When is it time to move on?

briar

Hi everyone, I've been working at a network support company that provides support for 1000+ wired and wireless networks across the country. I have been with the company for about 13 months now and learned a ton. We are able to get our hands on all types of equipment from load balancers to simple access points, configure them and troubleshoot them every day. It is safe to say in the last 13 months I have learned an amazing amount about networking and get the opportunity to troubleshoot several networks with hundreds of pieces of equipment daily. I have about 2 years left until I get my BS in computer science and I have also been working on getting my CCNA and should be ready to test for this within the month. About 7 months in, I also received a promotion to a technical manager position. My question is, when is it time to move on? Should I start sending out my resume or stick around for a bit longer?

Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated!

NotHackingYou

When you don't like going there anymore.

briar

Well, guess I should note that I would like to advance my pay as well.

Roguetadhg

Some people suggest a 2 years mark for jobs. Being a full-time position, Unless it's contractual - then that's understandable.

I think it's time to start readying resumes when you start to loose interest. Rather, the amount of learning you do it minimal - or you don't like the job.

For example in my position, I know the system that I have control over, like the back of my hand - probably because I documented everything, and took pictures of everything. :P Most of the issues now are "Forward to other people" or "Reboot" or "Reimage". Out of 2+ years, I've only helped once to install switches.

I love networking so much. Yet, I can't see myself doing one of my boss' job - sys admin.

I can say "It's time for me to move on."

Not that I would move on because I don't like the job. It is what it is. It gives me study time too, and power for my computer/monitors. I'd rather suck the watts from work, than pay another 250 electric bill >.>

paul78

And to add - it sounds like you have a job where you are constantly being challenged and develop troubleshooting skills. If you are early in your career, that experience can be invaluable. And probably worth the delta in any pay increase you may expect elsewhere. However, that said, it never hurts to practice those interview skills for 2-3 years from now or when you find that you no longer like the workplace environment.

briar

Absolutely, the troubleshooting skills that I have developed are invaluable, and I feel very comfortable approaching any issues that arise. We have large issues pop up every day, several of them it seems, so I always have opportunities to continue troubleshooting. But it has gotten to a point where it seems that the learning has slowed dramatically. Most of my day now is delegating escalated issues to the technicians on my team or answering questions and teaching. It's a high stress job that does not have matching pay to go along with it, but that's what I expected with this job and took it for what it is - a great learning opportunity and job experience. But being an entry level networking position with one year on the job experience, I am unsure if I would be able to take that next step in my career path and land that new gig. My initial plan was to stick around for ~2 years, but recent developments are pushing me to find a new job that would leave me with some more income (kid on the way ).

Roguetadhg

You might be able to negotiate a better pay.

Forsaken_GA

General speaking, I believe that if you seriously need to ask that question, it's already past time to move on.

My personal recommendation would be to stay where you're at until you finish your degree, unless you find the work environment odious. If you see an opportunity, don't hesitate to follow up on it, but don't get yourself into the funk of 'I gotta get outta here now!'. Take a little time, build a solid foundation, and lay out a plan of where you want to be and how you plant to get there. If they're paying you adequately to live on, and you're still learning stuff at work, exploit that opportunity, it'll work to your benefit in the future. If you've hit a wall and can't learn anything more, or you're stuck in the boredom of doing the same thing over and over again, then it's a good idea to explore other opportunities to grow professionally.

dontstop

Sorry to bump in on the thread, but i was going to open a similar one and though it would be good to chip in on my exerpeice currently.

I've been working at this company for the past 2-3 years as a contractor part time and now going into a more full-time position (past 8 months), I have also learnt a lot of stuff in that time and i really like the people/work oppurtunities. The place is not huge (~1200) people, based on research so the network is strangly massive i.e hundreads of servers, 400TB of Storage, Campus wide GbE, 40GbE core links and 2 x 1GbE WAN. Not long ago ~7 years the place was falling apart, but now due to better management it's gone from rags to very much riches. The only problem i'm finding is that it's hard to get change done, due to fear of change from others and also the direction we are taken is delivered by upper management who really don't understand I.T.

I'm debating if i should stay or go, My current position is a Jr. Unix Admin soon to be a Snr. Unix Admin, i just find there is so much stuff that's still very much broken or not done well. There is so much potential to work on some cool things, i just don't know if the sudden push from Jr. -> Snr. (I've only been a Jr for 8 months) will be healthy for my depth of understanding.

I'm also worried that i'm going to spend my days firefighting others past mistakes and only wading through the day.

Thoughts?

Zorodzai

@dontstop - what new roles will you have as a senior admin ? I have often found that the large institutions that I do work for are very resistant to change so often you find, as you put it, a lot of stuff broken or not done well. How many levels of management are there between your self and senior management ? If management are willing to listen then maybe you should be the one getting them to better understand IT, if IT is not the core business of your company management may actually be glad to offload some of the planning and management to your team.

UnixGuy

To the OP - people have different opinions on this. Some people recommend changing jobs every 2 years or when you stop learning. others tend to stay 5 years then change (me).

I agree with Forsaken's. finish your degree and learn some more. If it's your first networking job, then maybe another year or two + CCNP can be very helpful.

UnixGuy

dontstop wrote: »

...

I'm debating if i should stay or go, My current position is a Jr. Unix Admin soon to be a Snr. Unix Admin, i just find there is so much stuff that's still very much broken or not done well. There is so much potential to work on some cool things, i just don't know if the sudden push from Jr. -> Snr. (I've only been a Jr for 8 months) will be healthy for my depth of understanding.

I'm also worried that i'm going to spend my days firefighting others past mistakes and only wading through the day.

Thoughts?

Is this is your first full-time Unix job? What Unix flavors do you use? What's the day to day tasks you get to do?


It's normal for people to resist change, specially if they're not that competent/confident. But since you mentioned that you have good management, then stay. The infrastructure you're working on is not small so - trust me- problems will arise, and you will get to do troubleshooting. Upgrades should happen (because it's a big environment), so you will get more experience. As you stay longer, you may script some of your day to day tasks as well.

dontstop

Zorodzai wrote: »

@dontstop - what new roles will you have as a senior admin ? I have often found that the large institutions that I do work for are very resistant to change so often you find, as you put it, a lot of stuff broken or not done well. How many levels of management are there between your self and senior management ? If management are willing to listen then maybe you should be the one getting them to better understand IT, if IT is not the core business of your company management may actually be glad to offload some of the planning and management to your team.

"what new roles will you have as a senior admin ?"

Nothing more than currently, just more blamability and i will have actual tasks assigned to me.

"How many levels of management are there between your self and senior management ?'

Only one, we are not that big.

It's not management, i think the workers are more change resistant either through lack of understanding or lack of motivation.

Savvy

To the OP: I would suggest staying with the job for the time being while working to complete your degree. Especially if this is your first networking based job, three years of experience + a degree will add a far wider level of marketability. Also, depending on how you feel about your management's point of view on your situation, you may be able to look at pursuing another raise while you stay on there. Keep on learning though, it will only help you out.

blargoe

I agree with a lot of what Savvy said. There are several factors in your particular situation that would make me lean one way or the other. While you didn't come out and say this was your first IT job or networking job, but from reading I sense that it is, at least, your first networking job... and the "first job is never your last job" axiom, with regard to getting paid a salary commensurate with the skills that you eventually acquire there, almost always rings true. However, you have also invested time, effort, and money into pursuing a degree, and you really shouldn't do anything that would negatively impact your progress there.

That said, here is what I would do given the information you have provided:

If you no longer feel that you are learning, you should take some kind of action sometime after you complete the CCNA... whether that be asking for more learning opportunity or responsibility and/or a bump in salary, or throwing your hat in the ring for a different position with another company. You do have two years before the degree is finished, but two years is a long time to be in a position where you have stopped growing. It didn't sound like you were having this problem based on your post... but if you are, then you should prepare to deal with it in the next few months.

Otherwise, what harm would it do to talk to your managers about your progress and the potential for earning more? It sounds like you are performing very well, once you have your CCNA and are on the verge of completing the degree, do you feel that your management is approachable when it comes to these types of discussions?

Devilry

to the OP: You have not expressed any desire to move on except for money. If you enjoy the job, and its all about the money for your reason... I suggest the following:

1) Finish your CS Degree
2) Finish your CCNA
3) Approach your manager about your recent changes and talk to them about a raise. If you are told no, or not what you want, put your resume out.

dontstop

UnixGuy wrote: »

Is this is your first full-time Unix job? What Unix flavors do you use? What's the day to day tasks you get to do?


It's normal for people to resist change, specially if they're not that competent/confident. But since you mentioned that you have good management, then stay. The infrastructure you're working on is not small so - trust me- problems will arise, and you will get to do troubleshooting. Upgrades should happen (because it's a big environment), so you will get more experience. As you stay longer, you may script some of your day to day tasks as well.

Solaris is our Unix, with a bunch of Linux boxes running core Network protocols & Web etc. I think i will stay, personally i like the kind of users we support. I have no real interest working in other environment atm, but only time will tell with that.

Mike-Mike

Devilry wrote: »

to the OP: You have not expressed any desire to move on except for money. If you enjoy the job, and its all about the money for your reason... I suggest the following:

1) Finish your CS Degree
2) Finish your CCNA
3) Approach your manager about your recent changes and talk to them about a raise. If you are told no, or not what you want, put your resume out.

this

I would assume with your experience the CCNA shouldn't be too bad for you, so I'd do that first. Have you looked at WGU? maybe you could speed up your graduation timeline with their programs. The CCNA would count as classes so you could get 2 birds in one stone there

NightShade1

When you got nothing else to learn there plus when they wont pay you more money.... OR when you see other people in higher position in a bad situation such like they have been there for like 7 years with no significant pay raise

I can tell you about my personal experience

My first job was in a noc,
I was there for a few months, in here i saw old engineers for many years with no significant pay raise so i though well i dotn wanna finish like them so i left
Second job was on another noc
I was there for a few months again, i saw that just the managers could get the money.... yeah i could learn a lot but no money like the other job, neither paid training neither paid certs or anything like that.

Third job and were i actually working right now
Its on a Aruba/Fortinet/Alcatel/Microsoft partner

Here i got pay raises, paid certifications, paid training, tons to learn, and a good future in here as i got a career path inside the company.

So there my first job i was there for a few months, in my second job few months also and my actual job 3 years and i dont think ill leave in a big while.

Conclusion
You leave when you got nothing to learn or there is no more money or you see no good future in there.

If you got the 3 of those things i think you can stick around... if you dont then you can start your journy looking for it while you are young and you dont have family i mean when you got a family it would be really hard just to quit a job.... as you need to be really careful... if you are young if you leave to another job and you dont like it well you leave and if you for some reason not working cause well you ran into a terrible job who cares i mean if you still live withyour parents(well if you do) you dont need to pay rent, or pay that kind of thing... and even if you dont you can go back to your parents home... but if you got family now thats differnent, so i think you should search for a job that got those 3 things while you can

ah yeah... if you leave to a new job dont leave for a job in which you see you will go back... i mean let say you are on a network engineer position... and then leave for a desktop tech support position i mean no matter if it pays a lil more thats would be silly

BroadcastStorm

1. If you can do the job at your old job.
2. If you're not happy with the pay or dread going to work.
3. If there's a company that is willing to hire you, and pay you more.

Now this decision can have some consequencese, as generally they say one should stay at a job for at least 3 years, but you can always say it's an advancement move, that's the only reason why you move for advancement.

UnixGuy

dontstop wrote: »

Solaris is our Unix, with a bunch of Linux boxes running core Network protocols & Web etc. I think i will stay, personally i like the kind of users we support. I have no real interest working in other environment atm, but only time will tell with that.

if it's Solaris, then do you get to use Zones? ZFS? LiveUpgrade? Are you running Solaris 10? chances are, you will be upgrading to Solaris 11 at some point, so this should be a good experience.

Devilry

Mike-Mike wrote: »

this

I would assume with your experience the CCNA shouldn't be too bad for you, so I'd do that first. Have you looked at WGU? maybe you could speed up your graduation timeline with their programs. The CCNA would count as classes so you could get 2 birds in one stone there

Gotta disagree, do not drop out of a CS degree if you are close to attend WGU. Get that money making CS degree!

Mike-Mike

Devilry wrote: »

Gotta disagree, do not drop out of a CS degree if you are close to attend WGU. Get that money making CS degree!

if he was "close" I would agree, but in his first post he said, " I have about 2 years left until I get my BS"

2 years is about the halfway point right? He could shave that in half easily at WGU

healthyboy

if you do not love getting a degree do not get it follow your heart.

Roguetadhg

I have to disagree about following your heart.

It's one of those thing that tends to be a thorn into our side if we don't get it. Not saying you 'need' it, but it's more ammo for HR to hire you and not applicant #2.