reason I have decided to start seeking employment elsewhere.

A lot of the laziness trickles down from our management. Much could be done to make our jobs a lot easier, e.g. hiring some more staff, dividing phone support into various levels, and updating online documentation. However they don't bother because it doesn't concern them; they sit in their offices sending e-mail out about free lunches and pinball tournaments while our call center gets bombarded by one moronic call after another.

I absolutely can't stand a corporate environment with strict rules and can't do a 9-5 shift. Now in my current case, the rules are too loose and this only puts more of a burden on me so it's seemingly a lose-lose situation.

The aspect that does interest me most is building/ repair/ troubleshooting, and mainly not having to deal with people. I very much enjoy building and repairing computers. I do not enjoy an hour an a half long phonecall because someone cannot reset their mailbox password. I'm the type of person that likes to be thrown in a back room while I can just go and do my thing.

 

[dougp]

I did enjoy working here at first, however the company is now extremely short staffed and our management is making no attempt to hire more employees. Furthermore, the management 'tries' to make things easier by having very loose rules, however this doesn't make things easier for those of us that do our jobs, a lot of the employees here are very lazy and can get away with it because of the loose rules. Everything about the company is great, decent pay, great benefits, 2nd shift, casual dress, only have to work 7 hours per day...however I have been stuck working weekends for the past 2 years and it is not uncommon for me to be the only person on the phone in charge of 20,000 or so customers during my shift.

The higher level staff here does work within the datacenter and server support, a lot of hands on work that definitely interests me. However there is little to no opportunity for me to move up to this level. There have been people here for nearly 9 years that are still stuck on phone support. There's not even different levels of phone support. I can't imagine being here for 9 years and still have to help idiots setup e-mail on their iphone. For this reason I have decided to start seeking employment elsewhere.

A lot of the laziness trickles down from our management. Much could be done to make our jobs a lot easier, e.g. hiring some more staff, dividing phone support into various levels, and updating online documentation. However they don't bother because it doesn't concern them; they sit in their offices sending e-mail out about free lunches and pinball tournaments while our call center gets bombarded by one moronic call after another.

I absolutely can't stand a corporate environment with strict rules and can't do a 9-5 shift. Now in my current case, the rules are too loose and this only puts more of a burden on me so it's seemingly a lose-lose situation.

The aspect that does interest me most is building/ repair/ troubleshooting, and mainly not having to deal with people. I very much enjoy building and repairing computers. I do not enjoy an hour an a half long phonecall because someone cannot reset their mailbox password. I'm the type of person that likes to be thrown in a back room while I can just go and do my thing.

Without those people, you wouldn't have a job - hell, most of us wouldn't. You cannot sit in a back room and just work on a machine, someone has to interact with that user/client to determine what the problem is as well as discuss potential problems that have stemmed from the first issue. Loners do not last long in corporate settings - you might be able to get away with some of that in a NOC, but at some point, you will interact with a customer.

 

[rasczak]

Without those people, you wouldn't have a job - hell, most of us wouldn't. You cannot sit in a back room and just work on a machine, someone has to interact with that user/client to determine what the problem is as well as discuss potential problems that have stemmed from the first issue. Loners do not last long in corporate settings - you might be able to get away with some of that in a NOC, but at some point, you will interact with a customer.

doug is correct. You have to deal with customers at ALL levels of business. Even if you struck out on your own, and set up your own IT shop, who's going to pay for your services? The customer. While, I understand the need to get away from phone support, don't falsely believe you can get away from customer interaction/support altogether.

 

[Red Squirrel]

IT != computer science

i don't know if you were implying that or not in your statement, but i'm just clarifying it.

Well IT is normally what a computer science course leads to as that is usually the name of the "computer course" which most people who want to be in IT will take.

 

[purbeast0]

Well IT is normally what a computer science course leads to as that is usually the name of the "computer course" which most people who want to be in IT will take.

no it's not. computer science usually leads to jobs dealing with programming, not it stuff like putting servers together and hardware.

 

[dougp]

Well IT is normally what a computer science course leads to as that is usually the name of the "computer course" which most people who want to be in IT will take.

No, as purbeast0 said, CS is for programmers. CIS, MIS, basically any Information Systems degree is for people who want to work in IT. Most companies have a separation of IT (Infrastructure) and development.

no it's not. computer science usually leads to jobs dealing with programming, not it stuff like putting servers together and hardware.

He's Canadian ... explains a lot.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I always felt like the phone support positions were more 'jobs' than careers simply because of the monotony and high turnover they typically carry. I know some folks that like being in the trenches... I did it for a few years in college because it allowed me to work 2nd and 3rd shift with a few days off mid-week to catch up on classwork.

It's really important to be a jack of all trades because you never know what someone will throw at you or what system you may have to reverse engineer to resolve issues with limited support from vendors.

My advice is to find the job first and try it on...see if you can make it a career. If you're lucky enough to have some company headquarters or branch offices in your area, you might be able to jump on somewhere and have a good shot at getting an entry-level position with an opportunity to gain skills as you go. Just start thinking about companies in your area and hit the career section of their website to see what you can find or call a headhunter and give them your resume/what you're looking for.

 

[Red Squirrel]

no it's not. computer science usually leads to jobs dealing with programming, not it stuff like putting servers together and hardware.

Well you'd pretty much have to be in a high end urban type city for those, as they're rather specialized and not really that common. Most companies outsource that stuff so you'd have to work for a really big company like Google or something. Not really something easy to get into and if you do your life is pretty much owned by the company. Sure, if you live in Silicon Valley or big city like Toronto these big jobs are common, but if you live in a smaller/medium size town chances are IT is the only computer related jobs around. Work for mines, telcos, managed service providers etc. And these companies usually outsource the specialzied stuff. Sucks, but it's the way it is.

All IT jobs I've seen require computer science.

 

[sao123]

Well you'd pretty much have to be in a high end urban type city for those, as they're rather specialized and not really that common. Most companies outsource that stuff so you'd have to work for a really big company like Google or something. Not really something easy to get into and if you do your life is pretty much owned by the company. Sure, if you live in Silicon Valley or big city like Toronto these big jobs are common, but if you live in a smaller/medium size town chances are IT is the only computer related jobs around. Work for mines, telcos, managed service providers etc. And these companies usually outsource the specialzied stuff. Sucks, but it's the way it is.

All IT jobs I've seen require computer science.

No... IT jobs usually require MIS IST MIT programs not computer science.

 

[dougp]

Well you'd pretty much have to be in a high end urban type city for those, as they're rather specialized and not really that common. Most companies outsource that stuff so you'd have to work for a really big company like Google or something. Not really something easy to get into and if you do your life is pretty much owned by the company. Sure, if you live in Silicon Valley or big city like Toronto these big jobs are common, but if you live in a smaller/medium size town chances are IT is the only computer related jobs around. Work for mines, telcos, managed service providers etc. And these companies usually outsource the specialzied stuff. Sucks, but it's the way it is.

All IT jobs I've seen require computer science.

CS degrees require quite a bit of math and physics classes as well as theory - good programs are not for the feint of heart. It is highly doubtful that someone with a CS degree would want to be a hardware or support engineer. The company I work for (when it was it's own 30 person small business) had 4 developers, so I'm not sure your theory really fits. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, banks, etc. would not hire someone with a CS degree to do support ... I'd love to sit in that interview. I've seen it listed, but along with the other degrees because HR generally generalizes.

 

[purbeast0]

Well you'd pretty much have to be in a high end urban type city for those, as they're rather specialized and not really that common. Most companies outsource that stuff so you'd have to work for a really big company like Google or something. Not really something easy to get into and if you do your life is pretty much owned by the company. Sure, if you live in Silicon Valley or big city like Toronto these big jobs are common, but if you live in a smaller/medium size town chances are IT is the only computer related jobs around. Work for mines, telcos, managed service providers etc. And these companies usually outsource the specialzied stuff. Sucks, but it's the way it is.

All IT jobs I've seen require computer science.

then i guess canada must be much different than the usa. there aren't even enough software engineers/devs to meet the demand in my area. i do live in the dc metro area though where there are A LOT of government contracting jobs, that require you to be a citizen to work on and even get a clearance, so there is no chance they will ever be outsourcing those.

on top of those jobs though there are TONS and TONS of dev jobs around here that aren't outsourced. infact, i don't know of ANY company around here that outsources jobs overseas. and these range from very small companies (5-6 developers at the company) to huge companies such as Raytheon or Lockheed Martin.

it would be stupid for someone to get a cs degree (in the states) and then go get a job in IT. would be a waste of time to get the cs degree since you wouldn't be using it for anything in the IT job. no need to go through that headache.

 

[Red Squirrel]

CS degrees require quite a bit of math and physics classes as well as theory - good programs are not for the feint of heart. It is highly doubtful that someone with a CS degree would want to be a hardware or support engineer. The company I work for (when it was it's own 30 person small business) had 4 developers, so I'm not sure your theory really fits. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, banks, etc. would not hire someone with a CS degree to do support ... I'd love to sit in that interview. I've seen it listed, but along with the other degrees because HR generally generalizes.

Computer science is a very general term for computer related college/university courses. They're not all equal. While some may specialize more on certain things or go more in depth , not all do. Mine for example did a bit of everything. Networking (mostly Cisco), server administration, server scripting (bash, powershell etc), programming (VB... yuck, C++, assembly html, etc), web design, business administration etc. There was some math, which is the part I found the most challenging as math is not my strong point. Most of the people in my class got a job in IT. Most of them doing level 2 type support.

If there's that many IT/programming jobs in the states then I guess things are different there. I had the impression the job market was not good in the states so figured it would be as hard as here to get a good IT position.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

then i guess canada must be much different than the usa. there aren't even enough software engineers/devs to meet the demand in my area. i do live in the dc metro area though where there are A LOT of government contracting jobs, that require you to be a citizen to work on and even get a clearance, so there is no chance they will ever be outsourcing those.

on top of those jobs though there are TONS and TONS of dev jobs around here that aren't outsourced. infact, i don't know of ANY company around here that outsources jobs overseas. and these range from very small companies (5-6 developers at the company) to huge companies such as Raytheon or Lockheed Martin.

it would be stupid for someone to get a cs degree (in the states) and then go get a job in IT. would be a waste of time to get the cs degree since you wouldn't be using it for anything in the IT job. no need to go through that headache.

All of our programmers work in the IT department, so technically, they have IT jobs.

CS degrees require quite a bit of math and physics classes as well as theory - good programs are not for the feint of heart. It is highly doubtful that someone with a CS degree would want to be a hardware or support engineer.

It depends on what you want to do. I'll put my EE degree up against any Comp Sci degree, for example, but I much prefer the infrastructure and architecture aspects of computer systems -- even though I'm technically a developer. Of course, I want out of IT too so I am probably not the best example.

 

[sze5003]

My major was in IT but all the internships I've had and jobs so far are development jobs. I could not stand doing support or setting up servers.

Many of my friends in IT hated programming so they are doing the support stuff. I dunno how they can stand it.

My one friend got a job here in US as a entry level web developer and he did ok but he decided to move back to Poland and all jobs over there are programming jobs. They are hard to get he says. He got one working for a company that has a base here couple miles from the old company he used to work at here. Funny if you think about it because I bet he is being payed less but he enjoys Poland more. He's getting a ton more training there and he never liked programming but starting off as entry level he will learn.

My area Is full with IT jobs but all descriptions are about programming lol. I've been doing so much prod support at my company I'm tired of coding fixes I wanna get on a project team so I can develop something and learn the strange ways of how they customize every coding component they get their hands on..makes it a real pain to use. At my last company I coded to requirements using whatever I wanted that was fun.

Where I am now, they have training classes for what we do and how to use things but no documentation and you don't learn much.

 

[dougp]

Computer science is a very general term for computer related college/university courses. They're not all equal. While some may specialize more on certain things or go more in depth , not all do. Mine for example did a bit of everything. Networking (mostly Cisco), server administration, server scripting (bash, powershell etc), programming (VB... yuck, C++, assembly html, etc), web design, business administration etc. There was some math, which is the part I found the most challenging as math is not my strong point. Most of the people in my class got a job in IT. Most of them doing level 2 type support.

If there's that many IT/programming jobs in the states then I guess things are different there. I had the impression the job market was not good in the states so figured it would be as hard as here to get a good IT position.

This must be a Canadian thing - any college/university you go to in the US, computer science is a programming degree. There were 3 degrees you could get if you wanted to do programming, CS, EE and CE - computer engineering was mostly a spin-off of EE and I'm not sure it still exists on its own anymore. I don't know why you get the impression that the job market was not good, mostly because people bitch about not being able to find something in their general area and are unwilling to move. Jobs are out there - you just have to know where to look, and what you might have to do to get them.

All of our programmers work in the IT department, so technically, they have IT jobs.

It depends on what you want to do. I'll put my EE degree up against any Comp Sci degree, for example, but I much prefer the infrastructure and architecture aspects of computer systems -- even though I'm technically a developer. Of course, I want out of IT too so I am probably not the best example.

Programmers might fall under IT, but they're not part of infrastructure or operation teams!