Desktop Support/Jr Sysadmin roles will become obsolete in a few years...

With new technology and a generation of people who grew up with it. I believe people have started to get more competent with technology and technology is being made easier to use thus eliminating said jobs. Does anyone think this could possibly be happening?

I have been on helpdesk for a year now and want to look start preparing for the future. Would looking into programming be my best bet for something that will always be needed?

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Comments

networker050184

I don't think you have to worry about anytime in the foreseeable future.

I will say you should be looking to move out of support and into other areas of technology anyway. Whether that be programming, security, networking, systems, etc. support should just be your stepping stone to launch your career.

chronos42

As a current desktop support peon...I heartily disagree. People may be more familiar with computers these days, but that certainly doesn't mean that most of them know their left nut from their elbow when it comes to figuring things out and troubleshooting. Help desk isn't going anywhere.

ajs1976

Wait a minute, those jobs still exist? I thought they were all outsourced to India a few years ago. . .

The market changes. Learn new technology, adapt, and move up in your career.

Asif Dasl

kylepossible wrote: »

With new technology and a generation of people who grew up with it. I believe people have started to get more competent with technology and technology is being made easier to use thus eliminating said jobs. Does anyone think this could possibly be happening?

The same thing happened with cars and engines in general. Jobs which used to be manual labor ended up being replaced by engines and the people cried from the rooftops - "What will happen to our jobs!" Then skip a few decades on and they have put computers in to engines to make them smarter. Yet someone still needs to troubleshoot them or program them and maybe just maybe in future they will be able to do this from half way across the world, but you will always need someone for the "last mile" if you want to call it that. Someone with expertise who can diagnose right there an then - in person. I don't think you will have to worry about jobs disappearing - it's just a gradual shift of skills that never stops until you are retired!

Shdwmage

There will always be ID10T and PEBKAC issues. There will always be a need for general support. It may change, but you'd be surprised how many people still mess up with power cables and such. It's not just older people. Its younger people also.

bobloblaw

Asif Dasl wrote: »

it's just a gradual shift of skills that never stops until you are retired!

In tech, it never ends. Ever. It's gradual, but it only ends when you retire or go into Management

Jon_Cisco

It is possible.
However not everyone can be an expert at everything. In twenty years from now things will be much different .

I doubt you will have a society consisting of 100% competent tech savvy people who want to fix everything for themselves.

Either way don't stop at help desk.

cyberguypr

I work for a high tech software company. People here are extremely good with technology and could solve most of their issues if they really wanted to. However, they hate it and inundate the helpdesk for all kind of tiny things they could do off the top of their head or with minimal research.

Networks, systems, security, will always be needed. The extent of those needs may vary, but the essence will always be the same. If you find something you like go for it. Just be ready to adopt whatever changes come along the way and you'll be good to go.

--chris--

cyberguypr wrote: »

I work for a high tech software company. People here are extremely good with technology and could solve most of their issues if they really wanted to. However, they hate it and inundate the helpdesk for all kind of tiny things they could do off the top of their head or with minimal research.

Networks, systems, security, will always be needed. The extent of those needs may vary, but the essence will always be the same. If you find something you like go for it. Just be ready to adopt whatever changes come along the way and you'll be good to go.

I came here to post this. Being able to fix something and actually doing the work are two different things. Unless the person works in desktop support they will be putting in a ticket to get thing fixed. They have other jobs to do

no!all!

I currently work as desktop support and I can't really see my posiition fading any time soon. Organizations will always need someone onsite to help out end users with an array of issues. A lot of people grow with their roles and move on to bigger and better things eventually anyway..

mokaiba

chronos42 wrote: »

People may be more familiar with computers these days.

I wouldn't be so sure with that statement.

Literally, moments ago, in my companies live chat I had a person telling me he could see himself from his camera on our support page but didn't know if the camera was working...btw he was not american (he was from Sweden).

I've also had these this past year multiple times from people all over the planet (company I work for operates in over 100 countries):

~ Are you on a windows or mac? Them: Yes.

~ Them: I've used computers for many years, I am not an idiot (they did not directly call themselves an idiot, however they were implying it)! Me: Ok, please click the start button (they are on a windows 7). Them: I don't know what that is.

~ Them: I don't use windows, I use apple. I consider myself an expert in all elite pro apple stuff. Me: Ok, what version of mac are you on? Them: I dont own a MAC, I OWN AN APPLE!!!! ~ similar scenario but they reply with where is the apple button.

~ Them: Why don't you guys support linux for your proprietary software!!! Me: to myself, if you were a real linux pro user, you would know why...

~ Please click start>control panel>uninstall a program. Is 'my companies software' installed? Them: several minutes later...ok, I uninstalled it.

~ Please go to speedtest.net so we can verify your speeds are ok to connect to us. Them: several minutes later...ok, i bought the program, just waiting for it to finish scanning. Me: wtf, this idiot bought the spamware advertisement software that appears on the website...

etc, etc, etc.

mokaiba

ajs1976 wrote: »

Wait a minute, those jobs still exist? .

Yes, for smaller companies it is better to have your help desk local.

TheCudder

Desktop Support will always have a place in smaller companies and I don't see them going away in larger enterprises until thin / zero clients get a significant performance boost --- which is depends mostly on user base size, network capacity & server hardware. The direction of Dell Wyse is a peak into why Desktop Support will be smaller job market in the future though. The Cloud Connect HDMI dongle is really cool. We use zero clients for certain tasks in out environment, but it would be torture to use as a primary daily driver or work horse.

RedGaiter

As somebody who is the Helpdesk/IT Technician in a software development company, devs and QA are surprisingly stupid when it comes to fixing issues with their computers.

kurosaki00

People are more competent with technology now? Where is that at?
Joking aside, they are more competent in knowing what an IP is, but not knowing how they get it or how DNS works and how it queries or how RARP works.
There will be need for network and systems admins for the foreseeable future. I heard people saying how cloud was going to replace admins. Now admins are proficient in SaaS or LaaS and vendors are getting their own Cloud related certs out there.

And like others said, if you work in Development, you may know how to troubleshoot the issues your pc is having, doesnt mean you will do it. Just an example, they will rather continue with their jobs and have someone who's sole purpose is to fix/maintain systems to deal with the issue.

bugzy3188

If anything it will weed out the techs who aren't very good at troubleshooting and tend do things by the book. In my experience the "power users" get cocky, mess their workstation up, try to cover it up, and approach you asking you to fix it. They still have the same problems, they just often try to fix things themselves and mess their devices up more. I think the dynamics of what we do will change over time but we will always have our place in the IT field. My 2 pennies anyway...

Params7

Eventually we're going to have to move on to a socialist type governance as machines will be doing nearly all the labor and there will not be enough jobs to go around. People mostly will be occupied with arts and sciences, with a small pool of specialists maintaining those machines and making more machines which maintain other machines. Though I'm thinking 50-100+ years ahead from now, not anytime soon.

Sigaro

I believe we'll see a reduction in Desktop Support/Jr Sysadmin roles over the next decade, but mainly due to automation and not an tech savvy workforce. With technologies like VDI and SDN, you'll simply need less admins to accomplish the same goals.

Pupil

My generation has grown up with desktop computers and the younger generation is growing up with cellphones, tablets, and social media. Don't mistake their familiarity with using web browsers to knowing how to troubleshoot and resolve basic computer related issues. Most of them really don't know how to use a computer and they can't be bothered to learn. It's really irritating to see the apathy and indifference towards technology exhibited by these younger generation who you'd expect to be more knowledgeable about technology than generation X.

See this blog post: Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You - Coding 2 Learn

pcamera123

SDN is why i am transitioning into voice.