Have you ever taken a role in IT that turns out not to be IT?

About 3 jobs ago I took a position thinking it was a senior lead role on a desktop effort. After the first week the reality of the job hit and it was a management position. I adapted and now am thankful for that but at the time there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty.

I couldn't of been more thankful now I love it and it's great. Sure it has it's moments and it's like learning a whole new type of role. Because I am

(Still learning ~2 years a later, I had a break in service back to IT)

I realize most people are performing IT functions on this forum, but I was wondering about the members that aren't IT technicial workers anymore. How has that transition gone and do you regret it?!

I know I don't the pay is A LOT more and the chance to deal with strategy and design is so much more enjoyable.

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Comments

Hypntick

The current role i'm in is a supervisory role, that also includes all of the duties of the previous role as well. Not my particular cup of tea, discovered shortly after accepting the position that I have no desire to supervise anyone. Oh well, live and learn I suppose.

YuckTheFankees

I only have about 1-2 years of I.T. experience and since the beginning I have always thought I wanted to be and stay in a technical role. Recently, I came to the conclusion that I have passion for the business side, as well as the technical side. So management is definitely in my future.

Jackace

I have always wanted to move into management eventually. I actually have 2 bachelor's degrees. One in IT and one in Business Administration. I went that route in hopes that I could end up in management one day. I still read the finance and stock market info almost every day. That stuff interests me almost as much as the technical stuff.

cyberguypr

At my last job I was being eased into a management position. Like Hypntick, I discovered it was not for me.

thenjduke

I had one role where it was a Senior Network Engineer and then one week into the role I come to find out I was becoming the IT Director and also the senior network engineer. They had this planned all along and was never in the job description. I am not management type material. I enjoy the technical aspect and do not like to supervise. I explain this to them and gave my notice.

paul78

@n2it - I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying the role. Are you referring to the differences between being hand-on technical versus management?

As you know, I have been in management for many years. And I have managed and lead various types and sizes of technical and non-technical groups. Admittedly, I do not enjoy it but it was the only way to get to where I am so I cannot say that I regret it. While I immensely enjoy the leadership aspects of what I do and I do believe that I offer value to my employers, I do not truly enjoy the personnel management side of the role. I like offering mentorship, managing budgets, dealing with contracts, customer relationship management, setting goals, and building a business, etc. but I never enjoyed the administrative side of personnel management.

Lately, I have been trying to transition into a more technical role and rely on a matrix-ed organization where I can still have a leadership role with more technical involvement but without the burden of managing a large team. Ideally, I would prefer to manage just a small team of support specialists. And instead rely on other functional groups or enterprise services to accomplish my stated charter.

Realistically speaking, I doubt that will last too long. I think that I'm the type of person that should have just stuck to consulting or stay in a smaller company

. But the "golden handcuffs" have me grounded. I can't really complain - I am well compensated and it's not all bad.

I do envy folks that know exactly what they want and can stick it out for 30-40 years of a career. I love IT but I need some variety within that space.

One of the reasons why I hang around in TE is because I get inspiration for hands-on technical ideas. And I vicariously enjoy the accomplishments of people that do actual engineering or direct-support. Being in management too long, can sometimes dull one's appreciation of the actual effort and challenges that are faced by people in the trenches that solve tactical problems day-in and out.

undomiel

Probably the closest I've come that would qualify would be a systems administrator job I took with a small company. It was my chance to get out of technical support so I leaped for it. It was being the sole IT support for the company, and also doing a lot of AutoCAD work for them as well. I'm pretty sure that is what actually got me the job since I had AutoCAD on my resume from a few years earlier doing odd jobs here and there. Anyhow it did turn out well for me because I got some great IT experience out of it, was able to study for my MCSA/MCSE, and a got a boost into senior positions from there on out. It also helped that I enjoyed AutoCAD a bit since I could draw faster than most of the guys there.

onesaint

In my new position the advertised job title was Unix/Linux Systems Administrator. I spent the first 2 weeks learning how GPS works from an engineering standpoint. It started to worry me a bit until the DevOps people got a hold of me and in came revision control, scripting, and configuration management to save the day. I was happy to have found my way back to the IT trenches.

Vik210

I am out of pure technical job from last couple of years. I enjoy the management side of things and how it relates to the business but I do miss working in the field – on the actual equipment.
The sad part for me is, I never really got a chance to work in core cisco environment. That was some things I really wanted to do. My CCNA is expiring in few months and I am still thinking of writing CCNA security exam to keep it going for another 3 years.
In short, I don’t regret anything but will certainly be happy to be more technical than I am and work on latest technology then preparing excel sheets and discussing SLAs with my client!

drkat

Sure, I took a job with the cable company that was a "Technical Operations Center" so I'm figuring yeah cool fixing stuff... nope - got the job, walked in and it was all monitoring outside plant and opening/escalating tickets and taking calls from the field techs... needless to say that job lasted from like the 5th of the Month to the 27th of the Month

lifehaggar

I took an IT help desk job at a large hotel chain, but the first project they put me on was compiling a list of all management at all hotels. Did not stay there long.

N2IT

This sounds like an administrative assistant. ^^^

okplaya

"IT" is so broadly defined nowadays, how do you really distinguish? If you work under an IT business unit, do you work in IT?

N2IT

okplaya exactly

I work under a IT business unit and that is about it.

AnotherITGuy

Funny I just found this thread. A week ago I posted asking if I was underpaid etc etc etc. Well finally went and talked with my boss about it and he said he was glad I brought it up. Turns out as the company is growing we're looking at reorg'ing the tech department and a couple of management positions (while still doing tech work) are going to open up.

I've been here for a about 3 years so it'll be interesting to see what happens on that.

Another time (about 6 years ago) when i was looking for an IT job I set up an interview with a company about 2.5 hours away from my house. The job description and manager on the phone made it sound like a network administrator role...when I showed up and actually interviewed...it turned into a sales job for something remotely computer related. Let them know to not bother calling me back and pretty much ended the interview right away after that bait and switch.

demonfurbie

i started this job to fix computers/network them

7 years later im a probation officer