Moving from one position to another and......

DatabaseHead

The money is there, bonus, title, work place etc....... But you aren't learning as much or getting your hands on next gen technologies. With the potential risk of becoming obsolete in the future, how did you handle this situation if in fact you found yourself in a situation like this?

Just curious about your experiences and your remediation or lack there of.

TechGromit

It think this is a very valid concern. Sure you could say I'm earning 100k a year, and my job is easy as hell. Who in the right mind would want to give all that up and get another job that is more difficult and doesn't pay as well? The problem is as technology advances, your specialty that pays good money today, may become irrelevant in the future, and you could become unemployed / unemployable. I was going to point at COBOL as a victim of this progressing technology, but despite the slow migration of mainframes to server based systems, there seems to be quite a lot of programs still running COBOL. I think in this case, it's been the retirement of older programmers that is driving the current demand for computer programmers, but i can't foresee the long term job outlook of COBOL programmers as good. Mostly they are supporting old code and sometimes old systems. As those systems and programs eventually get replaced with newer software solutions, COBOL programmers earning 100k+ will be a thing of the past, even if it takes another 20 years to become a reality.

As for my experiences, I've found that switching careers to Cyber Security has been very beneficial to me, something I really just lucked into, not something I trained for. I've been determined not to not rely on luck in the future. I've been working on training, learning, obtaining certifications so luck will not be a factor in future positions.

UnixGuy

Self-study (labbing), training courses, certifications. Learning new stuff in a lab and implementing at work...

and changing jobs.

N7Valiant

UnixGuy wrote: »

Self-study (labbing), training courses, certifications. Learning new stuff in a lab and implementing at work...

and changing jobs.

Assuming one has very lax change management.

LordQarlyn

DatabaseHead wrote: »

The money is there, bonus, title, work place etc....... But you aren't learning as much or getting your hands on next gen technologies. With the potential risk of becoming obsolete in the future, how did you handle this situation if in fact you found yourself in a situation like this?

Just curious about your experiences and your remediation or lack there of.

This is always a huge concern and not just in IT in any field where there is even fairly rapid progress one has to stay current with the leading technologies and advances or risk becoming obsolete. I've left good paying jobs for that very reason; lack of exposure to new technologies or even insufficient exposure to current technologies.
Attending training, self study and doing your own labs help, yes, by all means, I am not dismissing that. That said, actual work experience in production environment trumps all of those any time. Yet if you aren't currently able to work on the latest and hottest tech in production environments, studying up on it, making labs if possible and affordable, will at least keep you in the know and maybe be enough to get an interview. After all, if the particular tech is new and hot, there's likely a shortage of experienced personnel.

iBrokeIT

For me, things seem to ebb and flow but all balance out in the end. Professional experience, personal time, and professional development all seem to take their turns getting my primary focus for areas of change. Someone who has a newborn would probably love to have you current situation and wouldn't mind coasting a little bit while their personal life settles down.

If I were you, I would probably start planning my next move and working on professional development in preparation. Already having a great job is luxury that will allow you to take your time and be very selective about your next jump so don't make it too quickly!

UnixGuy

N7Valiant wrote: »

Assuming one has very lax change management.

if you can present a proper business case, justify that your solution will add value/improve things/save time/automate/etc., then change management will happily approve it

DatabaseHead

iBrokeIT wrote: »

For me, things seem to ebb and flow but all balance out in the end. Professional experience, personal time, and professional development all seem to take their turns getting my primary focus for areas of change. Someone who has a newborn would probably love to have you current situation and wouldn't mind coasting a little bit while their personal life settles down.

If I were you, I would probably start planning my next move and working on professional development in preparation. Already having a great job is luxury that will allow you to take your time and be very selective about your next jump so don't make it too quickly!

You pretty much nailed except for the coasting part. I work in all project based work and very rarely is there any coasting time. It's usually concurrent complex projects that last 6 months then rolling into another one immediately that has not been scoped properly. Some of these project were initiated 2 years ago and I just am picking them up in the last 4 months or so.....

I'm going to start looking internally and give that about 6 months. That should buy me enough time to grab my bonus and I can hopefully make a transition then.....

If not external it is....

Thanks for all the insights a lot of good points.

N7Valiant

UnixGuy wrote: »

if you can present a proper business case, justify that your solution will add value/improve things/save time/automate/etc., then change management will happily approve it

Do things regularly go from home lab to production like that?

In business when looking for a job I generally encounter "the chicken or the egg" problem.

Every employer goes:
"I want you to have 5-10 years experience minimum in X, don't apply if you don't have it."

"How do I get that experience if everyone has the same requirement?"

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I would typically expect business people to ask how you'll prove that what you're about to do won't trash their production environment and if the company doesn't have its own lab/testing environment you're SOL.[/FONT]

CiscoASA2202

Find another job
I moved up in the world to find I learned a lot with the first year and a half on the job but now i'm stagnant and getting bored
Time to move on to find something you do want to do and are passionate about

DatabaseHead

CiscoASA2202 wrote: »

Find another job
I moved up in the world to find I learned a lot with the first year and a half on the job but now i'm stagnant and getting bored
Time to move on to find something you do want to do and are passionate about

I'm glad you mentioned this. The first 18 months I learned a lot. I am still learning but not at the rate and the tech is LIMITED.

UnixGuy

N7Valiant wrote: »

Do things regularly go from home lab to production like that?

In business when looking for a job I generally encounter "the chicken or the egg" problem.

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It's not as black or white. Some things you can make a case for, some things not so much. And it's not like things go straight from lab to prod, sometimes vendors are involved. Sometimes it's just a matter of you writing a script to automate things which you should first test in a lab anyway

yeah chicken & egg problem is common. Just gotta learn what you can in your own time and hope the job doesn't ask for too many things that you haven't seen before

Tekn0logy

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Just curious about your experiences and your remediation or lack there of.

I said it would never happen, missed the axe about 7 times and thought I was not on anyone's radar.
Then boom, it happened...

All I can say is get a bachelors degree and certify in whatever you call yourself an expert in.
No certs and people will try to tech you out at every interview. Stretch and get to the next level with Udemy & edX.