moving from programming to IT support

Hello

I am a programmer of 5+ years working with C programming. Of late I am thinking of moving to IT support specifically microsoft technologies. I would like to hear from people who have travelled this path already. Even people who may have something important to share are welcome to put their opinion.

Would be keenly interested to learn from your experience/knowledge specifically the following things:
1. How did you go about it. I am assuming you must have given all the related exams in a couple of months (or years??) and started applying for support positions?
2. How did the pay scale (in your particular geographic location) measure? I am willing for a 20% reduction from my current pay but hopeful that over time it will compensate.
3. Did your new employers discriminate in any way initially or were apprehensive in any way to hire you? If yes how did you overcame that? Were you considered a complete noob on par with recent grads?
4. Should I be aiming for an advanced level certification before even thinking of IT support jobs? Will that help me overcome the 'stigma' of being an IT noob to some extent??

I would be greatly obliged to hear your experiences.

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Comments

ratbuddy

I gotta ask, why? Seems like a big step backwards, are you not happy being a developer?

techfiend

I second ratbuddy's question. I'll answer your questions as best I can.

1. Graduated with an AAS, passed A+, applied for jobs, managed to get a desktop support position that looks be turning into a JOAT.
2. IT pay is a little above average here. I started at pretty much average entry level pay in the area and on these boards, $15/hr. Coming from development consider yourself very lucky if you only take a 20% pay cut. More than 50% is realistic.
3. I don't know if I was discriminated against, I think it mostly came down to being a bad interviewee to begin with that gradually improved. I was well above technical wise compared to other interviewees I was told on 2 occasions, just a few weeks into this job I'm the goto guy on many support related things, get along with everyone and look forward to working every day.
4. An advanced certificate looks good on a resume but I think the chances are slim to get a job requiring them with no experience. I'd really suggest starting from the bottom with A+, it's a very highly regarded certificate when starting out but it doesn't teach much.

tkerber

ratbuddy wrote: »

I gotta ask, why? Seems like a big step backwards, are you not happy being a developer?

I will also chime in on this and would like to ask why? However, I think that programming can be really tedious work that not everyone is cut out to do it. At first you may be taking a step back but if you really find a passion in another area of IT, you may be happier in the long run and have just as much earning potential. Like if you look at Senior Software Engineers vs Senior Network Engineers, Senior Data Architects, Senior Systems Engineers, etc... They all make pretty good money and are reasonably close in compensation.

Everyone has their own opinions and I personally think that programming / development can be more competitive than your general 'IT'. Some may argue that development has a better and more defined career path as far as wages and growth are concerned and I may be inclined to agree to some extent. So this is not completely shocking to me and I have several friends in development who are underpaid and over worked because they're not top notch programmers and don't have enough experience to leap yet.

Cyberscum

Do what makes you happy at the end of the day. What specific "microsoft technologies ?"

IT-Fella

tkerber wrote: »

Some may argue that development has a better and more defined career path as far as wages and growth are concerned and I may be inclined to agree to some extent.

I never really heard of CIOs or Directors of IT who started as developers. Besides that usually developers are much more introverts than IT specialists, which also doesn't help them to achieve higher ranks other than being Sr. Software Engineers. I would agree with others though, that junior dev has the higher initial pay as well as generally better chances to get the entry level job.

tkerber

IT-Fella wrote: »

I never really heard of CIOs or Directors of IT who started as developers. Besides that usually developers are much more introverts than IT specialists, which also doesn't help them to achieve higher ranks other than being Sr. Software Engineers. I would agree with others though, that junior dev has the higher initial pay as well as generally better chances to get the entry level job.

Yeah now that I think of it, you're kind of right with the first sentence. CIOs and IT Directors are usually also more on the business side than they are IT but I've definitely met my fair share who used to be Engineers, System Administrators, etc.. Also my last boss was a programmer and worked on main frames way back in the 80's - late 90's..

Another thing I may add (this is just personal experience from programmer friends -- NOT FACTUAL) is that programmers careers seem to be somewhat short lived from what I've heard. Two of my good friends and one of my cousins both went to college for computer science and about five years later moved into other roles because the skills and knowledge they gained in certain languages started to fade and were not as in demand. My cousin ended up being a Server Engineer / SCCM Administrator and the other two were also programmers who went into IT management / generalists. Now obviously the same will happen to anyone in IT but I still feel as if it doesn't quite happen as fast as it does in programming or maybe I'm just wrong and someone can come in with some real facts.

markulous

Cyberscum wrote: »

Do what makes you happy at the end of the day. What specific "microsoft technologies ?"

Agreed. I know I could probably power through being a developer and make more money, but I'd rather do something that doesn't bore me to death. Happiness>Money easily

theitpro

A+ cert help me get my first IT Support Job and I've known several CIOs that started as developers

pegasus711

Hello.

Thank you very much fellas for such an engaging discussion. Let me answer them one by one:

1. You ask why? Let me say I'm just tired of being on the edge almost all the time. The domains that I work in are pretty "hardcore"

and usually involves learning very very cryptic (to me at least

) things. Last time it was heavy duty storage hardware think EMC and NetApp; this time it's the intricacies of mobile telephone and data technologies (think of what goes inside sprint at&t networks behind the curtians

). Secondly I am moving to a place with my girlfriend of long and that place has a dearth of "hardcore" development jobs and all they have in development is .NET, web tech etc. However network support and microsoft IT support jobs are aplenty. So i'll be learning something new anyways, so why not IT support

2. Pay scale. I am willing to go down to say a 30% less pay than what I get. What I wanna know is, if I try to achieve all the advanced grade certifications before jumping the development gun, will that help to assuage the pay scale shock? Like if I go all the way up to CCIE (for cisco technologies) before applying for jobs, will that help me get a better pay?

And has anyone of you known a fella who's gone from development to IT support? I'd be very keen to hear from you about his/her experience. I know it won't be easy but I am also serious here.

NOTE: I'd be very glad if you guys could post the full forms of the certifications. I'm really sorry for this but as I said, I'm a noob and an 'A+' is kind of generic for me. All it reminds me of ....are my school days

IT-Fella

tkerber wrote: »

CIOs and IT Directors are usually also more on the business side than they are IT but I've definitely met my fair share who used to be Engineers, System Administrators, etc.. Also my last boss was a programmer and worked on main frames way back in the 80's - late 90's..

I was trying to say that I've heard of many System, Network engineers and admins who eventually moved up to IT exec positions, but not so much about developers of different flavors. Like I said, most of them prefer to code and stay out of anything related to networks, systems, virtualization etc.
Sr. Developer at my current work site doesn't even want to learn anything outside his realm. He could have been an IT manager if he wanted to but he just doesn't want that extra responsibility and learning overhead.

I would also say that being a programmer you don't really have to follow new technologies. If you're a good .NET developer than all you need to know is Visual Studio+C#+.NET and there are plenty of jobs out there with this skill set required. Of course my 2 cents..

logisticalstyles

pegasus711 wrote: »

NOTE: I'd be very glad if you guys could post the full forms of the certifications. I'm really sorry for this but as I said, I'm a noob and an 'A+' is kind of generic for me. All it reminds me of ....are my school days

Comptia A+. Comptia is the name of the company that gives the exam and A+ is actually the name of the test. The same applies to Network+ and Security+

instant000

pegasus711 wrote: »

1. How did you go about it. I am assuming you must have given all the related exams in a couple of months (or years??) and started applying for support positions?

It doesn't make sense to think of starting at the bottom, since you have a nice set of transferable skills (development), which lends itself to automation, which is always needed in IT.

I actually first started in IT back in the day, when I was a lab assistant in college. So, in my case, experience came before certs, as I really didn't hear about certs until years later.

2. How did the pay scale (in your particular geographic location) measure? I am willing for a 20% reduction from my current pay but hopeful that over time it will compensate.

Pay scales, even within a geographic area, will vary from job to job. Since my first true IT job was a lab assistant in college, my pay was whatever the meager work study wages were.

You should do a lot better than that.

3. Did your new employers discriminate in any way initially or were apprehensive in any way to hire you? If yes how did you overcame that? Were you considered a complete noob on par with recent grads?

Since I majored in information systems at the time, I knew a lot more about the systems than I'd ever use in support work (heck, my homework for class took more effort than the mundane clearing a printer queue or killing errant jobs on the terminal). I believe that you may be setting your sights too low right now.

4. Should I be aiming for an advanced level certification before even thinking of IT support jobs? Will that help me overcome the 'stigma' of being an IT noob to some extent??

I see no need for you to go for advanced level certs. Even the lower entry to mid-level would be just fine. I would recommend leveraging what you know (and can do already). Look for the automation angle. Leverage the programming background.

In this case, the stigma is in your head. Sure, there are some developers who seem to forget how to plug in a video card (even though they can write the drivers for one), but I'm not thinking that is you.

I really don't see this being as big of a hurdle as you think it may be. It will be different, but not necessarily more difficult.

Obviously, you've honed skills in paying attention to detail and troubleshooting in a methodical way. I doubt you'll be intimidated by parsing logs or viewing debugs. You're comfortable with reading documentation and looking up how things work on your own. Heck, that's just another day in the life. You're not going to know it all. You have to get a base knowledge in an area, sure. You have to be able to handle day-to-day duties, sure. But, still, beyond that, you're going to have to be resourceful, and look things up. You've honed those skills. Now, you're just going to have to work at the skills of day-to-day.

Make sure to connect to me on LinkedIn.

Hope this helps.

instant000

pegasus711 wrote: »

I am willing to go down to say a 30% less pay than what I get.

Please don't start the job interview like that!

What I wanna know is, if I try to achieve all the advanced grade certifications before jumping the development gun, will that help to assuage the pay scale shock? Like if I go all the way up to CCIE (for cisco technologies) before applying for jobs, will that help me get a better pay?

Certs without experience are worthless.

And has anyone of you known a fella who's gone from development to IT support?

Yes.

I work with a guy. He was working in construction/manufacturing. When those became a dead end, he retrained for development. From there, he transitioned into systems and then network.

He's in the six figures, and he only has Security+. (Of course, he has lots of experience and he knows what he's doing, which obviously helps.)

techfiend

One way you might be able to make a transition without reducing pay a lot is look for small businesses that are looking for both support and development. I don't know if it's common but my manager is a software developer that's been doing support for years and now he wants to focus on the former, so they hired me, that and the admin wants to leave. You'd be getting developer salaries but a lot of support and getting the experience you'd need to get out of development without a pay reduction.

N2IT

You could leverage development but then you run the risk of doing that type of work. Just an angle to consider. Good luck!