Career advice, two job offers

phoeneous

Most of my experience has been sysadmin stuff but Ive worked with Cisco equipment for the last 3 years. Im taking the CCNA at the end of September. At the moment I have two job offers:

1. Job (A) is a Network Administrator for a law firm with about 50 users and a handful of Cisco gear. They have an old network, old servers, etc. and they want to hire an in-house network admin to rebuild the infrastructure entirely. It's M-F, 8-5, weekends off, $55k usd/yr. Very lax atmosphere, no boss, but its a lone wolf position.

2. Job (B) is a NOC Technician for a nationwide wireless ISP. Currently they do not work with any Cisco gear, its mainly Foundry and Juniper. Its an unstable schedule of 4 ten hour days with 3 days off. Pay is $58k usd/yr. Also a lax atmosphere, have a boss, but will work with a big team of fellow geeks.

I really want to get into networking and I think both jobs have their pro's and con's. My wife and I are going to have our first child in January which is a huge deciding factor for me. Based on these brief descriptions, which job would you consider?

sambuca69

What does "unstable schedule" exactly mean? Will you always work the same 4, 10 hour days?

more $$, fellow geeks to aid you, and recognizable nationwide ISP would have me leaning here.

Solaris_UNIX

Both jobs offer health insurance benefits, right?

The law one sounds like more of a "steady" gig, but learning Juniper could be a VERY good thing for your career. The ISP I work at uses a lot of Juniper kit, you'd be surprised how many Juniper routers there are out there forwarding core / high-speed back bone traffic for the internet. And Juniper qualified network engineers are in very short supply compared to the surplus / over-abundance of CCNA's and CCNP's....

CompuTron99

You seem to be in a very good position.

phoeneous wrote: »

1. Job (A) is a Network Administrator for a law firm with about 50 users and a handful of Cisco gear. They have an old network, old servers, etc. and they want to hire an in-house network admin to rebuild the infrastructure entirely. It's M-F, 8-5, weekends off, $55k usd/yr. Very lax atmosphere, no boss, but its a lone wolf position.

Usually since you are the "Lone Wolf", and since you will be rebuilding the infrastructure, your hours will probably go beyond the 8-5 Mon - Fri for a while when that is being implemented. Something to think about with the addition to your family coming soon.

You will have the Cisco equipment, plus you will be the in charge of the IT aspect of the company.

phoeneous wrote: »

2. Job (B) is a NOC Technician for a nationwide wireless ISP. Currently they do not work with any Cisco gear, its mainly Foundry and Juniper. Its an unstable schedule of 4 ten hour days with 3 days off. Pay is $58k usd/yr. Also a lax atmosphere, have a boss, but will work with a big team of fellow geeks.

This will give you more time off during the week plus more $$$.
This seems more like a "Call Center" evironment. I personally like to get my hands into the work.
By unstable, do you mean that the days AND hours will be different from week to week?

It really sounds like a Win - Win situation.

Good Luck.

pipemajor

If you're about to gain a CCNA then I'd prefer to go where I could get CCNA-type experience so the M-F law firm position would be my choice. If your objective is to broaden your experience to include Foundry and Juniper then the variable hours NOC shift might be for you.

Decide what you want to be doing 5 years from now then chose the position which will best suit your professional and quality of life needs.

eltoro

Yeah, considering your situation especially with the baby coming. I would go with the latter.

phoeneous

The NOC Tech hours will always be 4x10's but they wont be the same 4x10's. I might work Fri-Mon one week and then Wed-Sat another. What I like about this job is no helpdesk at all! Its strictly monitoring the core network of the ISP's commercial clients. Kinda sucks that it doesnt have any Cisco equipment but it does have Juniper. Having three days off does have its benefits but I also want to be able to spend quality time with my wife and new baby. It'll be difficult if Im always working a night shift and she works days.

I have until Friday to decide...

phoeneous

eltoro wrote: »

Yeah, considering your situation especially with the baby coming. I would go with the latter.

Why the latter?

Solaris_UNIX

pipemajor wrote: »

If you're about to gain a CCNA then I'd prefer to go where I could get CCNA-type experience so the M-F law firm position would be my choice. If your objective is to broaden your experience to include Foundry and Juniper then the variable hours NOC shift might be for you.

I have to respectfully disagree with you here. CCNA's are a dime a dozen right now, especially in places like India and East Asia, and "supply and demand" economics affects the availability of IT jobs as well as the salaries offered. I think right now there is still a much greater supply of CCENT's and CCNA's worldwide than there is a demand for them, whereas there is a much greater demand for Juniper certified techs than there is supply.

I know dozens of unemployed CCNA's, but I don't know of a single unemployed network engineer with a Juniper Cert or even Juniper experience with no certification. The demand for them is just too high, and telecom's and ISP's like Juniper because their routers are just as fast (if not faster) than comparable CISCO models and they're also less expensive. So you could effectively argue that Juniper is more bang for the buck (not that I would personally argue this, as I personally work more on the CISCO side of things although the network engineers at the ISP I work at are all Juniper guys).

Juniper is also great if you come from a FreeBSD background or have any experience using FreeBSD for things like firewalls and snort IDS.

NightShade03

I'd personally take the first gig. Being the lone wolf is hard and all, but you also get more hands with things and can implement things any way you wish. Also there are tutorials on how to do just about everything these days, plus youtube vids, plus forums, so you are pretty well covered in the area of support from others if you really needed it. Plus its always good to know a decent lawyer

BigTex71

I think you might be getting in over your head if you go with the law firm. Unless you have set up infrastructure (including AD, DNS, Shares, IIS and/or Sharepoint, etc.) from scratch or reworked it all before - it is a big undertaking. And if you are THE IT guy - you will be in charge of the system admin / server admin / and network admin duties. Even though it may not be a huge company, that is a lot for one person to be responsible for. And most lawyers I know expect perfection all the time. And if you are just now "getting into networking" - that would not be a entry-level network job... more like a senior network job.

With the ISP job, you will be able to learn about the Juniper equipment and have others to learn from and teach. It makes it a lot less stressful in a team environment - you will have enough stress at home. And the ISP gig pays more. That all adds up to a no-brainer if it were me.

cbigbrick

Never work for scientist, lawyers or doctors. That's my rule of thumb. YMMV.

Lamini

stick with the law firm imo.

why? I kinda crossed the same issue not long ago, no competition, no immature people to deal with or juniors to teach (and take your job), i grew a relationship with my client (ate out, etc) and i learn better on my own, though you will probably (if not guaranteed) have times where you work some serious overtime if facing new problems you have not overcome, and it can be stressful, but stress can be turned for good, in my case, motivation/curiousity. if you build it all ground up, you know exactly what happened, you dont have to research someone elses work. this could be an advantage as you wouldnt be JUST dealing with network, or help desk, security, applications, databases, email, or server administration... design, implentation, testing, deploy and manage... the whole infrastructure, try getting that at a regular job.

keep sticking to your guns (books). sticking with the company means they have less people to trust, ie only you. less people to trust means company confidence in you. more confidence and trust = longevity. longevity=key to success.

im no one talented in my line of work, but im a workerbee, i get the job done, i am dependable, and ive out stayed just about everyone in my little workplace = i got to make my position and pay and not have to deal with the BS of management and bad coworkers; this to me is key as no one ruins my day no where near as people bad people do

networker050184

I think number two sounds like the way to go if networking is what you are looking at getting into. Even though its not Cisco centric, it will expose you to a lot.

If you go with number one it sounds like you would probably get to mess with one router and maybe three or four switches with only 50 users. Not really a gold mine of networking experience IMO.

msteinhilber

I would go with number two myself. My motives are I really dislike being the jack of all trades, I'm at that point with my current organization (we have 3 IT staff, but only me and the boss are really competent while the 3rd is barely helpdesk skill level if that). I dislike being the jack of all trades the most because it's more difficult to specialize, that and in shops like that you are essentially at your peak position on the organizational chart unless they grow significantly.

Number two on the other hand is more attuned to what you have been working on the past few years even though they don't use Cisco - a lot of it's going to be the same with the exception of the syntax. I think as we move along Juniper skills are going to continue to be more sought after as well, so becoming exposed to that environment would be beneficial more than likely. You will likely have a lot more room to grow at job #2 as well, which might eventually get you out of the 4 10 hour shifts 3 days off routine.

That being said, you do have a child on the way. If number two was more appealing to you, then I would suggest sitting down with your wife and see what the two of you think of the situation. Draw out the pro's and con's, figure out where you want your career to be in 5 years and determine which position will help you reach those goals quickly. If number two is the better step forward for your career you'll have to decide if the pro's outweigh the con's such as less time with your family, etc. Once your child is born though, I can say that if you go with the second offer it will be very difficult as I'm sure you are aware. You'll be getting little sleep those first weeks to months, and no matter how hard of a day you put in - once you get home your wife is going to want you to deal with the baby more than likely if she's been home all day. I do agree though with another response here that while the law firm job may have a more normal shift - since you are a one man show you will be spending time after hours and quite a bit more than likely if you would be planning a complete overhaul. Expect a lot of extra hours outside of the normal hours at least until you get the overhaul completed. Once you are up and running in the new infrastructure you'll still put in extra hours for emergencies and upgrades, just not as often.

GAngel

#1 is leading down the management road
#2 is leading down the technical role.


Only you can decide where you want your future to head.

msteinhilber

GAngel wrote: »

#1 is leading down the management road
#2 is leading down the technical role.


Only you can decide where you want your future to head.

I don't see how you can consider the one man show job leading down the management role. It's going to be a lot more technical than it is management, he would be responsible for every single aspect of the organizations IT infrastructure. Sure, there would be some aspects of management since you would be responsible for telling the owners why they need to buy X, Y, and Z but that's about it. It could become more of a managerial role if the company grew significantly and they added IT staff, but that's about it.

GAngel

msteinhilber wrote: »

I don't see how you can consider the one man show job leading down the management role. It's going to be a lot more technical than it is management, he would be responsible for every single aspect of the organizations IT infrastructure. Sure, there would be some aspects of management since you would be responsible for telling the owners why they need to buy X, Y, and Z but that's about it. It could become more of a managerial role if the company grew significantly and they added IT staff, but that's about it.

I've hired and fired enough people to have a very good clue on what a good general foundation for the management track is. That job is exactly the type I'd be looking for under previous experience.

GT-Rob

Neither job will decide what you are doing in 10 years from now. From the sounds of it you are far from a management position and theres lots that can happen in the mean time.


I would suggest B to be honest. I've done both and B is the kind of thing that helped me more and get into more Sr. roles. Also there is going to be more room for growth, flexibility (if you are the only tech, its hard to take time off), and exposure. You are more likely to come across the bleeding edge technologies here which is always fun. Also old network/servers suggests IT budgets are not a priority, which can be quite frustrating (especially during raise time).


Just an opinion though. I would NOT suggest picking a job on the salary difference. $3k is hard to appreciate when you hate your job

blargoe

GAngel wrote: »

I've hired and fired enough people to have a very good clue on what a good general foundation for the management track is. That job is exactly the type I'd be looking for under previous experience.

+1... You would come to understand budgeting, planning your infrastructure upgrades, managing multiple priorities, etc. Not on a large scale, but certainly applicable if management were your chosen path.

Personally, unless the second job didn't have an opportunity to do anything more than just monitor the equipment and escalate to the next level tech, I might not be as inclined to take that one as others would be. I'd be torn, Juniper experience is pretty valuable, but the chance to build a new network doesn't come every day even if it is a smaller one. I would say if you take that one, insist that some paid training per year come with the package since you're the only guy.

msteinhilber

GAngel wrote: »

I've hired and fired enough people to have a very good clue on what a good general foundation for the management track is. That job is exactly the type I'd be looking for under previous experience.

That may be the type of experience you would be looking for, but in no way at all does the job imply future management path. The administrator role can take him wherever he desires it to be it administration for a larger company later on or management - but if management is what he ultimately desires I would require more experience than being the solo IT professional in an organization.

If I'm going to hire somebody for a management role (and I served my time in management for 8+ years as well) I would want prior management experience even if it was just one or two people working underneath the person. There would be some management aspects included in the role for job #1 such as a budget for one example, but there is a lot more to it and being able to work with people underneath you is in my opinion the most significant part of management and one of the hardest to perfect. All of the other tasks commonly associated with management such as budgets, scheduling, resource allocation, etc... I consider these to be easily learned traits. Managing people and motivating, empowering, resolving conflict, etc - those are much harder to perfect and IMO few can do it really well. These are not traits that will be practices in a single man shop scenario.

GAngel

msteinhilber wrote: »

That may be the type of experience you would be looking for, but in no way at all does the job imply future management path. The administrator role can take him wherever he desires it to be it administration for a larger company later on or management - but if management is what he ultimately desires I would require more experience than being the solo IT professional in an organization.

If I'm going to hire somebody for a management role (and I served my time in management for 8+ years as well) I would want prior management experience even if it was just one or two people working underneath the person. There would be some management aspects included in the role for job #1 such as a budget for one example, but there is a lot more to it and being able to work with people underneath you is in my opinion the most significant part of management and one of the hardest to perfect. All of the other tasks commonly associated with management such as budgets, scheduling, resource allocation, etc... I consider these to be easily learned traits. Managing people and motivating, empowering, resolving conflict, etc - those are much harder to perfect and IMO few can do it really well. These are not traits that will be practices in a single man shop scenario.

I wasn't asking for your opinion and he wasn't asking for your opinion on my opinion. Hope that helps.

phoeneous

The biggest drawback of the NOC job is that it is a 3 month contract without the guarantee to go permanent. The headhunter mentioned that she has placed a lot of people there permanently but they were all CCNP level guys. I'd have to sell myself bigtime to management and with my little experience with Foundry and Juniper, I'd be very concerned that Id be out of a job in 3 months. Which just so happens to be the month my first baby would be born. 3 months of juniper experience isnt worth an unhappy wife, a hungry baby, and no job.

Im going to take my chances with the law firm. Stay there for a year, get my CCNA, MCSE, and Security+ and then move on. I definitely do not want to get anywhere near a mangement position. Im a geek just like you guys, show me something so I can figure out how it works and I'll keep it running.

Thx for all of the input guys! I'll post back in a few weeks to let you know how it went.

BigTex71

Yes, please let us know how that works out for you. I wish you the best.

You may find that you will have very little time to focus on certs once you are planning and setting up a new infrastructure, but once you have it in place and functioning properly it should lighten up a bit.


Good luck!

Turgon

phoeneous wrote: »

The biggest drawback of the NOC job is that it is a 3 month contract without the guarantee to go permanent. The headhunter mentioned that she has placed a lot of people there permanently but they were all CCNP level guys. I'd have to sell myself bigtime to management and with my little experience with Foundry and Juniper, I'd be very concerned that Id be out of a job in 3 months. Which just so happens to be the month my first baby would be born. 3 months of juniper experience isnt worth an unhappy wife, a hungry baby, and no job.

Im going to take my chances with the law firm. Stay there for a year, get my CCNA, MCSE, and Security+ and then move on. I definitely do not want to get anywhere near a mangement position. Im a geek just like you guys, show me something so I can figure out how it works and I'll keep it running.

Thx for all of the input guys! I'll post back in a few weeks to let you know how it went.

The contract issue decide it for me although I was leaning in the direction you have taken quite honestly. I think you have made the right choice here. A 3 month contract in a NOC and a layoff wont help you much. Consider this, you were in the frame for a NOC type job with the experience level you have now so there is no reason to assume you would not be in the frame for NOC work in the future. Another thing to consider is that not all NOC jobs are all that whizzo. Some NOC environments offer great exposure and vertical career potential. No doubt about it. But others are a graveyard for ambition with roles that are quite frankly not that skilled. There's a lot of change control and you might very easily become bored in that environment at the level you are brought in at. A lot of facebook and games going on until the alerts go off or the change documented by someone else gets approved and scheduled.The law firm job will not be easy but you will have more opportunities due to variety to demonstrate what you can offer to different people there in a shorter timeframe than you would in the NOC job where the role is probably more clearly defined. Good luck with the law firm gig. It's a great opportunity, you have the chance to learn a lot of useful skills there. I had such a job years ago and it certainly stood me in good stead for network specialist work in the years since. You will have to work hard there both technically and on the people side. If you scour these boards you should find some useful threads put up by folks who had to take on and cope with a similar role. Be careful in your new job and dont try to change things there too quickly before you have had a good look around and got a feel for how people are presently relying on how things hang together there. Set expectations carefully.