Specialization in IT

Hello board. I wanted to know if specialization in IT was a good choice? Ive been in IT for 12 years now (going on 13), and it was brought to my attention from a friend of mine who is also in IT. He said it was less overwhelming and more enjoyable knowing you are the expert at a product(s) that is in demand. He said he would encourage me to find something and specialize in it. Wanted to know your thought and to see if you are a specialist in IT, what product or area in IT (networking, dev, Windows) and how it benefited you.

thanks board,

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Comments

drkat

I think it's a good idea. Specialized folks do make more but some times jobs are harder to find.

blargoe

As long as you're not so specialized that you can't transition to the next thing when the current big thing is no longer in demand, you should do fine.

Moki99

I think the key is to be well rounded with maybe 1-2 highly specialized areas.

UnixGuy

blargoe wrote: »

As long as you're not so specialized that you can't transition to the next thing when the current big thing is no longer in demand, you should do fine.

this. you should specialize, but your foundation should be strong enough to move between different technologies, and you should specialize in more than one thing

elTorito

I find it particularly hard to decide on WHAT to specialize in. I like it that I'm allround and know a little bit of everything. Everyone at my workplace knows they can ask me anything, and they will get an answer ... sooner or later. However, in technical discussions with specialists - often externally hired - I find that I often just can't offer input that amounts to much.

There are a ton of things that I want to know in-depth: VMware vSphere and all VMware VDI technologies, Windows Server 2008 and all its roles (AD DS, AD CS, AD FS, WDS etc.), Exchange 2010, SQL Server, Cisco components, Windows PowerShell, Storage architecture, Firewall configuration ... the list goes on. However, there's just not enough hours in a day to learn it all.

So yeah, specialization should lead to a less overwhelming job, and it should definitely give a sense of fulfilment knowing that you actually grasp one or two subjects 100%. To people like me, it's a hellish choice to make, though