Hello world

RLdevon_larson

I’m completely new to OT and looking for ways to grow towards a career in the field. Already a machinist for a large corporation. I have really no idea of where to start. All information is good. Open to suggestions 

E Double U

Welcome! What are you interested in? What type of IT teams are within your corporation?

DatabaseHead

Maybe look around your facility and ask questions about IT positions you could potentially transition into?  Ask what skills will be required.  A lot of people I know got their break asking how to get into those specific positions.  

Will they let you shadow someone for a half of day?  

chrisone

I would also check job requirements for junior help desk positions to see what is being asked by the industry. Once obtaining an idea of what skills and certifications are required, start making a list of goals you need to accomplish.

Also note you may take a paycut from your current career as a machinist. It sucks but "most" of the time starting fresh in the information technology field (at any age) you always have to start at the bottom. Unless you develop some app or are a genius hacker who never worked for an employer. 

DatabaseHead

chrisone said:

I would also check job requirements for junior help desk positions to see what is being asked by the industry. Once obtaining an idea of what skills and certifications are required, start making a list of goals you need to accomplish.

Also note you may take a paycut from your current career as a machinist. It sucks but "most" of the time starting fresh in the information technology field (at any age) you always have to start at the bottom. Unless you develop some app or are a genius hacker who never worked for an employer. 

My favorite story is a guy I had the pleasure to work with who was retired air force.  AC 130 mechanic along with other aircraft.  He retired from service picked up a job as an aircraft mechanic and went on to do that for ~10 years after retirement.   Finally got tired of the work got his degree around 45 in computer science at one of the local university and jumped on a help desk gig like you mentioned.  He went from 60-70 an hour (sometimes more due to his travels overseas as a contractor) to repair aircraft, made a lot of money....  

He took a helpdesk position for ~14 months and was picked up in a software development position, mostly on the backend with APIs and SQL.  The job paid 85,000 this was in 2011, 2012.  

It was something else, really cool story.  

chrisone

Yeah there are always those one off stories where someone can move up quickly. I know you weren't hinting that I was saying this but, just to clear up my statement for my own clarity, my intent was not to convince anyone that they couldn't move up the ranks at a quick rate within the IT field. The intent was based on the reality that if you move from a stable career, be prepared to enter into a new career from the bottom. 

It is definitely not easy changing careers. Heck, when I switched from a senior network engineer position to a security position, I had my doubts and felt I made a major mistake. I am a senior sec engineer now but it wasn't easy and this change was all "within" the IT field. I could only imagine how difficult it would be from one career/industry to another. 

DatabaseHead

chrisone said:

Yeah there are always those one off stories where someone can move up quickly. I know you weren't hinting that I was saying this but, just to clear up my statement for my own clarity, my intent was not to convince anyone that they couldn't move up the ranks at a quick rate within the IT field. The intent was based on the reality that if you move from a stable career, be prepared to enter into a new career from the bottom. 

It is definitely not easy changing careers. Heck, when I switched from a senior network engineer position to a security position, I had my doubts and felt I made a major mistake. I am a senior sec engineer now but it wasn't easy and this change was all "within" the IT field. I could only imagine how difficult it would be from one career/industry to another. 

No doubt about it.  That one thing I liked about his approach, he went full bore into computer science and was laser focus on programming.  If you have a clear vision of what you want to do, it can help expedite the cycle times to get moving in your career.  If you maintain yourself as a dabbler you'll slow your progress down quite a bit.  

At least this is my experience.  

For an example I was working help desk like you mentioned and was stalling back in 09.  11 came around and I started to get the itch.  We were contracting out to a company to manage all our Microsoft office application support.  I mentioned several times I could do this and eventually did the MOS designation and became that person.  I ended up training a few folks and they were able to stop paying 10k a month for support.   

I had an end game in mind and it helped me get moved up to a senior level help desk employee.