How did you work your way up to high end I.T jobs.

rogue2shadow

cleanwithit wrote: »

Truly inspirational! I love to hear these kind of things.

+1. Paul Boz's story really got to me. It makes you really reevaluate the situation you're in and what success there is be had if you never give up, never surrender, and push without fear. The fact that you are only two years older than me and have gotten to the place you are now only fuels me to do more and want more and become what I am destined to be.

LinuxRacr

knwminus wrote: »

I guess technically I am an Admin now....


You have to be willing to do what they won't to get what they don't. This is my way of the ninja.

Damn right!!! This has been my mantra as well. Always outside of the box.

You also have to be willing to do what you haven't done before to change your life.

mshadow

My situation was similar to other peoples I went to College for 6 months decided it wasn't for me came back home detailed cars for a couple years made $8 something an hour....got sick of it and needed a career.

Got a job at a small computer repair hosting place learned everything I could then I moved onto to work for a consulting company was outsorced IT admin for a while then made my way upto senior engineer(data center design planning/core routing/virtualization)...Took a 6month contract job down in DC working out of the pentagon and a few army bases on a Apple integration project.....now im a network engineer for a very large ISP/Cable company.

That whole span took about 5 years

I don't know what will work for others but my suggestions are.

1. NETWORK any chance you have to network with other people in IT do it Linux user groups, Microsoft user groups, confrences, non for profit events like ED Tech.

2. If you want to move up quickly you need to love what you do and never stop learning and playing with new technologies. I worked with a lot of people who just did IT work as a job and didn't love it this is fine but if you want to make $$$$ you need to invest time. I look at it this way I didn't goto college so the first 4-5 years of my career was a learning period and I dedicated as much time as possible to studying.

3. Set your self apart I suggest people stay away from a 100% microsoft focus. In most IT careers you will need to be good with microsoft server products but you have to remember there are 1000's of others who are also good with their products. Virtualization, VoIP, Juniper and Security worked to help set me apart from other candiates.

My final suggestion is being will to take on whatever is thrown at you there are enough resources online you can work through just about anything.

Edit: My previous statement counts unless your company runs Alcatel 7750 routers then your not finding **** online

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post :-p

N2IT

thetrillionaire wrote: »

I joined the NAVY in 2005 as a Deck Seaman and worked my way to IT

Certified A+. Net+ CEH and came out with a Top Secret/SCI Clerance. I got out a got a job immediately as a NOC Technician with got CCNA certified did that for a year making 52k. Move to a another position with in the company a Jr Network Engineer making 75K I also got my CI Poly and ITIL Certified did that for and year and some change. Just recently took a position with Network Engineer IV 100K+ got my Full Scope Poly and working on my CCNP. I am 25 years old and been in IT for 6 years I think I am on the right path. My rise maybe quick but my work speaks for it self but I know that clearance is the money maker.

I play golf with a guy who did something similiar. Was in the Navy for 4 years, was enlisted in an IT rate. He stuck it out for years and left with 0 certifications and no degree, but a TS clearance. He then took a job with the DoD for 1 year and then moved in sales for Cisco. He is now a regional director of sales for that company and makes a killing. His annual bonus a years back was over 400,000 dollars. The Navy is not a bad place to start!

It's unbelievable how many successful people I know and I am still stuck around the 40,000 range lol. I guess it's pride I won't ask those people for a handout even though I play golf and go out for drinks with them on a weekly basis.

N2IT

Paul Boz wrote: »

Good for you man. I had a similar story, all be it without the homelessness and kid. I grew up as the oldest of four boys with poor parents, so when I turned 18 I set out on my own. I got the cheapest apartment by LSU that I could and paid for it and my bills month to month. I made $8.17/hr in tech support which was sometimes only enough to cover rent. My job was 35 miles from home so after the cost of fuel I was usually broke. There were plenty of times where I didn’t have the money for electricity (especially awful in the Louisiana summer heat) so I would run an extension cord from outside for my laptop and use my neighbor’s wireless. I used being in the dark with nothing in my fridge (what good is a fridge that’s off?) to become a better person. It was pretty damn tough being 18-19 years old going to class with people who have full rides from their parents knowing I’d be riding the bus home to a third-world living situation. I didn’t have the money or time to party or do the fun college things. I just worked my ass off to make ends barely meet. For one six month period my entire family (mom, dad, and two youngest brothers) lived with me because my dad’s oldest son (my half brother) evicted them from a house he owned. At that point I was trying to cover not only for myself but for all of them as well. After two or three years of living like that I eventually got a promotion and could afford rent AND electricity on a regular basis. You guys have no idea how glorious it was to come home to a cool apartment and lights.

I'm 25 now but have eight solid years of IT experience. Through those hard times I started laying the foundation for my career by studying for and obtaining certifications. I learned to use Dynamips router emulation because I didn't have electricity to run a lab. I only had my extension cord for my laptop. I openly admit that I used to also pirate training materials, simply because I wanted to further my career but couldn't afford to. I've certainly paid that back since then, hah. I make damn good money now but my mortgage is only $600/month and I don’t have a car note. I could afford a much larger house and a brand new car and all the bullshit that comes with that stuff, but why? My condo is twice as big as my old apartment was, I have electricity whenever I want it, 500 channels on cable, and a big yard to play and grow things in. I also have the best friends I could possibly ask for. Whenever I feel greedy I just think back to my lean times and remember how fortunate I am now. People ask me why I don’t get stressed when I’m unemployed and the answer to that is that I truly know how much worse it could be. My dark times make me fight harder, work harder, and out perform my peers. I don't take jobs for granted and do my best to crush my co workers. I have an internal tenacity for job preservation that is hard to match. Without living on the edge like I did for so long I doubt I'd care to work as hard as I do.

To go from poor to rich to poor is not that bad

To go from rich to poor is horrible.

BeachNinja

knwminus wrote: »

Exactly. At the aforementioned job of mine we didn't have that issue but they did keep track of how many calls you closed and stuff. They then set a base line of what they wanted. They soon realized that all calls aren't equal so they assigned values or estimated time amounts to calls. At that point I left. I wouldn't be surprised if they did start firing people over that stuff.

That type of atmosphere doesn't encourage people to go the extra mile for a customer. It makes people want to get them off of the phone as soon as possible. This leads to people giving half answers and customers having to call in multiple times.

Everything you say here resonates big time with me, because it mirrors the experience I went through at a prior job (non-IT). But like networker said you gotta meet the numbers or you’re out of there. It’s pretty sad how things are nowadays with respect to what is deemed to be “acceptable” customer service and meeting the “standards” and whatnot. It’s kind of a spirit/letter of the law thing.

garv221

If you want to get a high position, you must play the game. Play the game by NOT being rude or stabbing anyone in the back but by knowing what you want and making sure you set yourself up for the chance to get it.

I worked hard as a Systems Administrator, figuring out every aspect of the network/company, I was a well liked person known for being smart and hard working...When IT Director position opened up I sent a letter of action directly to the CEO, majority of the actions were policy/procedure guidelines for some offsite residential locations and other ways to improve efficiency which in turn improved customer relations. I had a meeting with the CEO, accepted the position and was a rock star at the position for 4 years before we moved on.

I wanted the Director position because I knew the company and its child companies inside and out which allowed me to understand I had the knowledge to make the company better as a whole. To do this, I needed a position at the top where differences are made .. I naturally grew into the perfect candidate for this position by exhausting my potential to the company as a Sys Admin position while wanting to do more. I explained this to my CEO and I was offered the position with a nasty salary.

Xcluziv

garv221 wrote: »

If you want to get a high position, you must play the game. Play the game by NOT being rude or stabbing anyone in the back but by knowing what you want and making sure you set yourself up for the chance to get it.

I worked hard as a Systems Administrator, figuring out every aspect of the network/company, I was a well liked person known for being smart and hard working...When IT Director position opened up I sent a letter of action directly to the CEO, majority of the actions were policy/procedure guidelines for some offsite residential locations and other ways to improve efficiency which in turn improved customer relations. I had a meeting with the CEO, accepted the position and was a rock star at the position for 4 years before we moved on.

I wanted the Director position because I knew the company and its child companies inside and out which allowed me to understand I had the knowledge to make the company better as a whole. To do this, I needed a position at the top where differences are made .. I naturally grew into the perfect candidate for this position by exhausting my potential to the company as a Sys Admin position while wanting to do more. I explained this to my CEO and I was offered the position with a nasty salary.

Thats fantastic manWish you nothing but the best. Its obvious you were the best candidate for the job after building repoire with your colleagues and never being off your game made you the ideal choice. I believe the vision you set forth was also evident. What amazes me sometimes is that many employees know HOW to do their job, but don't know WHY. the CEO knows WHY he is running the company and what he wants to accomplish but most employee only know how to do their job and nothing else. I asked this to my last supervisor did she know WHY and it kind of through her off guard, I guess some people don't look at it in that perspective....just my 2 cents

SrSysAdmin

I used to work the front desk at a couple hotels while working on my BS in Business Management in college. When I graduated, my first job was as the Front Office Manager for a hotel that was undergoing major renovations (historic hotel)...I got that job because it was being managed by a company that I worked for previously that liked my work. As luck would have it, I was the only guy with any IT experience at that hotel so I was able to add IT Manager to my Front Office Manager role and deployed one (!) server that did the most basic of things (DHCP, File Server, Print Server).

I worked that job for 6 months before realizing that I liked the IT part of the job a lot more than the Front Office part where I just had to deal with guests bitching all day ever day about things out of my control for the most. As such I found a traveling job installed IT systems in hotels across North America. This was a good job and I learned a lot of great things but after awhile I was just doing the same thing over and over. In addition to that I was only home 1 or 2 days a month so I started to look for a new job.

After 15 months at that job, I got a job as a Jr Sys Admin doing a mixture of desktop support/server support. I learned a lot of great things but eventually I ran out of new things to learn at that job and started looking again.

I worked that job for 10 months before finding my current job which is as the sys admin for the US (we have 6 offices in the US plus a lot of remote sales people) for a company based out of Europe. I've only been here two months but I am hoping that as this company continues to expand it will evolve into a management position.

If it doesn't that that's the way it goes...I hope to start my MBA in the next year or two so that will hopefully open the doors to being a technical manager sooner than later.

Xcluziv

Sounds like a fantastic plan. I was looking to maybe starting my Masters next year to broaden my future career objectives. Have to obgtain those credentials to be advance in mainstream America

Therhino

SrSysAdmin wrote: »

I used to work the front desk at a couple hotels while working on my BS in Business Management in college. When I graduated, my first job was as the Front Office Manager for a hotel that was undergoing major renovations (historic hotel)...I got that job because it was being managed by a company that I worked for previously that liked my work. As luck would have it, I was the only guy with any IT experience at that hotel so I was able to add IT Manager to my Front Office Manager role and deployed one (!) server that did the most basic of things (DHCP, File Server, Print Server).

I worked that job for 6 months before realizing that I liked the IT part of the job a lot more than the Front Office part where I just had to deal with guests bitching all day ever day about things out of my control for the most. As such I found a traveling job installed IT systems in hotels across North America. This was a good job and I learned a lot of great things but after awhile I was just doing the same thing over and over. In addition to that I was only home 1 or 2 days a month so I started to look for a new job.

After 15 months at that job, I got a job as a Jr Sys Admin doing a mixture of desktop support/server support. I learned a lot of great things but eventually I ran out of new things to learn at that job and started looking again.

I worked that job for 10 months before finding my current job which is as the sys admin for the US (we have 6 offices in the US plus a lot of remote sales people) for a company based out of Europe. I've only been here two months but I am hoping that as this company continues to expand it will evolve into a management position.

If it doesn't that that's the way it goes...I hope to start my MBA in the next year or two so that will hopefully open the doors to being a technical manager sooner than later.

Where you going to do your MBA?

SrSysAdmin

Therhino wrote: »

Where you going to do your MBA?

Hopefully Darden at the University of Virginia but that will depend on my GMATs. If I can't get into Darden, Wharton (at UPenn), or Harvard's MBA programs then I will just do an online MBA through the University of Maryland. It's not worth taking two years off of work unless it is a top MBA program.


Are you working on yours now?

subl1m1nal

About the Kevin Minus thing about having to "dumb down". I agree with Kevin. That's BS. If someone is outperforming someone that has a higher position, they should be promoted. I think management was the issue here. The fact that Kevin was told to quit being productive is stupid. Businesses are constantly looking for ways to improve and be more efficient. It saves the company money. That's what IT is all about.

My story:

Started off in 2004. I was a warehouse worker making barely more than minimum wage and part-time. I was made fun of and my nickname was even "part-time". I was in college in the Network Administration and Engineering program. Graduated in 2006.

Out of college, I landed a job at an aerial photography and mapping firm as a desktop support technician. I was given 90 days to get A+, but I took and passed the exam the day before I started. I was doing alright and keeping myself busy. The CEO didn't think it was necessary to keep me full time. I was tested at mapping, but the 3D mapping made me sick and hurt my eyes. So I landed a temp gig at best buy as a geek squadder as I was expecting to have my hours cut.

Well, my immediate boss was not too happy about all this. He had another gig lined up, so he quit (leaving me as the only IT guy). He told the CEO I deserved the job. I took the network admin job. However, I was still treated like crap. I landed a support job at a police database company. I worked there for a week before I was offered a job at a local consulting company.

I worked at the consulting company for about a year. I became stressed out. I was doing mostly desktop support even though I had MCSA. I didn't see myself moving up. The experience was great, but I was getting burnt out and I needed something else.

I landed a job at my current position as a Systems Admin for a bank. Its great. No stress. I'm a 1 man IT shop. I keep things running smoothly and it's all good. Decent pay.

After all this, I think I'm maxed out for my salary potential for the area. I'll probably have to move to a bigger city eventually. But for now, I'm loving what I'm doing. You guys inspire me. I need to get off my butt and continue working on MCITP EA. After that maybe CCNA just to get it out of the way. I'd like to get some management certs under my belt eventually as well. Maybe PMP, ITIL, and Six Sigma???

subl1m1nal

Wow. Just realized this. After only 4 years, I've doubled my salary. I hope I can keep that up!

Mojo_666

subl1m1nal wrote: »

Wow. Just realized this. After only 4 years, I've doubled my salary. I hope I can keep that up!

You can to a point, but when you start doing the most senior roles in your field you will get stuck. When that happens you can sit it out in the comfort zone, you can move into managemnet, you can work for yourself or you can go contracting. I decided to go back to contracting as it keeps me doing tech stuff and brings in more money (when working) than the other options I had.

SrSysAdmin

Mojo_666 wrote: »

You can to a point, but when you start doing the most senior roles in your field you will get stuck. When that happens you can sit it out in the comfort zone, you can move into managemnet, you can work for yourself or you can go contracting. I decided to go back to contracting as it keeps me doing tech stuff and brings in more money (when working) than the other options I had.

Would somebody care to elaborate more on this comment? I would like to hear more about what happens when you get to the more senior positions and what your options are.


Thanks.

Mojo_666

SrSysAdmin wrote: »

Would somebody care to elaborate more on this comment? I would like to hear more about what happens when you get to the more senior positions and what your options are.


Thanks.

Well for me I capped out about 2 years ago, actually more than capped out with the bonuses I was getting. When my job came to an end (Redundancy) and I started looking arround for a new job and NONE of the senior jobs were paying what I was used to getting, the base pay was the same but with no bonuses and other perks etc so I ended up taking a slight pay cut and a permie job elsewhere. Just as the probabtion period was up I was contacted for a 3 month contract role paying almost double what my new job was paying and still more than the previous permie job. I made the decision to go back contracting (having only ever done that before these 2 permie jobs) I simply wanted to earn more money but without more stress and that was my route.

veritas_libertas

I was looking through my TE bookmark folder and found this thread. epic! I love reading through old TE threads and learning new things...

joshmadakor

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

Do you know how much you scared me by calling me my government name? Lol. My name is Killa K don't call me Kevin lol - JK

My father is a smart man. He is a Sr fuels research chemist for the USAF. He has a MS in Chemistry and will probably be going for his PhD soon. He told me that in order to be successful, you have to be what the other guy (or girl ) can't. Within reason, you should do whatever it takes to get there.

This guy worked 3 jobs while in College - 1 lab job, and 2 cook jobs just so he could afford to pay rent and take car of his family (just my mom and I at the time). This guy traveled 2 hours by bus everyday so my mom and I could have the car. This guy would literally starve so his family could eat. Despite our differences of opinion about certain things, we are dead on as far as family beliefs. I feel the same way about taking care of my family now (just my wife).

Your dad sounds like a badass.

Samurai004

My path has been a big crazier than most but from my first job making 12 dollars an hour I now make more than double that. I don't have my degree but I am enrolled in school and I have about 35 college credits, 3 years of experience and the certs in on my profile. I am 22 years old (23 in November).

I've been knocked down several times, by coworkers and bosses. I've been told that I could never make it to the next level by coworkers. I've been told to just blend in with the rest of the pack when I would go above and beyond for customers because it "Doesn't provided consistent support" (exact words). I've been told that certs are stupid and don't help. But despite all of that, I always keep one thing in mind --my goals.

That is completely awesome, I am very proud of you. Keep moving forward...but I don't have to tell you that. Great Job Kev...I mean Killa K!!!

Hypntick

Yay thread bump.

I'm still trying to work my way up. Did 2 months shy of 3 years at a network help desk started in Jan 08 and got laid off Nov of last year. Just started another level one help desk job this month. Now I am applying for every single jr. admin and level 2/3 spot I can find that i'm qualified for.

I feel like i've gotten a slightly late start, will be 29 in a couple of weeks. However I know that it's not going to happen overnight and is going to take hard work. While I apply for everything under the sun i'm doing my best to learn the ropes at this help desk and study for some of the MS certs. I get a feeling that i'm going to have to take a risk and move out of Memphis to get anything happening. Hopefully my wife agrees with me.

cyberguypr

Hypntick wrote: »

Yay thread bump.

I'm still trying to work my way up. Did 2 months shy of 3 years at a network help desk started in Jan 08 and got laid off Nov of last year. Just started another level one help desk job this month. Now I am applying for every single jr. admin and level 2/3 spot I can find that i'm qualified for.

I feel like i've gotten a slightly late start, will be 29 in a couple of weeks. However I know that it's not going to happen overnight and is going to take hard work. While I apply for everything under the sun i'm doing my best to learn the ropes at this help desk and study for some of the MS certs. I get a feeling that i'm going to have to take a risk and move out of Memphis to get anything happening. Hopefully my wife agrees with me.

Keep trying, never give up and keep learning new stuff. I did help desk for 6 years at a company that refused to let me move to networking even though I demonstrated proficiency and had certifications. I stayed there because pay was very good and so were the benefits. A few years ago I moved to another city 2000 miles away to another help desk job. The new employer quickly noticed my talent and desire to learn. I was 30 then. Within 1 year I was promoted to help desk team lead. Another year passed and I moved to the infrastructure team. Fast forward 2 more years and I'm easing into an IT management position.

My message is this: you have to make things happen. If you can't find a jr admin position maybe try to scope out a help desk one that shows potential for promotion. You are still young so I wouldn't worry about that. Keep learning and gathering certs. Your time will come.

Hypntick

cyberguypr wrote: »

My message is this: you have to make things happen. If you can't find a jr admin position maybe try to scope out a help desk one that shows potential for promotion. You are still young so I wouldn't worry about that. Keep learning and gathering certs. Your time will come.

That's what I thought I was getting into with this one. Well I sat with a guy in this companies L2 yesterday to just get the general gist of what they do. He sat as a L1 for 7 years before the chance to move up happened. That scares the bejezus out of me to be honest. Not having turnover is one thing, but for 7 years? That seems to be the norm around here as well, one of the other L1 guys that's moving to L2 that I was hired on to replace, 5 years.

Huge company, great pay (starts at 45k for L1 on the low end and tops out at around 60k for L1), amazing benefits and all that. I just don't think I can handle hanging around that long even with that level of pay. I'd rather take something in the 35k range that gives me more hands on with more tech. I do appreciate the vote of confidence.

shodown

finishing a cert at every job I had and moving on when the learning curve wasn't as sharp as it was when I got there, so usually a year. Also getting involved in less than desirable projects that nobody wanted to do. IOS bug scrubs, Late night upgrades and so on. At one job the senior engineer actually use to come in and give me crash courses on the MPLS network so I could do upgrades and site turn ups in the middle on the night. Then later on even though I only had a year of NOC work I found myself being a Tier 3 Wan Engineer at another company. Bottom line move around if u feel you are moving up and they job isn't keeping up.

pham0329

Started out in Customer Support when I was 18, then transferred to Help Desk once a position opened up. While I was in HD, I would take it upon myself to solve the problem whereas the other "techs" would just make the ticket and escalate it. Management saw the initiatives that I took and promoted me to system/software analyst after 6 months.

Did that for about 6 months and left because it was more geared towards software assurance than what I wanted to do. Intern for a company for 3 months as a System Analyst but they wasn't able to justify the cost of bringing me on full-time so they offered me a part time job. I left there and went to work as a sys admin for a managed service providers for about 3 months before I was offered a job as a System Engineer with my current company.

All in all, my advice would be to go the extra step for others. You may not think that management notice these things, but they do. They see and hear everything! There were/are so many times where I helped someone, just because it bugs me when I can't solve something, and that person tells their supervisors, who in turn talks to my supervisors about how happy they were with my performance.

millworx

Well this is how I got into the high end jobs. My history.

I've always been a dork, my father has been an Electronics Engineer all his life and would always bring home computers and working on stuff. At age 6 I used to sit and read books on how to program the Zilog80 in ASM. I was very proficient at reading, but I didnt understand it so much.

So after a year I asked my dad about programming, at age 7 my father started to teach me how to program in C++. I started programming applications. I was "diagnosed" with OCD at that time too. All i did was sit on the computer and obsess about code. At age 8 I programmed my shrink a data entry system for his patients (for free). He was blown away.

Well I kept doing that as a hobby and in high school the offered the Cisco Networking acadamy, and I also was the only student allowed to sit on the district tech commity, and submitted recommendations for new purchases and advised on Security Holes in the system. Whenever there was a network outage on campus I was called out of whatever class I was in to take care of it with the network administrator. I also had free reign to do penetration testing for the school district =]

By age 16 I got my CCNA. I dropped out of public school and went into home school and was offered a full time job as a network administrator for a streaming media company. They company eventually folded and I got a job as a helpdesk technician at the school district. I left the job because it's seasonal and I needed more money. So I got a job as a network administrator for an electronics distribution company. The job was great until they folded.

After that I got offered a position as a Network Engineer Contractor, I held that position for 6 years until I relocated to the bay area. I still did contracting here and there, but I did work mostly with my own clients. With things slowing down I started looking for work elsewhere. I eventually landed a Job as a Network Engineer for Cisco Systems and thats my story.

I might also add that I have no degree only a diploma with a couple semesters of college, and only a CCNA. But it has not been a bar for me getting into positions because I've applied myself to everything I do and so I can backup everything on my resume.

So my advice, wherever you are working, apply yourself as hard as you can to learn technology inside and out, Degrees and Certs are nice and help, but not necessary if you can prove you know your stuff. I'm turning 28 in a month, and I've accomplished all of this in a short amount of time. Everyone can do it, just apply yourself!

Hypntick

millworx wrote: »

I might also add that I have no degree only a diploma with a couple semesters of college, and only a CCNA. But it has not been a bar for me getting into positions because I've applied myself to everything I do and so I can backup everything on my resume.

So my advice, wherever you are working, apply yourself as hard as you can to learn technology inside and out, Degrees and Certs are nice and help, but not necessary if you can prove you know your stuff. I'm turning 28 in a month, and I've accomplished all of this in a short amount of time. Everyone can do it, just apply yourself!

I am now even more jealous of you.

Seriously though, that takes talent and a serious dedication to do all that at that pace. I could be in your shoes too, but my dedication was somewhat lacking when I was younger. I had fun and don't really regret any of it so I can't really say i'd change anything. It's just now time to buckle down and get it done.

dirtyharry

Based on the responses in this thread, I just want to say: We have an awesome group of professionals on this forum. I started visiting this forum because I'm studying for the CCNA+CCNP and at first only used it for it's direction in studying. But I've realized this is a support network for IT professionals and probably one of the best online. I appreciate the time and effort the upper level guys take in sharing their expertise and experiences. I think I speak for all of the young guys on here when I say, we respect your accomplishments and appreciate your willingness to share.

Edit: sorry for being off topic...

powerfool

Old thread, but I thought that I would throw something out there.

My first job I got hired because my uncle was the sales/branch manager for a consulting company; they needed someone to start their web portfolio and I had been making web pages since I was 14. I made $25k at 18. I didn't do much web work, but I did get exposed to Novell and Windows NT.

My second job was actually following my uncle to a company that he started with some heavy hitters (like the guy who founded Tivoli). I was doing ASP and HTML for what was going to be the first online insurance website. It never really got off the ground. I was making $30k at 19.

My third job I found myself doing Java programming for a local company that made a job search application that companies could use one their own website. I also did Linux and Windows admin work internally. Nothing fantastic, but I found this one myself. I had some bad some going on personally and I kind of fell apart. My uncle asked if I would help him with a new venture and I became a Linux admin for an Application Service Provider, making $35k at 20.

That last job fell through and I became a team leader for an outsourced provider of support for MSN. It wasn't a very good job, but I met a friend there that had gone through the Cisco Networking Academy. We studied and I became rather interested in doing the exam. I took the Network+ beta in 2001 to gauge myself and passed. A coworker actually found a job posting that seemed to fit me well. I interviewed for a part-time systems/network admin job and got it; within a week they wanted me to go full-time. I did that for about a year and ended up not liking it.

I started doing contract work for Dell doing installs at medium sized customers who purchased PCs, HP building custom systems and servers for large customers, and for a large local hospital group. I liked working for several places and worked a lot of hours. I think my year got me about $38k. I started studying for my MCSE and went to a local for profit school that had a one-year program.

Just after finishing my MCSE, I got a short-term contract for a local company doing general support while the guy that normally did that went and got some training on their new CRM software. When he got back we installed it. They kept me on for about four months as a contractor and offered me a job... that I took. I started working on my BS in Information Systems at age 23, and I was making $40k. I worked there for almost three years. We ended up getting a new boss that I didn't like, so I started looking for a new job.

I got a job as a network/systems admin for a local not-for-profit co-op and handled about 90 servers and 40 network devices, rarely ever touching any of the 4000 desktops that our group supported. Did a lot of projects for our customers, converting them from systems like Groupwise and Pegasus to Exchange. Deployed Citrix, a SAN, and lots of firewall gear for site-to-site VPNs throughout the world. I was making $58k at 25. The boss thought he was Greg House, and was generally pretty smart and diligent. He was promoted to CTO. At that point we had a bit of a fallout because he started taking the "House" moniker a bit too seriously. There was an ongoing issue with a multi-function trying to take scanned images and upload them over the VPN to a file server. We had two of them having an issue and I got one of them to upgrade the firmware on the device, and that fixed it; he told me he wanted me to make a few changes on the firewall, but I told him the firmware update worked; the local vendor procrastinated for two months and finally the firmware. He ended up getting mad because the firmware fixed it and he didn't get to "prove" his idea.

I started looking for a new job after that incident, and I was in my senior year of university. I got another systems/network admin job for a local company. The new boss really wasn't technical strong, nor a good manager, which worked out well. I was able to really take the lead and put together proposals and get them in front of the ownership. I mentored one of the helpdesk guys to be my junior admin. I was making $68k at 27. The boss ended up getting let go and I thought the job was mine... that ended up not being the case and we got a new boss. It was rocky at first, but we worked through it. She left after about 9 months and I threw my hat in again.. with another disappointment. I started looking for a new job and the next new boss showed up. He ended up getting the job because he was high school buddies with the CFO, to whom he reported. He was intimidated because he really wasn't qualified. He lobbied to outsource the department with the exception of our ERP programmer, and he got it. I left there as the Sr. Infrastructure Architect making $78k at 29. I had implemented VMWare and virtualized 90% of the infrastructure, upgraded our major systems, deployed a SAN, help lead cross-functional teams in various projects, saved $500k in equipment, planned/engineered/testing a true DR/BC plan successfully, and took someone from a helpdesk level person to go on to become an admin at his next job, and I finally knocked out my CCNA.

I ended up getting a job working for a global consulting company that focuses on the federal gov't and the financial, energy, and health sectors. I am leading a $2M dollar project. I make $90k at 30. I knocked out my CISSP, updated my MCSE to 2003 and tacked on the security specialization, and then updated that to MCITP EA. I started an MS in Cybersecurity Policy.

Next up, CCNA Security within the next few days. Hopefully have a good review and top that six figure mark. Then, CCSP/CCNP Security and CEH. Continue working on my MS in Cybersecurity Policy.

Later, maybe slowly work on PMP and CCNP to keep my CCSP/CCNP Security renewed while working on an Executive MBA. After finishing my MBA... maybe CCIE Security. Perhaps move to work in Germany for a couple of years for my current company. Later, maybe work on JD or a DocSci in Information Assurance.

skyline

My path has gone so far:

Helpdesk $12/hr (12 Months) > Network Analyst $14-$17/hr (3yrs) > System/Network Administrator $22-25/hr (4yrs) > ????

I've been able to move on/up with the help of networking (right place at the right time). Getting a break as with my first Network Analyst job and proving that I could do the job I was interviewing for.

PS. Lots of hard work and many many late nights.