New Job Unexpectedly

So, I have been working as a system admin in a small/medium business environment the last 20 or so months. I enjoy the work but I am the only admin.

I have been really interested in VMWare products since I first broke into IT in 2007, and this job gave me quite a bit of exposure. ESX 3.5 -> 4.1 upgrade. 4.1 -> 5.0U1 upgrade recently. I decided pretty quickly I wanted to specialize in Virtualization. Here is the key: I realized early on virtualization is merely a delivery system. So I spent my time honing sys admin skills, networking skills (routing, switching, VLAN, subnetting, etc), SAN optimization, etc and used that to really tune our systems. I dedicated at least 10 hours a week (mostly after hours since being the only admin left little "what I want to do" time) in our ESXi environment and really getting in depth with it. I also attained my VCP cert while doing this and sort of used my production environment as study.

An old coworker asked me to apply for a job with my old company as a Linux admin. So I fixed up my resume and sent it in- and posted a copy online just for SNGs. I wasn't really looking for a new job and just put it out online just to see what hits I get. That was last Sunday.

Long story short, I was contacted by a recruiter on Monday (I actually didn't return his call until he left me 3 VMs.. I usually hate working with recruiters) and after a weeks worth of interviews (literally, except for Tuesday- one per day)- I was offered a position as a Virtualization Engineer. It has been a whirlwind week. It was funny because I wasn't really looking for a new job at all. I also thought that this job was one I would have to move for- I live in a small city of ~200k people, not a big tech center.

I'll be focusing on only VMWare and Citrix Xen products. I'll be running the virtualization systems in datacenters across 3 major US cities remotely, and a few internationally- and will be doing all of the virtualization migrations and architecture. I'll be interfacing with the various tech teams (Windows system team, Linux team, Networking guys, etc) to get everything unified. I am nervous because it is the first role of mine as a subject matter expert, and not a jack of all trades type. But I am also ecstatic to have this opportunity to leave the small business realm and work on real enterprise systems. Plus, this will get me out of a support role and into more of a design/architecture role.

Benefits are great and this is a very large pay jump for me (55%).

The downside? I am going to really miss my current company. This is the first job I will be leaving not because I was dissatisfied. I love the culture and people there. I was simply offered a better opportunity for my career path and better pay to support my soon-to-be family. But, I am ecstatic about starting my new position and can't wait to see where it takes me!

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Comments

cyberguypr

Congrats, sounds like a great opportunity.

xbuzz

Awesome story and opportunity. Just goes to show what hard work does, and also says something about testing the market often, as you never know the kind of opportunities you might be missing.

Danielh22185

Congrats!

healthyboy

congrats whats the pay now

N2IT

Sounds like a great opportunity to move in the direction you wanted to from the on set. Gratz!

j.petrov

Thanks for the story. Gives all of us hope in progressing our careers. Good luck at your new job!

Essendon

Awesome, CONGRATS!!

RouteThisWay

Thanks guys! This really couldn't have come at a better time either. My wife and I are expecting our first child. On my current salary, she def could have stayed home with our child. It would have been a little tight but doable. With this new job though- it really is her choice. Either way, we can still maintain our comfort of living. I honestly don't think she will want to though- she has just finished her Masters and wants to put it to work for us ha. So, at least the $200/week daycare cost isn't looking bad at all anymore ha! Plus, new job gives 2 weeks paid paternity leave so I won't have to use my vacation time.

Edit: To the guy asking my current salary, this takes me to right at $65k/yr. Which, isn't bad considering the extremely low cost of living in my area compared to a larger metro city like Atlanta, Houston, etc. Plus, I do not have a Bachelors degree. I don't think it truly mattered that much- but it couldn't have hurt. And I have about 2 years experience as helpdesk/destop support, and 2 years of work as a sys admin. So I am going on year 5 of my career. And I am 25 years old. Not sure if any of that is relevant- just my current situation.

Devilry

That sounds like a awesome situation. Where are you located? You are going to benefit huge from a role that specialized at your young experience level. Congrats!

onesaint

Congratulations on the new family addition as well as the new fantastic opportunity. It's really nice to be markable, move in the direction, and be paid well to do so. Keep it up!

psenior

Good for you! I'm happy that you will be able to better provide for your family. Keep climbing!

spicy ahi

Congratulations on the new job and the new baby on the way! If only all the guys your age that worked for me thought the same way you did and worked as hard as you did, my job would have been easy.

Keep that attitude and mentality and you won't have any issues. Well, except maybe with getting enough sleep at night (get it while you can; you won't be getting a whole lot of it in the near future!)

cgrimaldo

Congrats! It would be nice to see a thread made by you on how you honed your admin skills..Some of us would be very interested, including me! If you have created a thread like that already, my apologies

dmoore44

Congrats OP - sounds like life is pretty good!

YuckTheFankees

Congrats, it's always nice to hear fellow TE members obtaining dream/good jobs.

instant000

Congrats!

My only comment is that if you continue to invest in honing your skills to become a true datacenter expert, you'll be seeing bigger jumps than this in your future

RouteThisWay

Instant000,

Thanks for the encouragement- always looking to getting those skills honed

Cgrm,

I have been working on such a thread due to your recommendation of doing so