What was your entry level salary like?

Still studying and waiting to make the jump from Teaching to IT. I was wondering what was your first entry level job pay was like. Mine right now is $36,000 for basically being a 24/7 teacher (with all the paper work).

So what was your entry level IT job salary? what types of degrees/certs did you have?

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mikez

I have a bachelors degree in network administration.
45k right out of college working as a systems administrator in the NYC Metro area.
6 months later i took a different job in the NY NJ PA area making 60k

ilcram19-2

my first job when i was 14 was 650 pesos (a lil less than 65dlls) every two weeks for 2 years before i came to the states damn Telmex!!!

nel

i started out at 16 years of age. Fresh out of school

I made a staggering £1 GBP an hour. working 37 hours a week. I recieved £8 per week as a "transport fee" for getting the bus to and from work. so a week total was £45 a week. This was doing entry level support. However the £8 was actually used for transport fee's. As i was on such a low wage at the time i was not eligible for tax.

Thankfully i am making alot more and working my way up the ladder slowly but surely. happy days!! But that has been down to hard work otherwise i would still be in the same crappy entry level job as i was!

arwes

In 1998, no experience working at a ISP help desk I commanded a salary of $14,400 a year.

lost33cause

I started 6 months ago with an associates as a network engineer and my ccna and I started at 25,500. In the next 3 months I'll have my mcse:security, security+, ccna, and a voip cert. Also within a month I'll have 2 more Associates degrees along with the network engineer one.I hope to make a significant jump within the next 6 months so we'll see. I took the first job that was offered which was my 4th interview. None of the jobs I interviewed for was paying more than 28,000 a year.

So within the next 3 months I'll have:
Associates degrees:
network engineer
network manager
Microsoft Security Specialist

Certs:
CCNA
MCSE: Security
Security+
3com IP Telephony Expert

Along with the above I've gain experience as a network engineer and a network manager

eansdad

Started as a temp with Compaq in Nov of '00 making $10 an hour working assembly. Moved to configuration then assistant lead within a month and getting a whole $12/hr. Fast forward to today working for a local school district (10k+ students, 2k staff, 23 schools and 6k PCs) I'm at $42k/yr + benefits and unlimited overtime with a 5% raise every July 1st. We have a good sized IT dept. so not a lot of stress. I'd take lower pay for the opportunity of overtime, job security, retirement benefits and medical over higher pay any day. I left a job making $10k more with out anything for this position.

Since your a teacher moving into IT I'll tell you this......Our teachers start at $51k + benefits and the high school times are 7:30-2:30 for teachers with a prep period and a lunch period. Our tech dept starts at $29k + benefits with over time but we are 12 month employees, don't have off all the same days the school does (we come in for 2 days over christmas break and another 2 over spring break) and have to come in on snow days. Several from our dept have moved into teaching as it pays better with better hours.

phantasm

I started at $16/hr as an IT Analyst. The job I just got pays the same. The one I'm hoping on will pay about $24/hr.

Alif_Sadida_Ekin

Started right after I graduated from high school in 2002 working at big box electronic stores such as Office Max, Staples, and Circuit City. I'm not sure if those qualify as IT jobs. Maybe they're just retail...Anyway I was making between 6.50-9.00 per hour between those jobs. I guess my first IT relevant job would be working data support for Cingular Wireless (now AT&T). It was a call center job that revolved around supporting Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile PDAs. That job paid $15 an hour. Stayed there for almost 3 years.

Then around the end of 2006 I started to work for a small IT consulting firm as a Network Technician. It paid a little bit less at $14 an hour, but the experience I gained there was invaluable. I got fired after 3 months due to differences between me and the owner of the company.

I took the experience I learned from that last job to help me land my current job as an Application Support Analyst at a bank. I finished up a degree and some certs and am now making a little over $21 an hour.

mikej412

My first official IT Job (after College and Military) was as a UNIX Application Programmer -- salaried employee @ $30K per year.

I closed out my first decade in IT by becoming a contractor -- that started at $75 an hour.

carboncopy

mikej412 wrote: »

I closed out my first decade in IT by becoming a contractor -- that started at $75 an hour.

You mean independent contractor?

mikej412

carboncopy wrote: »

You mean independent contractor?

I'll do 1099 through agencies, but I don't run my own business and I sure as heck don't feel like finding my own clients/customers. So I guess that makes me a Contract Employee rather than an Independent Contractor.

My expectation when I started contracting was that I'd spend 1/2 my time working and the other 1/2 looking for work (through agencies) -- and the premium salary would cover that and my benefit costs. But my contracts usually turn into long term affairs. Right now I'm somewhere in year 3 of what started as an 80 hour project -- and I'm one of only a handful of contractors who survived the contractor (and employee) massacres last year.

carboncopy

mikej412 wrote: »

I'll do 1099 through agencies, but I don't run my own business and I sure as heck don't feel like finding my own clients/customers. So I guess that makes me a Contract Employee rather than an Independent Contractor.

My expectation when I started contracting was that I'd spend 1/2 my time working and the other 1/2 looking for work (through agencies) -- and the premium salary would cover that and my benefit costs. But my contracts usually turn into long term affairs. Right now I'm somewhere in year 3 of what started as an 80 hour project -- and I'm one of only a handful of contractors who survived the contractor (and employee) massacres last year.

I see what you mean now.

mikej412

For tax purposes, it's the same.

But the guys I've worked with who take all the business deductions tend to make less after the IRS audits and penalties. One guy's wife was an officer in his company and they were writing off her BMW as a business expense -- even though she was a stay at home mom.

luckybob

My first IT/Helpdesk-ish was in 97 at Best Buy PC/Audio-Video Tech $7.65/hr. Good times! I have since worked my way up the ladder with experience only. No college degree (2 semesters left when I withdrew

CS Degree) and no certs till the end of last year.

snadam

15/hr fresh out of the box, then 30k with MCP, then 50k with MCSA (and a few others). Moved on since then, but im hoping i get a bigger number in the future

rookie1082

I started out at $12/hr doing IBM tech work for a refurbished reseller. Basically that meant building cruddy old IBM machines and having to dust every one of them out. I left that job after a year and a half making 16/hr. I moved on to a PC support specialist/Jr Network administrator making 40k/yr salaried for a Mitsubishi office outside of chicago. Good job, but too long of a drive. I now work as a network technician and make 23/hr + overtim which pushes me to about 55-60k a year. All this on just having an A+ certification and a BS from DeVry in Netcom management.

I'm pursuing my Microsoft certs now in hopes to move out west to arizona.

Xcluziv

Just started out first working @ Moe's Southwest doing everything, non-IT related making $9.00/hr.The past few summers i've been interning with a company making $12.67/hr now doing IT Support for end users within our region. Finishing my CS degree in May and hopefully getting some certs this summer along the way.

apd123

CaptainCharisma wrote: »

I'm still working at my first IT job, when I started I was given 28k (salary of course), I had already been working at this place for about 5 years prior. After almost doing 2 years of help desk work here and still making under 30k while having to carry around a company phone I'm ready to bail.

I took the job originally because I figured it would be hard to get a job because of the catch 22 thing that happens a lot when you look for your first IT job (i.e. everyone wants experience but nobody is willing to let you get any), since I had been with this company it made that a moot point because I was already an insider even without experience. What I haven't liked about the job is well the phone (both office and cell), but also the fact that my company pushed a cell phone on me at my first IT job and making less than 30k, but as I said I did it to get experience on the resume, also because there was supposed to be better opportunity for learning, but that hasn't panned out.

This first job has done one good thing for though, its given me perspective on what I want to do with my career. I'd rather spend my days in the future in the realm of netowrking than the realm of servers and desktops.

Where do you live?

bwcarty

I started in tech support at a regional ISP in 1998 making between $7-8/hour. I had no certs, an Associates degree in general studies, and about 9 years of experience with modems. I took over the tech support department in less than a year making a whopping $30k/year.

I'm doing a bit better for myself now

rsutton

First IT job $15/hour doing tech support. No certs/degree, just some skills. That was in 99.

GAngel

Doing configs for routers for the princely sum of 27.5k

sagewalkinthere

$14 an hour as a web administrator.

arwes

In 1998 working full time doing phone support at a local ISP, I was pulling in a $14,400 salary.

11 years later and it hasn't gotten all that much better. I really need to save up some cash and move elsewhere.

RomBUS

Im still currently at my first IT job (just 2 months over a year)

At the time I had no experience, no certs and got about 27.5k/year

Now with some experience and some certs under my belt im making less...yeah go figure...economy blows

paintb4707

Oh god, my first IT job was less than minimum wage. I joined an internship type of thing for a help desk position. Basically it was an 8 month program. The first 2 months they would train you in a classroom. Then after those 2 months they toss you on the help desk. Here's the catch... The only training you get is those first 2 months. Once that time is up you're on the desk answering calls fending for yourself. Now these guys were smart... They would hold you by the balls and insist that you'll get hired if they like you, the only real reason why anyone would start the program to begin with. But they DON'T. They haven't hired a SINGLE person from the training program, regardless of me or anyone else exceeding the capabilities and knowledge of their hired employees, WITH call stats to back the claims. I mean it was insane, I had a 99% resolution rate, only escalating probably 2 or 3 tickets ever when handling about 50 calls a day. Not only that I would typically sit in the top 3 of total calls answered and 99% of the calls within the duration limit versus these other guys that would escalate every single call to be on the top, regardless of how easy the issue would be.

So here you have an endless cycle of people coming in and out every 8 months. It was a mastermind plan for slave labor.

Anyways... working there for 6 months (until the help desk closed down, surprise right?) I was on a stipend of $450 every two weeks. It was a full-time 40 hour job. That comes out to $5.26/hr.

I can't complain though because the experience was priceless and got me my current position. I went from that $5.26/hr to $33k/yr, to $43k/yr, and getting another bump in September.

qwertyiop

$10 as help desk support for my local college, was there for about 6 monthes. summer internship as a help desk intern at $12 hour and im currently working as a junior network administrator for $20 an hour

Jordus

36k, but the cost of living is way lower here than it is almost anywhere else.

I also got fantastic benefits.

Now if i can just get them to give me the damn raise i was told id get with my new job, everything would be great.

Bdeadbuddy

Started January 2008 at 40K$ CAD and nice benefits on top of it.
I had personal experience and a college degree in Network security.

i think it's not too bad for entry level... but we just got the news that raises are frozen for the next year... so gotta live with it or start looking around.
I can't really move up (Server or network admins) where i am now, because of damn centralization... all the nice stuff is soooooo far away from me. All i can hope for is some new manager will start decentralize some stuff or get a manager position, which i don't really look for... right now

Gotta start somewhere and get all you can from every job

SRTMCSE

What's the 2009 equivalent of 2003 peanuts? LOL. Seriously though, I made $6.50 an hour doing grunt work, maybe 25% tech support and the rest whatever they needed for an IT bootcamp. Cleaning whiteboards, imaging PCs, cleaning desks, stocking the fridge, filling water coolers. Pay sucked, but I learned a lot and made good friends and moved my way to the Lead Tech.

Almost 6 years later I work in NYC as a Systems Engineer and make around $85k...not bad, but NY is expensive and I only make as much as I do b/c I was willing to work the nightshift (which sucks). But it leaves me w/ a lot of free time to pick up more certs, learn new tech and even do some part time consulting (which I just started this week).

cbigbrick

Started off in late 2000 as a PC Tech at $8.00/hr with no benefits.