Eventually you have to pick something and stick with it

This in my career has hurt me the worst. If I could pass on advice to others, find what you like, eliminate the distractions and deep dive. Don't make decisions based off of worry, such as "The technology may go away" or "XYZ is pays more so stop doing ABC".

Find your focus and deliver. Learn, become great and enjoy what you do. Life is too short to waste it away with indecisiveness.

Stay bold and make it happen.

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gespenstern

It's not that easy to find what you really like. At least, you have to try many things in order to get the feeling of whether you like it or not, but that equals to fiddling your life away from a perspective of a person who already has found his/her path.

Plus, some things aren't really in demand by society so you can't really earn money by doing that. Example: progaming, which is profitable only for the best of the best but still those guys don't get what they could have by having a decent regular type job.

Mike-Mike

I am at this crossroads now. I have about 15 years of technical experience, but it is quite a range. I have Telecommunications both landline and mobile, networking, server support, access control, service desk, software testing, etc.

I have just recently accepted an Information Security Analyst role. So hopefully all that diverse experience has led me to this path, and I will go upwards from here. Both my Bachelors and my Masters are InfoSec focused, and this is where I have wanted to go. So as long as I love the job, my life has worked out correctly...

however if I get in there and hate it... i have to figure out what I want to do.. I have also done a fair amount of job hopping to get the experience and pay that I need, so i think I'm good at this point, but if I was to make another short term move, it would look poorly on my resume.

So at this point, I'm pretty much all in on my new job.. so yeah... youngsters, try to figure out what you want early on

markulous

I wish I knew 100% what I want to do but the biggest issue I come across is that I just like working with anything thrown at me and mostly what I study is fun. systems, networking, virtualization, security, devops, etc. I don't really want to choose just one right now. Although I don't have a ton of experience with that stuff so I'm not worried at the moment.

I do agree to not worry about the money or whether that technology is going away soon. Just chase what you enjoy with money being a distant second.

greg9891

I have been doing computer re[pair for about 5 years uncertified and am now tryint to get more certifications to move to the corporate side of the I.T world I love so much diffferent areas thats its hard to choose just one. I see my self studying some certs just for the fun of it. just because its interest me personally.

Edificer

Thanks to TE forums, and previous threads regarding deep-diving certainly has impacted my career direction. I could have probably never or not known at this rate for most of the certificates, standards, that are applied to the real world if it was not for this site. Analyzing other peoples journey, and my own, I 'want' to eventually become a pen-tester with the OSCP as an introduction (after NP:Sec).

JoJoCal19

I agree N2IT. I've been in IT for over 10 years, with over 8 of it in InfoSec. I did deep dive and specialized in IAM, which I hated being stuck in, so I left. Ever since I've been doing a multitude of things in InfoSec, most recently now on our Security Engineering & Architecture team. I'm still not sure if this is where I will stay. But I do feel I need to again pick an area and deep dive in it. I've been trying to decide between security architecting, pentesting, software security, and cloud security. In my opinion from my own targeted job searches, the more specialized, knowledgeable, and experienced you are, the higher the salary ceiling.

shodown

Best advice you have ever given on this board. When I got into cisco I decided that VoIP was gonna be my main thing, and I find way to add the new tech into what I do as a VoIP engineer, so when I code I think of how I will solve problems in the voice world. Sticking with a few things that are closely related is the best way to go.

Robertf969

I love Security, my problem is i'm ADHD about IT. I want to dive into absolutely everything even if I just need to know the basics about it. I thought I would hate programming but low and behold I took one Java course and now I feel like I need to master it.

LeisureSuitLarry

I agree with the OP. I learned the hard way that the world finds little value in Jack-of-All-Trade types. It might be a benefit when you're raising kids, but it's not worth much in the job world. Specialists are the ones in demand. People that pick a narrow focus and become really good at one thing tend to be valued the most.

I'm going to try to avoid making the same mistakes in my endeavors to get back into IT. My first impulse is to get a bunch of entry level certs so I have some experience in a lot of different things. But life experience tells me the best choice is to pick a single certification path and ride it to the top.

nster

I cant read apparently, my bad. Makes more sense now!

gespenstern

nster wrote: »

Is it really that different here vs in Chicago?

Check it thoroughly, it says 'PROGAMING', not programming

N2IT

If you set limitations on yourself you'll never amount to anything.

DoubleNNs

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to N2IT again."

I'm trying to head in this direction myself. Do what is required at work, but try to focus my personal labbing/learning time on what I want to instead of what is directly applicable at work. By now, it's starting to seem like I can steer my work responsibilities in the direction I want to by displaying my strengths and how I can add value by utilizing them.

kly630

N2IT wrote: »

This in my career has hurt me the worst. If I could pass on advice to others, find what you like, eliminate the distractions and deep dive. Don't make decisions based off of worry, such as "The technology may go away" or "XYZ is pays more so stop doing ABC".

Find your focus and deliver. Learn, become great and enjoy what you do. Life is too short to waste it away with indecisiveness.

Stay bold and make it happen.

I have a corollary to this.

If you can't find that focus just yet, it's perfectly acceptable to take that thing few people know how to do or want to do on your team and specialize in that. There are worst ways of picking up specialities.

twodogs62

Start out by learning a little bit about everything.
When you find something that interests you start specializing.
If you like networking and switches start learning more about it. Net+, Cisco
if it is sys admin, start learning different OSes. windows, Linux. MCSA
If it is desktop, A+
If you want to move into Management think about a college degree. PM cert
At some point the degree may get you the interview.
No matter what get the basics down, get the experience and find out what you enjoy doing and more important that can do well and succeed at.

N2IT

@DoubleNN and others

Whatever you do don't beat yourself up. If you aren't able to lab for whatever reason it's okay. My approach is of a marathon, not a sprint or even 3 miles, but 26.2. I know this journey is going to be a long, but that is okay. I don't want burnout, I want to keep moving in the right direction at a sustainable pace. I'm not about to quantify it with z amount of certs or n amount of hours studied. To each their own in those regards.

@Kly I did that with MS Office applications back when it was 2003. I was on a help desk and nobody wanted to support those tickets. I did the MOS certifications and really studied the applications, it really helped me move up on the help desk and made me realize what you just said. Find a need and fill it. Make yourself valuable that's a huge component to working in/on a team.

eSenpai

IMHO, I think this varies with what you ultimately want to be when you grow up. If you want to remain a techie then indeed specializing helps a ton. However if you want to be promoted above the department/silo level (Head of Engineering, Network Manager, Security Lead, etc) then it pays to be a jack of all trades. Being able to speak the language of every silo and do the work by having actually done those jobs previously can gain you great respect both inside your organization and in an external interview when you want to be considered for IT Manager, VP, CIO or any management position covering multiple silos. Not saying you can't make the jump from specialist to management but historically speaking the specialist tends to be a lifetime tech and the generalist tends to not early on in their career. I have known several specialists who moved to management but it was much much later in their careers than the average generalist.

That said, even management has to decide at some point what they want to be...I am currently torn on my own path from an organization perspective as I see security cooling off from its current white hot path sooner than everyone expects given some of the tech in the pipeline and I don't want to be caught in another situation where I am pigeon-holed. Finding a company that doesn't go through the inevitable layoff scare is getting harder and harder. Healthcare is probably where I will make my last corporate home for the peace of mind.

YesOffense

How about management? Joat skills translate well.

alxx

I'd love to be in a research engineer/robotics position but almost no positions available here.

With an aircraft maintenance engineer avionics/embedded systems and fpgas/computers systems/ some software, background I've ended up as software developer/support engineer for digital signage (though doing a lot of escalated network support calls (get used as a level2/3 / specalised support)). Doing a few video walls (12 - 44 screens) as well as supporting them. Getting into video on demand
Work - mostly python, linux, windows, mysql, javascript. Lot of network distribution code (update the display data and content).
Work with a lot of cisco dmp's (prefer dmp's to windows based signage pc's)

Need to hurry up and get my cisco and vmware certs.

Sometimes for job/financial security you have to chase the money/opportunities rather than chasing what you want to do.

60K for a programmer with 5 years experience? seems rather low?
For Sydney for 5 years experience a good programmer/engineer would be on 75 - 90k depending on main languages
Senior Developer/Engineer 100 - 120k (7 -10+ years experience)

For helpdesk/network engineers here
Level 1 is usually around 45 - 55k
Level 2 55 - 65k
not sure on level 3

Broadreach is hiring in Sydney and Melbourne if anyone is interested Broadreach - Careers - Careers at Broadreach
(the vnoc help desk is level 1 depending on experience)

UnixGuy

Great advice. It's really hard to do because technologies change, boredom, stagnation, boredom, existential crisis, personal/social life, boredom, existential crisis again,...etc.

But I'm with you, focus and specialization gets you far.

paul78

YesOffense wrote: »

How about management? Joat skills translate well.

True. But management is a specially in itself. It requires specific skills and competencies.

alias454

I wonder what advice all those guys that specialized in mainframes would give? I think one has to have a deep interest in something with several supporting skills allowing for a nimble transition if the need arises. Getting really good at something takes a lot of time and generally the trade-off is your other skills get rusty. Finding skills that compliment each other in that way allows one to have almost the best of both worlds I would think.

Regards,

JoJoCal19

alias454 wrote: »

I wonder what advice all those guys that specialized in mainframes would give? I think one has to have a deep interest in something with several supporting skills allowing for a nimble transition if the need arises. Getting really good at something takes a lot of time and generally the trade-off is your other skills get rusty. Finding skills that compliment each other in that way allows one to have almost the best of both worlds I would think.

Regards,

I actually love the mainframe analogy and I use it often. My answer to that is to specialize, but also to keep your knowledge and skills in other areas up to speed at a minimally competent level. I also operate on having a backup skill that maybe isn't up to my specialized skill level, but still high enough to be able to switch over to it if need be.

UnixGuy

alias454 wrote: »

I wonder what advice all those guys that specialized in mainframes would give? ..

Regards,

specialising in mainframe is no excuse not to have working knowledge of the storage, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, security, and networking involved with Mainframe. There is always room to learn more while being specialised.

Specialisation != stagnation.

the_Grinch

It's definitely a tough thing to do, finding what you want to specialize in. Been in IT for six years and have always been a jack of all trades. My current position is the first where at least it started with a focus, but eventually back to JOAT. I have reached the point where taking a pay cut isn't an option and thus going for something slightly lower to end up higher will be extremely tough. But I agree that specializing is definitely the way to go.

N2IT

I'm confused how is management = Joat

Like Paul mentioned first of all it's a skillset in itself. The best IT manager I worked for knew very little about IT. He was more of a relationship person along with finance and operations management.

Besides that I have met plenty of 1st - 2nd line managers who were specialist before they took on a managerial roles. A lot of times that's what they want a deep understanding of the technology their team is supporting / configuring / developing.

I've never met an application development manager who didn't understanding development, data etc. That doesn't mean they could pass the A+ or N+ exam.

I laugh at the mainframe example. Finance and Insurance Companies still utilize this technology heavily along with several government agencies, corp of engineers comes to mind.

My mother who is 62 years old over 30 years of development still works for CSC as a COBOL programmer on a mainframe stack. Makes well over a 100,000 a year and doesn't have a whole lot of stress, and just was promoted to a team lead. She's pretty much seen anything that can happen on this stack and on the code side even more. In fact if you knew CICS, M203, I could get you an interview or at least there is a good chance I could. Several of her co workers have gone the way of retirement and there is a shortage of knowledge worker for that technology. Sure companies are moving away from it to SAP etc, but intergration is not always an easy thing and sometimes the ERP is unable to solve the problem.

Don't believe me go on LinkedIn and look at all the COBOL, Mainframe groups. In Brazil there are several companies looking for mainframe admins and COBOL devs. I wish I had those skills you can walk into one of those roles getting close to 130,000 of the start with bonus.

It's pretty cool to be honest, my Mother gets on those groups and helps out all the young guys in Brazil with code issues and mainframe problems. I would say it's actually starting to gain traction again. Mainframes are powerful and still can't be matched in certain areas.

the_Grinch

I gotta second N2IT on the COBOL thing. There was a company out of Delaware who needed people with COBOL skills so badly that they were willing to train you. You just needed a high school diploma and to pass their initial test. From there they would pay you $19 an hour while in training (several months) and then bump you to $24 an hour after. I really equate it to being an AS400 programmer when you look at the lack of people with the skill and the high pay they can command. I worked for a school district with an AS400 used for payroll. One day there was an issue and they could not print any of their checks. They called all over the place and finally after a few days found a guy who worked for a local power company as an AS400 programmer. Cost them $400 an hour, but they got him to come in and he fixed the issue.

N2IT

It's really not a bad strategy. RPM, AS400 is a solid skill set. I worked with a DBA who's buddy worked for the Casino's as a IT manager over the AS400 stack. Web server, email. He was corporate making 100+ an hour. That's really nice scratch, he did work hard though. Anytime they did a rollout he had to travel to all the cities where there was a casino.

kurosaki00

QDDSSRC ? CRTCBLPGM? Flashback from college....

Cobol and RPG jobs are very scarce... but when you find one oh boy. Since it's "legacy" and not many people keep doing it nowadays, Cobol developers charge a ton of $$$.

I think know a bit of everything but specialize in one or two areas is the way to go.

N2IT

If you are a legacy developer, then you advertise yourself through agencies, social media, etc. While they jobs are scarce compared to newer technology there are less people who have those skills.

Play your cards right and you can walk into an environment where you make good coin and light responsibilities. AS400's are like a snakes, cut it's head off and it keeps moving along.