Which Job would you take?

[TheNinja]

Assuming salary and benefits are about equal

Job #1:
Data Management for a very large company - Team of 6 people worldwide working with NetApp, SAN, NAS, etc.
A lot more administrative duties, like paper work, reports, project work, meetings, etc.
60 miles 1 way (1 hour to 2 hours depending on traffic) - Can likely work from home 2 days a week
Big company - very structured, lots of places to move around within IT if desired

Job #2:
LAN Admin / Support for 1 location and ~20 field based users - Report into a large location though
Basically a 1 man team for a location of around 100 users that does everything from AD, Exchange, Cisco, desktop support, laptop images, etc. - would have worldwide support from a team of 10 or so.
40 miles 1 way (45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic - Would have to go in everyday.
Nowhere to move initially, - kind of do whatever I want for the most part, but could turn into much more as the company grows like managing other employees, and becoming "THE" west coast IT presense for the company

 

[spidey07]

More of a future in SAN/NetApp. Dealing with anything having to do with a PC or it's image = dead end.

 

[HAL9000]

Assuming salary and benefits are about equal

Job #1:
Data Management for a very large company - Team of 6 people worldwide working with NetApp, SAN, NAS, etc.
A lot more administrative duties, like paper work, reports, project work, meetings, etc.
60 miles 1 way (1 hour to 2 hours depending on traffic) - Can likely work from home 2 days a week

Job #2:
LAN Admin / Support for 1 location and ~20 field based users - Report into a large location though
Basically a 1 man team for a location of around 100 users that does everything from AD, Exchange, Cisco, desktop support, laptop images, etc. - would have worldwide support from a team of 10 or so.
40 miles 1 way (45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic - Would have to go in everyday.

Job #2: Sounds more fun to me, travelling is interesting, change of scene etc. Plus its more of a field I'm interested in so I guess that's a bit subjective.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Job #1 sounds like the better deal to me, but it really depends on what you're looking for.

 

[DesiPower]

#2 will probably be more stable.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

#1. SANS/NetApp data management look really good on a resume. Plus the ability to work from home 2 days/week = win

 

[darkewaffle]

I voted one, longer individual commutes but the work from home days would be worth it to me. I hate the travel time. Honestly if I wasn't too settled I'd consider moving to avoid such a commute every day for either position, but that's just me and there's a lot of variables influencing that.

 

[bfdd]

#1, the money in consulting is absolutely ridiculous when you get the resume.

 

[darkxshade]

#1 if you like to deal with data
#2 if you like to deal with people

I'd pick #1 because dealing with people is a pain in the ass if they're morons

 

[TheNinja]

#1, the money in consulting is absolutely ridiculous when you get the resume.

I'm kind of thinking that too. They will pay to send me to a bunch of NetApp courses. Job #2 says they will pay to keep me up to date, like Exchange, AD, Cisco, etc. I actually have Job #1 right now (or will be going into it) and have 11 years service at the company which helps too.

 

[spidey07]

I'm kind of thinking that too. They will pay to send me to a bunch of NetApp courses. Job #2 says they will pay to keep me up to date, like Exchange, AD, Cisco, etc. I actually have Job #1 right now (or will be going into it) and have 11 years service at the company which helps too.

There is a coming merge of LAN and SAN technologies into FCoE, if you can become a master at merging and properly designing the two you can make some outrageous bank.

 

[yllus]

#2 is just begging to be contracted out, so go with #1.

 

[olds]

Neither too long of a commute.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Job #1 - if you know what you are doing. It would be quite easy to screw up and take the fall for the failure of the project.

But the rewards would be great if you do the job very well.

I've done Job #2 before and it is not something that I would be interested in a career. Not unless there was promotion possibilities.

 

[ViviTheMage]

job 1, I hate users ;P

just kidding, it's more of my area though .. networking/backend work is more enjoyable, then doing everything up the wazoo.

 

[xSauronx]

More of a future in SAN/NetApp. Dealing with anything having to do with a PC or it's image = dead end.

this. theres a guy at the hospital I work at who has been there 7 or 8 years as *the* image guy...he hasnt had a raise in 3 years, and has never had a promotion. shy of him educating himself and pushing hard to get moved to a team to do something else, hes pretty well screwed.

hes about 35.

 

[BornStar]

I'd pick job #1. I spent several years at job #2 and you just end up being somewhat knowledgeable about everything and an expert in nothing. I haven't found it to be very marketable.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I'd pick job #1. I spent several years at job #2 and you just end up being somewhat knowledgeable about everything and an expert in nothing. I haven't found it to be very marketable.

The ceiling is low imo....currently have a similar job, with similar duties, with netapp/san shit rolled in, but no where near 'specialized'.

 

[RichUK]

Both sound boring.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Both sound boring.

What do you do Rich, i've always wondered ...

 

[RichUK]

What do you do Rich, i've always wondered ...

IT & Corporate Project Manager working in the financial industry.

 

[TheNinja]

I'd pick job #1. I spent several years at job #2 and you just end up being somewhat knowledgeable about everything and an expert in nothing. I haven't found it to be very marketable.

true. it seems the days of knowing everything are kind of over. most companies want subject matter experts. #2 is actually more stable at this point though, b/c I'd be THE only guy there and everything would go through me. I think #1 has more potential for future $$ though. SAN, NAS, NetApp seems a little more in demand than 1 million "LAN Admin" guys floating around out there.

 

[Lithium381]

i think it'd choose 1, but in two weeks i could change my mind

 

[kamikazekyle]

SAN stuff is HUGE now, what with all the pushes towards server and client virtualization, which pretty much go hand-in-hand with SANs. You need dedicated storage to leverage the high I/O and deduplication, and storage admins normally do the SAN stuff too. You also get networking experience within a SAN setup, doing the storage equivalent of a LAN (hey, it is a Storage Area Network). Our normal network engineers refused to touch our SAN.

Anywho. I used to do SAN/NetApp storage. NetApps are pretty much a breeze to work with and very flexible, though if you muck with the LUN/SAN stuff without knowing what you're doing, you can enter a state of "I hope we have good backups" in about one second. You'll also need very good organizational skills, not just for the office administrative stuff, but to keep track of what are usually complicated SAN configurations. If a SAN setup isn't complex, they probably should be doing NAS

So, go #1 if you want something that's going to be marketable, challenging, and with opportunity to move and grow. It might be more stressful as well depending on your personality, considering that by loosing a SAN for even a few hours can cost a company craptons of money (kinda depends on the company and the purpose of the SAN, though).

 

[TheNinja]

SAN stuff is HUGE now, what with all the pushes towards server and client virtualization, which pretty much go hand-in-hand with SANs. You need dedicated storage to leverage the high I/O and deduplication, and storage admins normally do the SAN stuff too. You also get networking experience within a SAN setup, doing the storage equivalent of a LAN (hey, it is a Storage Area Network). Our normal network engineers refused to touch our SAN.

Anywho. I used to do SAN/NetApp storage. NetApps are pretty much a breeze to work with and very flexible, though if you muck with the LUN/SAN stuff without knowing what you're doing, you can enter a state of "I hope we have good backups" in about one second. You'll also need very good organizational skills, not just for the office administrative stuff, but to keep track of what are usually complicated SAN configurations. If a SAN setup isn't complex, they probably should be doing NAS

So, go #1 if you want something that's going to be marketable, challenging, and with opportunity to move and grow. It might be more stressful as well depending on your personality, considering that by loosing a SAN for even a few hours can cost a company craptons of money (kinda depends on the company and the purpose of the SAN, though).

Ya, #1 would be new and more challenging, but more stressful and a ton for me to have to learn. #2 would be pretty easy and I could probably do it with my eyes closed. So not much stress there but not much new growth other than of course keeping up with the latest version of Microsoft, Cisco, etc. standards and releases.