3 years in IT

Mrock4 · February 2013

Sounds like you're pretty much almost there cole.

vCole · February 2013

Mrock4 wrote: »

Sounds like you're pretty much almost there cole.

Almost where? haha

Mrock4 · February 2013

To a straight-up engineer role. Based on your experience, I'd say your next role almost has to be an engineer role (unless you don't want it to be).

vCole · February 2013

Ah I meant more of the traditional engineer - Mechanical/Electrical Engineering. However, I *do* hope for my next role I get into an Sys Engineer role. (hopefully when I complete my VCP5 in about ~6 weeks) Need to look into getting my CCNA as well to further push me to that realm.

glenn_33 · February 2013

Let's see...
I landed my first IT gig about a year and a half ago and all I had was my A+. I worked there for a year and got my Net+ and landed a desktop support position for $35k about 5 months ago. I'm a contractor though but I really like the company so I'm hoping they'll hire me on as a full employee eventually

jibbajabba · February 2013

vCole wrote: »

Ah I meant more of the traditional engineer - Mechanical/Electrical Engineering. However, I *do* hope for my next role I get into an Sys Engineer role.

Based on my experience you might get hired as engineer ... do SOME engineering work and then you end up doing all sorts of stuff which has nothing, or bearly anything to do with the job you hoped for .. 10 years ago the whole IT field was clear .. You had sys admins, engineers, sales monkeys - done.

(and even QA MUHAHAHA) ...

I got hired as architect - ended up working on 1st line tickets due to lack of staff (probably best-paid-password-resetter out there) ... and the list goes on ..

But sorry, didn't want to hijack this thread ..

phonetic.man · February 2013

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

I was still in high school when I started in IT as a PC tech. I was there for about 3-4 years and made only $10/hr, but hey, it was a lot better than working at McDonalds for minimum wage.

Similar for me here. My 3rd year was I was just finishing HS. I was making $10/hr working the support lines at a local ISP.

southside wrote: »

Hello Guys,
I was wondering when you guys had 3 years of IT experience.
What kind of certifications did you guys have?
Also what kind of roles were you working on and what were your skill set?
Also what were your job title history and what kind of responsibilities did you guys have and most importantly what did you guys learn the most?
Also what was your salary from your first year to now 3 year mark?

Within my first 3 years of real jobs, immediately following my gig at the ISP, I was making $18/hr part time as a "Desktop Support" but really in a Jr Sysadmin role for a small school district (working with servers, switches, routers, wireless, and a lot of desktops). I had A+, Net+, and Sec+ that I studied/payed for on my own.

I'm 6 years into having a real job now and make 40k a year (I should be making close to 50k later this year). I'm in a different Jr Sysadmin role now and do all sorts of things (everything from the previous role, phones, tons of iOS, and others). I have my list of certs on the left under my name, nearly finished with my belated 4yr degree, and I have a whole list of things to study after I finish the degree of which several are just finishing things I have already studied or worked with (70-685/686, CWNA, CCNA:W, CCNA:V, CCNP, Server 08, Server 12, WCNA).

Anonymouse · February 2013

Three years into my IT career I was doing pretty poorly. I took a crappy job as a computer operator after having been laid off and unemployed for 9 months. Before the lay off I did desktop support. I was making $15/hour running data backups in a data center. After that I spent two years on a crappy helpdesk where I tried to learn as much as I can. Hard work paid off and I am a system admin. Still planning on expanding my certs though as I've been riding on the same A+ for years haha.

charger · February 2013

I just accepted a new position yesterday and start on March 11th. I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice, an A.S. in Computer and Information Sciences, and CompTIA A+, Network+, and Security+. I'm going to work towards the MCITP/MCSA Server 2008 certs very soon and hope to finish the three required tests by the end of July. I've only been in the field for a year (two years if you count technical support, which was pure customer service in a help desk type role troubleshooting hardware/software/connectivity but not an IT environment) and am now starting my third year.

Year 1: Technical Support - $10/hr + a lot of overtime
Year 2: Help Desk - $18.5/hr + overtime/on call ($43k - $45k)
Year 3: Desktop Support - $22/hr + overtime/on call/annual bonus ($50k - $60k)

I hope to stay in desktop support for only 1-3 years and then move onto a jr admin/systems admin role. This forum has been a great resource for me over the past few years and has helped out a lot.

southside · February 2013

vCole wrote: »

I've been in IT for a little over 5 years now.

Year 1 - Help Desk Technician - $13/hr (bumped to $14/hr after 3 months)
Year 2 - IT Support Technician - $17/hr
Year 3 - IT Support Technician II - $20
Year 4- had some job changes, but SysAdmin roles - $30/hr
Year 5 - Systems Administrator - $90K/year

That is very nice jump from 30 dollars a hour to 90k, when you get 90k is this contracting? Or employed by a company

vCole · February 2013

southside wrote: »

That is very nice jump from 30 dollars a hour to 90k, when you get 90k is this contracting? Or employed by a company

Full time perm. the $30/hr was contracting.

RoyalRaven · February 2013

I was about three years in IT as I was making the transition from client support/hardware repair to systems administration. It was also the time I completed my associate degree and started looking for the next “jolt” into something else.

I would say I took on the hardware vs. software as two independent avenues up to that point. Taking the A+ as two separate sections also cemented that for me. I was knee-deep day-to-day doing system repair (down to the chip level), as that was a more immediate fit to my background. At the same time, I kept diving deeper into the operating system and how it interacts with the things I was repairing/tinkering with daily. I would say about the 2-3 year mark is when it really started to click for me and how the two work together. I would say that development helps me tremendously, even today, as it gives me confidence in working through complex items and helped me determine it was something I enjoy doing.

Pay varied in the $10-20/hr range when I focused more on hardware. Once I started making the transition to sys admin/server work (slightly after three years), I pushed the high 20’s/ended up in the 30’s. It helped me to push hard to get into a server-based role to expand that skill set instead of being stuck in lower-level work for a long time. I had the A+, Net+ and MCP (pushing quickly into the NT 4.0/MCSE world near the end of my first 2-3 years) as my primary certs to back up what I could do.

The key was having a passion about computers and to keep learning.

Looking back, I’d say most of us need a “jolt” or a fun/challenging/pet project about every three years to keep that dedication going strong. Even though I’ve been at the same employer now for over ten years, I have easily kept relevant by getting involved in something outside of my comfort range every couple of years. Continuing education also helped keep me looking for the next move as it pushed me to explore….now that I have a grad degree behind me, I need to find other avenues to keep that passion going!

I still think payback is directly related to what you put into it as your career grows. I put in a lot of hard work up-front in my first couple of years and its continuously rewarding me over and over as I move along.

Master Of Puppets · February 2013

This thread is AWESOME!Just felt like pointing that out

the_hutch · February 2013

All I had at 3 years was Net+ and Sec+. In year 4, I added on the EC-Council stack (CEH, ECSA, CHFI).
Currently in year 5. Just added in CISSP and hopefully OSCP this year as well.

Mrock4 · February 2013

Year 3 I was in the army, so it doesn't really count, but I was a helpdesk technician/server admin who got really excited everytime I got to log into a Cisco device. I think I took my CCNA about that time. Now in year 9!

dave330i · February 2013

Have some time to kill so I'll play:

1st IT job was network systems admin at a small startup. Pay was $43k. Got laid off 8 month later due to cash flow problem at the startup.
2nd IT job was windows system engineer with a professional service provider. Pay was $62k. Got it bumped to $110k after 10 months working for them.
3rd IT job is VMware SME with the same company as 2nd job (switched to a different contract within the company). Pay's the same. This was 23 months into IT career. Activities include architecting VMware infrastructures & tier 4 support.
2.5 years in IT, turned down a $140k offer to become perm. Week later, turned down a LinkedIn Headhunter offering $100/hr.
3rd year in IT, gonna be pissed if I'm not making $150k.

As for certs, I have most listed in my profile. CCENT is missing & couple of Beta exams I don't know the results yet.

vCole · February 2013

dave - that's incredible! I thought I was doing good in the Boston area after 5 years at $90K.

DoubleNNs · February 2013

Wow Dave - where exactly is NoVA? North Virginia?

And how exactly did you land those 1st few positions?
I'm enthusiastic to mimmic a similar route as many of the people in this thread, but at the moment I'm simply trying to get my foot int he door. But even after that happens, I'd love to have examples of how other people climbed up the IT chain quickly (even tho I do realize everyone's path is different)

dave330i · February 2013

vCole wrote: »

dave - that's incredible! I thought I was doing good in the Boston area after 5 years at $90K.

I've ben around the block once as a mechanical engineer, so the 2nd time around was easier. I'm sure if you had to do it again, you'll find sucess much quicker.

HackedAlias · February 2013

I am finishing my 3rd year now in IT
I was on Geek Squad for 2 years with no certs. Skill set included basic windows and technology troubleshooting. More selling than anything, no certs. Pay rate went 12/hr, 12.50/hr, 13/hr.

I then moved to the company I'm with now where I am in the NOC. I now have a CCNP and am working toward my CCDA. My skillsets now include t-shooting, designing and implementing production networks, servers, phones, firewalls, virtualizing. There isn't a part of a production network I'm not expected to own and figure out. My pay rate here has gone: 30k, 40k, 75k.

WiseWun · February 2013

dave330i wrote: »

Week later, turned down a LinkedIn Headhunter offering $100/hr.
3rd year in IT, gonna be pissed if I'm not making $150k.

Dave, why did you turn down the offer from LinkedIn? Is it because you just switched to perm? Any regrets?

dave330i · February 2013

WiseWun wrote: »

Dave, why did you turn down the offer from LinkedIn? Is it because you just switched to perm? Any regrets?

I rejected the perm as well.

There are few reasons I turned down the LinkedIn offer:
1. Location - Job's in Tampa. Can't leave D.C. metro area for a while. If any VMware folks are interested in relocating to Tampa, shoot me a PM. I'll hook you up with the recruiter.
2. While the pay at current job is pretty low, I should be getting a raise soon. Also at the current job, I get to touch all of VMware technology.
3. VCDX - Pretty serious about attempting it this year. Switching jobs would be too much of a distraction.

YuckTheFankees · February 2013

110k is pretty low? Even in D.C. that's some nice change.

chmod · March 2013

I'm 26 and i've been on this for around 7 years.

I was wondering when you guys had 3 years of IT experience.

What kind of certifications did you guys have? CCNA and working very hard to get my bachelor degree

Also what kind of roles were you working on and what were your skill set?

Network administrator for a call center, supporting all the linux boxes, pixes and M$ boxes(active directory), installed an asterisk in 2007 for 3 countries around 600 users, used to work a lot and was mandatory to be available 24/7 but we had an entertaiment room with an xbox and warcraft installed so it was a nice job my co workers are still my friends, i traveled to europe, panama, guatemala and Canada for the first time and i can say that who i am(technically speaking) is because of that job. I was a jack of all trades master of linux(no that good when i started but a descent admin). I learned about iptables(in depth), l3 switching, cabling, active directory, asterisk, aheeva contact center, call manager working there plus i already knew about apache, Java application server, postfix, php.

Also what were your job title history and what kind of responsibilities did you guys have and most importantly what did you guys learn the most?

1-Started as a support technician and when the jack of all trades left the company owner offered his position and i almost quitted because of the lack of knowledge, the place was an small call center full of linux boxes and i had no idea about what was VoIP and a proxy i really had a hard time to perform well there, i used to be stressed all the time and always reading and working 24/7. I took some linux classes when i was in high school so i knew how to operate the CLI(at least a little) but i had no experience in the rest of things.
2-GCC ISS Engineer @HP(support to proliant server and hpux)
3-Global network administrator(read answer to question #1)

Also what was your salary from your first year to now 3 year mark?[/QUOTE]

I was making 2x more than what i was making when i started.

3 years in IT

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