Opinions please

VAHokie56

I have a job opportunity that has come up and I am not sure how I feel about it. I am fairly happy at my current job as a Network Engineer and make pretty decent coinage. I really enjoy Cisco and find it hard seeing myself doing much else, recently the work has slowed and I don't feel I am being challenged enough here anymore. Also this is only a 3 year contract (2 left) with what I can tell so far hazy stipulations on renewal due to some rule about contractors only being allowed to work 3 years then having to leave for 6months
The other opportunity is in health systems dealing with somewhat vendor specific software and is kind of a technical PM type of role from what I can make out. I would give a chance to travel some and face a side of the industry I have not yet had the chance to deal in. The job is full time no contract and about 20k more landing me somewhere in the higher 90k region I guess. My only concern is that if this job for whatever reason drys out in 1 to 2 years or whenever, how hard will it be for me to get back to a Cisco gig. Any opinions are appreciated

networker050184

Sounds like you want to do networking, so why not just wait for something like that to come up?

If you do leave for another specialization I don't think it will be too hard to come back though. Keep in mind you will probably have to make a move back to the same level you were already at. If you stick to networking you can use those two years to move up in the field. Just some food for thought.

WafflesAndRootbeer

*backhands VAHokie56*

Pull yourself together man! You have Cisco certs and you know those can practically guarantee you a steady paycheck in this area if you keep yourself up to date and in practice. If you go off and bake cookies for a year, you're going to be out of the game when it comes to being an NE as a lot of places won't hire you if you have a significant gap without any additional networking certs or jobs.

kotan

Agreed. Keep doing what you're doing until another opportunity arises where networking is the primary responsibility. Though I'd never be ashamed of baking cookies...

joshmadakor

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

*backhands VAHokie56*

Pull yourself together man! You have Cisco certs and you know those can practically guarantee you a steady paycheck in this area if you keep yourself up to date and in practice. If you go off and bake cookies for a year, you're going to be out of the game when it comes to being an NE as a lot of places won't hire you if you have a significant gap without any additional networking certs or jobs.

I'm not all Cisco'd out yet, but these were my initial thoughts.

VAHokie56

lol thanks for slapping some scene into me . I was leaning towards that anyway I must say. Thanks for the input guys