Years in the field

fpso

How many years have you been in the field? Where did you start out? Where are you at now in your career?

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keenon

17yrs, pulling cables and taking PC out of the box. CCIE R/S

tedjames

Almost 11 years. Started as the technical writer in the security group and gradually moved into program management and then security analyst. Currently learning ethical hacking (eJPT).

xxxkaliboyxxx

9 Years now, started out volunteering at my brother's computer repair shop, dropped out (or kicked out, its debatable) of college, joined the Army and now sitting as a manager for a Service Enterprise.

paul78

@OP - you could check out this older thread too - it's goes into a bit of detail if you are trying to find out about various people's career progression. It can be quite varied. http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/98832-timeline-your-career-progression.html

UnixGuy

10 yrs, junior unix support engineer, Senior Security Analyst.

Life is good

GeekyChick

13 years, with a long break until just last fall. Fell in love with computers and programming in college, got degree, worked as Helpdesk manager at the university in the IT department went on to be network consultant. Currently trying to get into infosec.

EANx

23, a combination of desktop support / supporting a single-server Novell network, IT Director that enjoys tossing old-school solutions into the bull-pen when my team of tier-3 engineers gets stuck.

jcundiff

Almost 20... started as tech suport/help desk worked up to management in IT, moved to security in a GRC role, now Senior Threat Intelligence Analyst.

pevangel

Almost 6 years. Started out doing desktop support for a small non-profit. Currently a Sr. Network Engineer for a service provider network.

scaredoftests

Hmm, I started as a Data Management Assistant and I became my lab's network admin about 20 years ago.

Danielm7

17 years, IT Security Engineer.

brewboy

16 years. Desktop support, network administrator, network engineer

shochan

17yrs, began as Jr. Network Admin @ health ins co, now in System Systems Admin position...on my way out of IT in a couple of years though, burnt da fuuuuuuuu out

GSXR750K2

12 years (I'll be 35 in July). Started at a little company doing Active Directory management, Exchange, and desktop OS installation. I'm not as far along as I'd like to be...stuck around my area too long (not a lot of IT opportunities) so now I feel I'm rushing to catch up to be competitive with people who are only five or six years in.

DatabaseHead

8 Years, Help Desk Tier 1 > Senior Database Analyst

knownhero

10 years

NOC > Desktop Support > SharePoint Analyst

markulous

3 Years. Started at a MSP Help Desk and now I'm a security analyst.

TechGromit

25 years, 3 months, 16 days

I stated out in computer operations as an AS/400 computer operator in a Casino, October 7th, 1991. These are years employed in the industry, I went to a Technical Training school for about two years of night school before that. Paid $9,000 to learn programming, but never worked as a programmer except for some simple scripting. I work in Nuclear Cyber Security Operations now.

mzx380

Roughly 15 years
Started out in help desk and I'm currently a Technical Project Manager

NetworkNewb

I'll bite... 5 years, first job out of college was in web development, work as Security Analyst now.

jamesleecoleman

Full time: 2.5 years. Last job was Sr. Tech Support Analyst. This job is IT Specialist (IT Manager or IT Director, depending on the paperwork but IT specialist is the right title). I have more freedom to get way more hands on experience with networking, servers and infosec.

Part time: A little under two years prior to the full time positions. IT Assistant and CSR is what I had.

Matt2

In IT for 16+ years, In my 1st Security specific role the last few, soon to move into my 2nd security specific role.

SpetsRepair

How many years have you been in the field?
5+ years in the IT field but two years ago most of that experience was contracting, temp help desk gigs, and personal consulting

Where did you start out?
Contracted help desk, enjoyed the work but wasn't getting me where I wanted to be so I kept studying the Cisco networking courses in hopes of joining a network team somewhere.

Where are you at now in your career?

Currently at a very large MSSP/Advanced security operations center and this is how things went for me in this company.
Hired on 2015, three months later supervisors wants me to start training other people, first I was confused why they felt comfortable with me training people if I only was there for three months while the guys who've been there for six + months didn't get to teach others.
5 months in, they try to get me the security engineer position and they only had three reqs open, two engineers from my dept and another dept get the engineer. I get promoted six months in and I'm now a lead analyst and work directly with high visibility projects, escalations, and other engineers. At this point the engineers have started to bring me into their teams and I start learning from them and start teaching them as well, I come from a Cisco background so I have some knowledge into areas they have no experience in. Three months go by and another engineer position opens up, first thing in the morning my manager wants to talk to me, presents me an offer letter and wants to know if I want to join the engineering team. Of-course I accept the promotion, and notice upper management, and other engineers keeping an eye on me for some reason, most likely upper management had been notified long ago I was the one they were going to offer this position to. Been a security engineer ever since, and still working at this company. Its been ups and downs, but I've decided to stay another year or so and continue progressing.

Time line
2015
Security analyst
Six months later
Senior analyst/team lead in the Denver office
Three months after
Security engineer
Been an engineer ever since, love my job but could use a pay increase

Dakinggamer87

About 10 years started doing help desk/desktop support. I'm currently a Cloud Systems Engineer but I'm moving into Management soon..

gkca

17 years, junior web developer, senior sysadmin.

Madmd5

A little under 4 years; started out as Support Services Intern, now I'm a Network Security Engineer.

jb4479

19 years, Deskside support/Assistant ISSO (Navy) ---> IT contractor ---> Help desk lead (assistant manager)/tier 3 tech support

byron66

Almost 2 years, started off as an IT consultant (entered computer information into spreadsheets) but now I got a sweet gig at a non profit doing Desktop support. Oddly enough I do a lot more work here and get paid less than my last job but I don't have to commute an hour to work everyday any more.

TLeTourneau

About 20 years, started as a DoD (DFSC) contractor - Systems Engineer. I am currently a Senior IT Systems Engineer with a larger healthcare provider.

RHEL

7 years, UNIX sysadmin, Sr. UNIX Engineer