The techie career path

cdad2000

Hey Everybody,

I love being a techie, but my boss suggest "Techie dont make much $$$ in the long run" He suggest Project management or MBA. What do you think? How do you feel when the new CIO or CTO doesn't even have a background in technology.

Thanks for input,buddies!

Mishra

To be able to answer your question, I would need to know what you think "much $$$" actually is.

networker050184

I know I can make enough money to be happy being a techie.

You can always go into other roles within a business such as product management or sales if you think they have the better earning potential you are looking for.

astorrs

I'm a techie and I think I make "much $$$" doing what I enjoy. However I would consider project management an essential skill for any senior IT person, techie or not.

Slowhand

It really all depends on how your boss perceives "a techie". If he sees techies as A+ certified desktop support guys, then he's right. If he doesn't understand that you could, potentially, go down the road and work until you become a CTO/CIO with years of experience under your belt, or become a Sr. Engineer with a CCIE, CISSP, and/or MCA certification, then he's wrong. Chances are, he's used to working with "techies" that haven't gone too far beyond high school and work on the user-support/desktop-support level.

My advice, do what you want to do. Don't make a career out of something you're doing just for the money. You'll make money in this industry, the further you go the more you stand to earn. But do this work because you like it. If you change careers, end up hating it, you won't really be enjoying the time and that isn't worth the potential bump in pay you may (or may not) get, in my personal opinion.

LBC90805

Nothing is really better than getting an MBA or MBS, I'm thinking business right? A masters degree will be more recognized than certifications by a long shot. That degree will open more doors than Certs alone.

Now to add on top of a Masters degree technical Certifications like CCNA, CCNP, MCSA, MCSE and so on you will make yourself more valuable than just those individuals who posses certifications alone.

Besides you already have a Bachelor Degree. I'm in the same boat, which is a good boat to be in. That will leave you in better shape and open a lot more doors than like what I said before, than folks with just certs alone. If you have the opportunity to get a Masters, by all means do that.

After I finished up my Bachelors I swore off formal schooling. It took me the better part of going to school off and on for 11 years to get my degree. So I figured I would concentrate on Certs rather than getting a Masters.

Paul Boz

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to manage people and tackle problems related to coordination and personnel management you should probably look into some project management or MBA options. If you would rather be an engineer, getting certifications will help you more.

Your boss is a fool for telling you that business management people earn more money than "techie" people. There is absolutely no way to gauge that. At my last job I earned 1.5x what my boss did because I was better at engineering than he was at managing.

If you suck at doing your job you won't get paid. Inversely, if you have dedication and patience you can earn whatever you want doing tech related work. Consulting is a golden honey pot of cash.

CCIEWANNABE

bwahahah, that is hilarious. ive got a masters, pay me money. sorry, not how it works. you still have to do your time and work your way up the ladder. if you guys want to make the big money, gov't contractor is the way to go. You will need to be able to obtain a security clearance though so take that into consideration. and once you get your foot into the door as a gov't contractor, its over. you can pretty much make more than CCIE's/MBA's if you are willing to go overseas. I got friends that are in Bahrain right now that will pull down 150K after taxes in one year (first 80k earned is tax free!!). AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE CCNA OR DEGREE, BUT THEY DO HAVE GOV'T CONTRACTOR EXPERIENCE AND THATS ALL IT TAKES. And don't get me wrong, Bahrain is a very safe place to work. so you do the math and let me know what you think. I'm not saying that trying to obtain your CCIE/MBA is the wrong path to go, just saying that there are alot easier ways to get paid the big bucks than trying to get your number. you just got to get your foot in the door and after that, its all good. So tell your boss he's pretty ignorant for thinking that "techies" don't get paid crap. lets think, pay off mba debt (50k +) or get paid big for not even having bachelor's. that's a real hard one to think about

IT Man

I have had members of management tell me similar things. Not so much that "techies" didn't make good money but just when you want to get into management, advanced degrees can help you get there. While with certs, you'll just keep playing with servers, routers, and switches for the rest of you life.

cdad2000

Hey,

Anybody know a politician I can brown nose too?

Plazma

The "techie" career path for me wasn't about money, it was about a passion, a love for the technology and industry that has no bounds. Fortunatly, its a passion that does pay quite well with the right amount of experience and knowledge.

The more experience you get and the more well-rounded you become, the more $$$ you will make.. keep in mind that you have to start at the bottom, and earn your worth.

redwarrior

I've always gone with the theory that if you do what you love and work to do it the best you can, then the money will come. I'd rather be making less money at a job that inspires me than make a ton of cash doing something I loathe, like managing people. I'll take managing a network over managing people any day of the week and twice on sundays, no matter what the difference in pay!

CCIEWANNABE

redwarrior wrote:

I've always gone with the theory that if you do what you love and work to do it the best you can, then the money will come. I'd rather be making less money at a job that inspires me than make a ton of cash doing something I loathe, like managing people. I'll take managing a network over managing people any day of the week and twice on sundays, no matter what the difference in pay!

very nicely said, i totally agree. computer systems don't talk back!!

Sepiraph

People always talk down management, but realize that one of the most important assets (beside cash) a company has is its people. Without anyone managing the employees, a company simply cannot be run.

Even if you loathe management, when you get married (hopefully) ... guess what, you still have to use your management skill. It is part of life's important skill set to have.

dynamik

Sepiraph wrote:

Even if you loathe management, when you get married (hopefully) ... guess what, you still have to use your management skill. It is part of life's important skill set to have.

I don't know about that. Ever since I got married I feel like I'm being managed

astorrs

dynamik wrote:

I don't know about that. Ever since I got married I feel like I'm being managed

Classic.

redwarrior

I am married, and, believe me, I get enough experience with management just trying to get my husband to get his dirty socks into the hamper. I don't think I could handle also going through that at work!

Paul Boz

Sepiraph wrote:

People always talk down management, but realize that one of the most important assets (beside cash) a company has is its people. Without anyone managing the employees, a company simply cannot be run.

Even if you loathe management, when you get married (hopefully) ... guess what, you still have to use your management skill. It is part of life's important skill set to have.

I believe people talk down management because simply managing people isn't enough. I've had enough awful bosses that knew absolutely nothing about actual operations that I feel confident making that statement. There is something to be said for managers that become managers due to their level-headedness AND their aptitude for the job. There shouldn't be situations where the person above you can't do your job or at least understand what you do.

Here's a small anecdote. At my last employer, my direct boss was promoted out of tech support to manage the tech support department. That was fine because he had five years of actually doing tech support. One day, however, management was shifted and he became the supervisor of the NOC center also. He had zero understanding of advanced IP networking. He had zero understanding of monitoring. To him, the best practice was to call out people until you got the right person. He embraced that methodology because he didn't know anything about how to actually run a NOC center and made zero effort to try to. Now put yourself in my situation. You are highly certified to do what you do, you have several years of experience doing what you do, yet your boss has absolutely no clue what you do. You can't confront your boss with issues or improvements because he doesn't know the problem enough to know there needs to be a solution.

Towards the end of my tenure, I was given this line: "We don't give people raises for getting certifications because if we did that everyone would get certified every day."

I walked out of his office, got about 50 pounds of books, a cart of routers and switches, carried them into his office, and told him to "go hog wild getting certified every day" and walked out. About a month later his ineptitude was shining to the point where the NOC center was outsourced because he didn't have the ability to manage it any further. His ineptitude led to me losing my job because he was under-suited to do his job.

What I'm getting at is that while you may be good at dealing with personnel issues, that does not qualify you to "rule over" people. I know that I'm not the only person that has been the victim of management's incompetence and I think that that is the reason why management takes so much heat for being over-rated.

The best boss I ever had was one who learned how to get it done in the trenches and got promoted because he was excellent at doing his job. You can't be a leader if you can't even do the tasks you're leading people to do. Do you think the military puts commanders on the battlefield that aren't capable of getting in the dirt and doing the fighting himself?

Sepiraph

I understand your sentiment but I think it is more important for manager to use people who are suitable for the jobs, and preferably keep the people happy while doing the job and most importantly keep the company profitable. If they can also do the job themseleves, it is an added bonus but it is more important to get the team going.

To continue to use the military analogy, there are generals who are more along tacticians (e.g Rommel) while there are those who are strategists (e.g Manstein). Most mid-management roles are more similar to tacticians so in that regard they may need to get their hands dirty once in awhile. Top management, however, needs a good strategist.

mikej412

Sepiraph wrote:

To continue to use the military analogy, there are generals who are more along tacticians (e.g Rommel) while there are those who are strategists (e.g Manstein).

And there are also generals who are politicians.

Just like the poor managers in business, the best job these guys/gals ever do is advancing their careers -- usually by taking credit for other peoples successes and blaming them for their failures.