How long have you been in IT

Bl8ckr0uter

I thought I have been in IT for like 5 years, turns out I am finishing my 4th year at the end of this month. I have done quite a bit of contracts. I am just about to finish my 2nd full year off the helpdesk and my 1st full year in "InfoSec". How about you guys?

afcyung

6 months help desk
14 months Sys Admin
3 Years Wing Information Assurance (COMPUSEC,EMSEC,COMSE, C&A, Policy development and enforcement)

rwmidl

I started in 2000, so total time in 11 years and counting.

Asif Dasl

About 10 years, the last 5 as a sys admin. I should have more certifications than I have now but I am working on that now.

Everyone

12 years.

buchatech

I have been in IT for 11 years this year. Started out as a PC tech and worked my way up to system administration and then to IT management.

millworx

Started my internship in 1998 and have been working ever since. So going on 13 years here.

~6 mos helpdesk, 3 years systems administration, 2 years network administration, 7 years network engineering.

QHalo

11 years

xenodamus

9 years - spent several in desktop support, taught IT courses for 3 years, then came back to the tech side as a jr. admin a year ago.

Forsaken_GA

Right around 15 years cumulative. There was a 2 and a half year break between my first IT job and the second, when I went back to school, but I'm not counting that time frame in my total years of service.

Dakinggamer87

5+ years

Monkerz

3.5 years professionally, but I have always admired technology and tinkered whenever I could. Unprofessionally I would say going on 12 years.

N2IT

2 years 1 month desk side support (break fix and software)
1 year 9 months help desk
6 months Help desk team lead
1 year Desktop, Wintel, and Network support
4 months IT service team lead (current)

drew726

I've only been in 2 years help desk, 3 months in the noc now...should i start looking for a sys admin job after i graduate or wait till i have a whole year at the noc?

Hypntick

3 years and 4 months at this point. Doesn't seem quite that long really.

Essendon

2006, first job, at an ISP : 3 months
2006, second job, software installer : few months
2007, third job, n/w analyst at Mobil : few months
2008, fourth job, jack of all trades at a hellhole : 8 days
2008, fifth job, systems engineer at an MSP : to present

So about 4.5 years all up. Learnt the most at my current job.

Advice to everyone on the helpdesk : Get out of there within a year. Learn as much as you can, get a couple certs and look for something worth your while. Accelerate your growth. I know some people who have been answering the phones for several years, the kind of people who have zilch ambitions (in most cases). No offense to anyone on the helpdesk, I did it too, get out of there.

higherho

So during my 5 years at Penn College of Technology I worked in IT while going to school.

2 years of Student Help Desk (mainly helping students with their laptops / desktops. Viruses removal, hardware diagnosis, software installs, etc). Position is actually called Technical Support Analyst.

Network Technician, 8 months - I was part of our colleges Network Engineering team (5 people for a campus of 8,000 + people). I was helping out with all the cable runs, Access layer switches, deployment of Wireless N access points, deployment of VOIP campus wide, and I was part of their major project from going from a Flat switched network to a Layer 3 redundant routed network. I wish I could have gotten a full time job here because everything was Cisco based. The wireless engineer now has his CCNP wireless. I still keep in touch with the team from time to time.


Right after I graduated I got a job as a Systems Engineer. Was their for three months but it did not work out and driving 150 miles a day was not fun.

AFter that 3 months I started working on a temporary contact for 3 weeks helping with cable runs in various places (big schools, hospitals, etc) the position title was called Data Technician. This was a fun time because I got to see a lot of cool places.

After that was over I got a call for a Help Desk Technician / VTC Facilitator position for the governement (Contact with HP). Took that and did a lot of different things from software troubleshooting (office programs, etc), ticketing, I also was their VTC facilitator for non secret and secret networks. That experience was awesome because I never got a chance with video equipment before.

After 5 months of my previous position I got promoted to System Administrator on the same team. Took care of a few servers (typical updating, hardening the servers), networking equipment on both secret and non secret networks, password resets, software installs, and a few other things.

Currently I am a System Administrator for 30 servers, Epo sever, VPN concentrator, SAN, a few switches, etc. I volunteered for this position and I am currently getting trained by the current SA before he goes away for 9 months on army training.


Quite the ride I have to say and I am very excited to learn more. Going through a virtualization process as well. So to sum things up;

2 Years (2007 - 2009) - Technical Support Analyst - First job
8 months (2009) - Network Technician - Second job
3 months (2010) - System Engineer - Third job
3 weeks (2010)-Data Technician - 4th job
5 months (2010)- Help Desk Analyst / VTC Facilitator 5th job
7 months (2010 / 2011) and still going - System Administrator (two different contacts) 5th job - different position

Slowhand

I got my first official IT-related gig in 2004, working as a PC tech. Since then, I worked helpdesk for a hospital, in a datacenter, at an IT outsourcing company, and then did some sysadmin work for a video game company up until October of 2009. These days, I'm a full-time student and I work freelance.

So, it's either 5 years, if you count from PC tech to sysadmin, and about 6 and 1/2 years if you count up to present. (Although, I don't know if I count my current side-gigs of setting up home and small-office gear every few months as "work", in comparison to my past jobs. )

TLeTourneau

15 Years.

Aldur

Geez, seeing others amounts of experience makes me feel like I'm still a noob

Just passed 4 years this month.

~ 1 1/2 yrs at JTAC
~ 1 3/4 yrs as an RE at Juniper
~ 3/4 yr as a courseware dev at Juniper

veritas_libertas

4+ years

SWM

Going on 24 years

Cut my teeth on Commodore 64's , Vic 20's, Amstrad CPC 6128's, PC XT (hey they had 5 1/4 360k FDD and 20 MbB HDD and mono screen's ...BEASTS )

ah memories. sh1t I feel old now

mikedisd2

First tax paying IT job in 1998, but only been taking it seriously since around 2006. I still tell people 12 years just for appearances.

Anonymouse

Close to 4 years professionally. 5 years if I want to count working with my highschools network admin as well as working on the schools page freshman year of highschool. Though out of all of that time I only have less than 2 years of applicable experience as you'll see below.

1 year - elective class freshmen year of highschool to update website/assist network admin

*9 years time skip where I spend my time either being a lazy bum or working crappy jobs*

6 months or less - Random gigs for a company doing IT moves, disconnect/reconnect computers
3 months - PC tech at a large electronics retail store
9 months - short desktop support contract
6 months - deployment of new computer systems and OS, should have been long contract but got laid off
1 year and 3 months - massive project backing up data from all the HDD's from a bank
8 months so far- current job at a helpdesk

Bl8ckr0uter

Awesome responses guys. It's good to see years of exp behind the avatars and certs.

RomBUS

Just about 3 years of professional experience

Still trying to find a "home" at a place for me to grow and have a long term relationship with a company

mikej412

I think I have more IT experience than the average age of the TE members who respond to the "how old are you" posts

And that isn't counting the APL programming I did in College or the stuff I did in my spare time when I was in the Berlin Brigade.

Armymanis

As far as professional experience goes I have almost one month under my belt as a two month Desktop Technician 1. As for school, I have two years of going taking technical classes. Almost done with my AA. I don't think I would count school as professional experience. I plan to enjoy learning and be in this field for a long time as it keeps on growing

nimrod.sixty9

Just crossed 2 1/2 years in Help Desk and still there. Only A+ cert but Ill have that N+ soon. Good thread.

Psoasman

3 1/2 years now, working as IT Tech.

rogue2shadow

A little over 3 and a half years for me.

2 years in PC tech.
1 year and 4 months in analysis.
5 months in sales.