IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

TJT

TJT

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Learning any of the major cloud platforms is a good start. Infrastructure is all about managing configuration files these days rather than "hard" setting of servers and such where you have to go into some box and set it up.

But really can't go wrong with learning AWS or Azure. I'd avoid GCP.

Personally I avoid network engineering with all my soul because there's nothing I hate more than fucking with network policies and shit.
 
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alavaz

alavaz

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Deebo said:
I'm looking for some advice. I currently do IT for a county, so public sector with a Pay scale. I am field service essentially; I get to troubleshoot and work on a bit of everything though. I have about 12 years' experience in this field. I started out in a hospital doing field service work, then I switched over to application support supporting Allscripts EHR and then later a little bit of Cerner EHR.

The hospital went through a re org, and I was put on second shift working as a tier 2 application support analyst. That schedule wasn't working for me so that's how I ended up where I am now. But there's not a lot of room for advancement here, the next step-up would-be network administrator but the current admin is in mid 20's with no plans to leave. My coworker that does the same job as me has been here a lot longer than me and if it did ever open, he would be a shoe in most likely.

I do not have a degree; I got my A+ certification which helped me break into the field ~12 years ago. I honestly have no idea what I would want to do. I would like something that I am able to do remotely though. I have thought about diving into some type of cloud stuff like AWS , Google cloud, or Azure, etc. But I am pretty open, remote and well-paying are the top things, but I know that's what most people want, lol.
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I've been doing cloud work for coming up on 10 years now - which is crazy to think it's actually been that long... From a conceptual standpoint, there's sort of three major archetypes you can find yourself in and those are dependent on the type of business your employer does to some degree.

Tech companies are going to be really hyper focused towards DevOps - which would require you to know how to develop, debug and release software. They'll probably also expect you to have really in depth knowledge of microservices or other frameworks and expect you to be good with message queues, containers and data storage/caching. Now, companies that are not tech companies might hire in "DevOps Engineers," but these positions will probably be way more slanted towards my next description.

Non-tech companies are going to have more of an engineering / administration slant. This will include things like performance and cost monitoring, identity and permission, backup and recovery and your normal Operating System / Application admin type of stuff. They'll probably run a lot of VMs and maybe a few containers and you'll want to be pretty knowledgeable on their OS of choice such as Ubuntu or Windows Server or whatever. Knowing basic layer 3 transport stuff will go a long way as well. You'd want to focus on the "Architect" line of certs in Azure or AWS for these roles and they are probably a good next step up if you are already a traditional system or network admin.

The third category can be found at all company types and that is the SaaS (Software as a Service) admin. This is mostly going to consist of Office 365 / Salesforce / ERP administration type stuff. There will also be a heavy emphasis on identity and permissions and stuff. This is a good job to transition into from non-tech jobs like HR analyst or Sales or something like that. Generally the cloud foundation certs + specific application certs (i.e. Microsoft 365 or Salesforce) are going to be applicable here.

Check this site out - Take the challenge - it's a decent outline for duties you can expect to do.
 
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Nirgon

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Deebo said:
Ill look into dev ops and CICD with AWS and Terraform. So out of these what would be the ideal path? View attachment 490379

I don't know how to code, and I don't really want to code, no. infrastructure engineering sounds interesting for sure.
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Id say the middle one

Building CICD pipelines which have all kinds of fun steps

Take a look at job postings for stuff people want right now

Ours do security scans and testing gates etc, lot of growth in this field with more on the horizon
 
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agripa

agripa

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Deebo said:
I'm looking for some advice. I currently do IT for a county, so public sector with a Pay scale. I am field service essentially; I get to troubleshoot and work on a bit of everything though. I have about 12 years' experience in this field. I started out in a hospital doing field service work, then I switched over to application support supporting Allscripts EHR and then later a little bit of Cerner EHR.

The hospital went through a re org, and I was put on second shift working as a tier 2 application support analyst. That schedule wasn't working for me so that's how I ended up where I am now. But there's not a lot of room for advancement here, the next step-up would-be network administrator but the current admin is in mid 20's with no plans to leave. My coworker that does the same job as me has been here a lot longer than me and if it did ever open, he would be a shoe in most likely.

I do not have a degree; I got my A+ certification which helped me break into the field ~12 years ago. I honestly have no idea what I would want to do. I would like something that I am able to do remotely though. I have thought about diving into some type of cloud stuff like AWS , Google cloud, or Azure, etc. But I am pretty open, remote and well-paying are the top things, but I know that's what most people want, lol.
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Another option here is to learn Agile, basic cloud and dev fundamentals then become a scrum master.
 
Palum

Palum

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agripa said:
Another option here is to learn Agile, basic cloud and dev fundamentals then become a scrum master.
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Does anyone actually hire "just" scrum masters anymore? I feel like the hype train has finally died and it is now frequently listed as just an additional duty.
 
Vinen

Vinen

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Palum said:
Does anyone actually hire "just" scrum masters anymore? I feel like the hype train has finally died and it is now frequently listed as just an additional duty.
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Hopefully they don't. Talk about a grift by consulting companies.
 
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TJT

TJT

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I think I might have to make the first HR complaint I have ever made. I brought this up with the manager and director and they seemed to ignore me.

I currently have a manger who thinks everything is an absolute top critical priority and I should have no problem being available 24/7 and working 10+ hours and weekends to complete it. I've told her this is unacceptable. If everything is a top critical priority must be finished yesterday than nothing is. I have no problem doing crunch time but 100% of the time can't be crunch time for no reason. Director said like 'well yeah' but I am still being contacted by this manager at 1 AM, 7AM on Saturday and so on on a weekly basis.
 
Mist

Mist

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Everyone at every company that doesn't sell shit, make shit, deploy shit, or fix shit needs to just be fired.

Note: I apply these 4 buckets very broadly. But still... there's a ton of people who wouldn't fall into any of those buckets.
 
wormie

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Mist said:
Everyone at every company that doesn't sell shit, make shit, deploy shit, or fix shit needs to just be fired.

Note: I apply these 4 buckets very broadly. But still... there's a ton of people who wouldn't fall into any of those buckets.
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Why do you hate women?
 
Kithani

Kithani

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wormie said:
Sure. Mist is one of them.
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Suspicious Kenan Thompson GIF
 
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Siliconemelons

Siliconemelons

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Speaking of Mist Mist and telecom….

We need to replace our ancient Cisco call manager, sell me some options that are better than your thoughts on Metroid prime.

I am pushing for MS Teams / business voice we already have O365 and edu pricing on business voice is stupid cheap and it’s darn easy.

we are super simple, 2 main numbers everyone else is internal extensions w voice mail. Our Cisco system is super overkill
 
Mist

Mist

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Siliconemelons said:
Speaking of Mist Mist and telecom….

We need to replace our ancient Cisco call manager, sell me some options that are better than your thoughts on Metroid prime.

I am pushing for MS Teams / business voice we already have O365 and edu pricing on business voice is stupid cheap and it’s darn easy.

we are super simple, 2 main numbers everyone else is internal extensions w voice mail. Our Cisco system is super overkill
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Teams is fine. Ringcentral is another option. Either one you can register Polycom phones to if you actually want hardphones. You're right, most companies with under 30 employees have no need for a PBX. Hell, some with >250 employees have no need for a PBX.
 
Foler

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Deebo said:
Ill look into dev ops and CICD with AWS and Terraform. So out of these what would be the ideal path? View attachment 490379

I don't know how to code, and I don't really want to code, no. infrastructure engineering sounds interesting for sure.
Click to expand...
DevSecOps could be lucrative. With security you’ll be dealing with IAM, orgs, etc. Any company using AWS is going to be using aws orgs and I imagine their GCP or azure equivalent if on those platforms. Being able to know you’re doing and writing good IAM policies is a necessity for any company using cloud.

Take what I said with a grain of salt - I haven’t looked at job market for someone with these skills but only imagine that anyone who can navigate
 
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Foler

The_Black_Log Foler

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Friendly reminder to always have levels.fyi and teamblind.com in your back pocket. Keep crushing it fellas (and Mist)
 
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