IT field, jack of all trades, or specialized

[sdweim85]

In the Information Technology field what are you better off being.  Someone who knows a moderate amount of information on just about everything, or know everything about a single thing.

[stu33]

As a software engineer that was a hardware tech in a previous life, you need to be a little bit of both.  You can't really just say "IT Field".  There's too many subheadings there.  In my experience, pick the one that you want (for me it was application software) and learn as much as you can inside of there.

[sdweim85]

Sorry I didn't mean like one specific program, I meant like a branch.  Like either programming or networking, but not both.

[JMB]

What sort of company would you like to work for? I have been in the field for 17 years now and the last 9 of those have been with a smaller company. We have grown from under 100 employees to about 150 now. Being a smaller company I do it all on a daily basis and I enjoy it.  An extremely narrow focus job would bore me to tears.  It is a field that you have to be constantly willing to do work to stay current with technology. Figure out what interests you the most and what sort of work environment you would like and go from there.

[sdweim85]

What sort of company would you like to work for? I have been in the field for 17 years now and the last 9 of those have been with a smaller company. We have grown from under 100 employees to about 150 now. Being a smaller company I do it all on a daily basis and I enjoy it.  An extremely narrow focus job would bore me to tears.  It is a field that you have to be constantly willing to do work to stay current with technology. Figure out what interests you the most and what sort of work environment you would like and go from there.

I'm currently the only System Administrator at a small company of about 20 people with 10 servers.  I monitor the network, setup VPNS for clients when needed, set  UTM web filter restrictions, monitor the camera systems, clean  up  the virus report logs that say it couldn't clean some things, update the PCs, troubleshoot them, change hardware, update software, make barebones websites for clients also, decommission old servers, add and delete FTP users, setup server 2003, and 2008 r2, setup Virtual machines with Hyper-v, dragged CAT6 cable through walls and the ceiling that I made myself, setup a SQL inventory database, started a backup server, and I repair and service the machines the employees use for production. 

I basically do anything and everything technical since it's only me.  The job is very flexible and since we are still small whenever I suggest anything new (recently it was sharepoint) management is totally on board so I get to learn new things pretty much every week.  I get to show up late with no complaints, and wear whatever I want.  Pay is kinda low, I only make 40k, but I only have an associates so I can't complain.

I posed this question in the first place because even though I do all that, I feel like I still don't know everything well enough to be confident or comfortable where I am, and if I ever plan on to move onto something bigger it doesn't feel like my knowledge will be enough.  From what I've seen in job descriptions they are pretty outrageous, and from some people on reddit it seems like when you go to a larger company you are part of a team.  So you might just be given a single role to do.

[JMB]

I'm currently the only System Administrator at a small company of about 20 people with 10 servers.  I monitor the network, setup VPNS for clients when needed, set  UTM web filter restrictions, monitor the camera systems, clean  up  the virus report logs that say it couldn't clean some things, update the PCs, troubleshoot them, change hardware, update software, make barebones websites for clients also, decommission old servers, add and delete FTP users, setup server 2003, and 2008 r2, setup Virtual machines with Hyper-v, dragged CAT6 cable through walls and the ceiling that I made myself, setup a SQL inventory database, started a backup server, and I repair and service the machines the employees use for production. 

I basically do anything and everything technical since it's only me.  The job is very flexible and since we are still small whenever I suggest anything new (recently it was sharepoint) management is totally on board so I get to learn new things pretty much every week.  I get to show up late with no complaints, and wear whatever I want.  Pay is kinda low, I only make 40k, but I only have an associates so I can't complain.

I posed this question in the first place because even though I do all that, I feel like I still don't know everything well enough to be confident or comfortable where I am, and if I ever plan on to move onto something bigger it doesn't feel like my knowledge will be enough.  From what I've seen in job descriptions they are pretty outrageous, and from some people on reddit it seems like when you go to a larger company you are part of a team.  So you might just be given a single role to do.

That is a pretty diverse group of skills. If you enjoy doing those things then I would say get yourself some Microsoft certifications. That will go a long way towards being able to make more money down the road. Don't sell yourself short because of the two year degree. Experience and certifications will carry a lot of weight. If you are in the field long enough you will screw something up at some point. Everyone does. The key is not being afraid of making a mistake and knowing how to fix it quickly.

[ChadTower]

Being an expert at something specific will get you hired.

Knowing some of everything will keep you employed.

[sdweim85]

Yea, there is a problem with something everyday.  I basically inherited 6 years of desktop, network, and server neglect.  Outdated, dusty, and failing.  I receive calls every now and then to log in from home and fix something.  Come in on weekends or stay late. It makes me feel like I don't know anything, but from what I've read online its common that things don't go right often.  Best thing to do is fix it, and take steps so it doesn't happen again.

Being an expert at something specific will get you hired.

Knowing some of everything will keep you employed.

Makes sense, I like that.

[stu33]

Don't sell yourself short because of the two year degree. Experience and certifications will carry a lot of weight.

+1.  I only have an associate's, and I'm in year 12 at an AMAZING company.

[ChadTower]

At a small company the key is how fast you can learn and how well you can troubleshoot.

At a large company it's a lot more about methodology, scale, project management, and forecasting.

I've done both.  For me it was better at a small company when I was younger.  Now that I'm older, and a much more senior engineer, the large company format fits me better. 

[Dawgz Rule]

Being an expert at something specific will get you hired.

Knowing some of everything will keep you employed.

+1.  Started off as a network engineer.   Once I learned everything I needed to do that role well, I learned as much as I could about the other IT areas.  That is what led me to an IT management position.  Once a manager, I started learning about other parts of the business which led me to more things outside of IT (sourcing, procurement, finance).  The more you learn, the more value you add, the more likely you are to be retained....the money is nice too!

[Vigo]

I'm a business/HR analyst, not an IT guy, but I'll give you an HR guy's advice if you are thinking about moving to a larger company.

As long as you meet the very specific qualifications on the job posting, you qualify. End of discussion. Bigger companies love to make the job listing sound as grandiose as possible because us HR guys tells them it will bring better applicants. Just look at the qualifications alone. Bigger companies are used to hiring a bunch of lemmings anyway. You will probably only be given one or two tasks in the beginning, and if you are a fairly competent human being you will be able pick it up quickly enough that they won't question your expertise one bit.

If you really want to hunt for a job, make a resume that is tailor fit to each job you apply to. I know that they told us all in school to have just one resume, but that doesn't work if you are looking at a broad number of positions. With your broad set of skills, there is no way you can elegantly put everything you do in one resume. Look for key terms in the job posting and reuse them. Remember that you are first applying to a dumb HR guy who doesn't know a damn thing of what the IT position does. You need him to first pass that job application to the IT director before you can get any further. Oh, and don't tell the employer your current salary. Big companies are way over judgmental of your skills based on your salary. Make something up, HR can't give that info out without written consent anyway (as long as your HR follows the law).

[mcseforsale]

Been in IT for 22 years...started as desktop tech, then to help desk dispatcher, then help desk analyst, then help desk sr. analyst, then to network administration, then to server engineer/architect, then to large-scale IP network architect specializing in Cisco, then to SMS (desktop app deployment), then to application packaging and now I'm a configuration manager for a small company that sells a butt-load of software.

No college...in fact quit HS and had to go back to get my diploma to get the help desk analyst role. 

Currently, the real money is in .NET programming, and cloud integration will be the next really long-term job skill.  6 figures is plenty easy with either of those if you're competent.  A C# programmer with a good resume can pretty much name their price at this point, as can a cloud developer/architect.

Most smaller companies now don't even host their own source code or email, so a lot of the systems management functions are starting to be virtualized and moved to the cloud.

If I could do it all over, I'd have stayed in school and become a lawyer.  At least that job is consistent and won't go away an time soon.  Playing catchup with each new technology is getting old for an old fart like me.

That being said, even though it's been difficult and we've had to sacrifice, my wife has been home with the kids for 14 years.  And, I've managed to be working for all that time with the exception of a 6 month period during the last recession.  The key is to poke your head up once in a while and see what the next big thing will be and make yourself valuable by being good at saving a company money.  99% of the time, most solutions can be found by getting educated in a new technology...especially open source stuff...and not throwing money at a problem. 

AJ

[ChadTower]

That being said, even though it's been difficult and we've had to sacrifice, my wife has been home with the kids for 14 years.  And, I've managed to be working for all that time with the exception of a 6 month period during the last recession.  The key is to poke your head up once in a while and see what the next big thing will be and make yourself valuable by being good at saving a company money.  99% of the time, most solutions can be found by getting educated in a new technology...especially open source stuff...and not throwing money at a problem. 

My wife and I did the same thing for ten years.  It really is the best way to go if everybody is on the same page.  I wouldn't trade how things have turned out for another salary.  No way.

Once you get past "new technology" phase in IT you move into "new methodology".  Instead of just learning a new tool, or a new architecture, you end up learning new ways of managing the business cycles that typically represent IT.  You already know most of the architectural possibilities so the next step is recognizing IT requirements, fitting them to the business' needs, and then learning ways to implement methods to most efficiently satisfy the business' needs while designing a system that scales to anticipate future needs.

[Drnick]

I think those last 3 posts about cover it.  Vigo is spot on with the resume/CV  When applying for jobs be specific to what they want.  I work in an IT Department for Local Government.  The more things you can tick off that match what they are looking for the higher your score, Thus the more you are likely to get the job. I'm sure that I only got my job due to my score being only 1 point away from maximum even though my interview wasn't the best.

@mcseforsale,  Yep the money is definitely in Programming we can't even hire at analyst level with .NET & C# experience for £30k & Benefits, Unsurprisingly the guys we had for that upped and left for places offering so much more.

@Chadtower,  That whole quote on methodology makes me want to scream,  but unfortunately it is the truth "New Methodology"  the computing wave of the future, it's all our bosses want to know, how can we improve on the way that we are providing services whilst saving money. I can guarantee that If you can come up with good ways of saving money then your job will generally be safe.

[mcseforsale]

Yep. 

Step 1...learn Perl, VBScript, Bash and any other scripting language that can prepare you to read .NET (C#, whatever). 

Step 2...use these tools to automate anything and everything. Check out products like Jenkins that you can set jobs up on.

Step 3...learn Linux....I mean LEARN it.  Long before AD was licensed from Novell (Windows NT uses a modified version of Netware's NDS which is a visual x.500 security model), most of us were using Netware for file servers, routers, etc.  and our workstations were just DOS machines with a Windows shell on them. 

Step 4...learn the basics of computer networking and comm protocols.  Don't tie yourself to any vendor (such as Cisco CCNA, etc) because if you don't know WHY you're typing stuff in, you will just make a mess.

YMMV.

AJ

@Chadtower,  That whole quote on methodology makes me want to scream,  but unfortunately it is the truth "New Methodology"  the computing wave of the future, it's all our bosses want to know, how can we improve on the way that we are providing services whilst saving money. I can guarantee that If you can come up with good ways of saving money then your job will generally be safe.

[ark_ader]

Well whatever you do, make sure you have good references, also it would be a good idea to get some indemnity insurance for your first year.

Skills wise it is a mixed bag.  Some server, some desktop, good people skills and the ability to improve.  College is a great way to get ahead, but you can take some night school classes on business management, which will help you.

I remember working for a company (a well known one) I rather not name, that had a nasty tendency to fire people for restructuring.  My boss would come up to me and say: " you know databases..right?" and I would go " uh..yeah, why?"  boss: "Well I fired the database guy and now it is your job congratulations." He did the same to my support staff too.  Did I get a wage increase? No.   

So you might get yourself a pretty good position, earn more money and buy more expensive things (like cars and houses), and the air goes out of another economic balloon, you might be under the same problem. So I would not give yourself too much of a good sell to you new employer.  Sneak in under the radar with a position that allows you to go home before 7pm.    

If they ask you to be the boss, however tempting it might be, just be careful. 

[mcseforsale]

I'd stay out of networking.  The reason my career took such a left is because networking became MUCH more centralized.  I was working on circuits in Germany from home here in Ga.  Before digicams, we would have the staff at each of our offices take a picture of the computer rooms/closets and mail them to us.  We were then able to get some secretary or something power on/off any devices we needed.

We'd also send a pre-configured spare of anything that could bring down the network so we could hire a local tech for a day to install and power it on. 

Nowadays, the entire networks at large corporations are managed by the home office with little to no support staff in the branches.  So, if you're gonna be in that role, NEVER, and I mean *NEVER* take a job as a network engineer or support person for a large corporation at a branch office.  My last company just up and moved all the servers, source code, email, etc back to home base in the UK.  Then they fired all 30 programmers and sales staff here in the US and shuttered the office.  All without missing a beat.

Low skill CCNA types who ONLY do that type of work are a dime a dozen.  The next generation of superstars will have skills with Linux administration (I mean REAL skills), automation using things such as scripting languages, and saving money by using open-source software and OS distros. 

I've been packaging software for 12 years for distribution in large scale networks.  That skill has been off-shored, then on-shored, then put in "packaging houses" where you pay by the package.  Luckily, my skill set was broad enough for this company to take a shot with me and allow me to grow into a role that provides all of that ^^. 

It's been hard for me since I hadn't had to update my skill set in a while, but it's starting to get less daunting and more fun.  If you hang around here, obviously, you have a bit of tinker in you already.  A good exercise would be to convert any MAME boxen into Linux.  That'll teach you a lot and you can bring it up in interviews.  I can't say how many people who I think are far superior to me in my workplace think I'm a genius when I show them the cabs I've built.

AJ

[mcseforsale]

Oh, and I taught CCNA, MCSE, Net+ and A+ professionally part-time for over 5 years.  I just recently taught a CCNA course at the largest cell/phone company at night and I'll tell you, the stuff is dated and these students will not benefit from it unless it's just another arrow in a very full quiver.

AJ

[Dawgz Rule]

If they ask you to be the boss, however tempting it might be, just be careful.

There comes a point where one has to decide to move towards IT Management or a Senior Technical role.  I was asked to manage the department because IT was deemed "broken" by upper management and they thought I could make the necessary changes.  It was a difficult transition but well worth it.  I became known as the guy who fixed IT Departments and over a period of years went from one to a few different groups coast to coast.  IT Management isn't for everyone though....a lot of "shaking hands and kissing babies".

Nowadays, the entire networks at large corporations are managed by the home office with little to no support staff in the branches.

Very true.  One of the reasons I left my last position was because I was a regional manager and it seemed like everything was being moved to corporate.  With that in mind, I moved to a company where I am now working in corporate and we are moving in a similar direction.  My infrastructure team is almost entirely based out of corporate with a couple of people at our overseas locations.  Same for help desk.  We have sites that have no support staff at all and have been able to do this mostly due to desktop virtualization.

The next generation of superstars will have skills with Linux administration (I mean REAL skills), automation using things such as scripting languages, and saving money by using open-source software and OS distros.

Ditto.  We are seeing an ever increasing role with Linux and open source.  Both are stable and more cost effective.  Our virtualized desktop environment is linux based on the back end.

[ChadTower]

The next generation of superstars will have skills with Linux administration (I mean REAL skills), automation using things such as scripting languages, and saving money by using open-source software and OS distros.

Of course you also just described the typical 60 year old UNIX admin.  It's a cycle.

[mcseforsale]

Yeah.  It's pretty funny.  I've been through centralized, decentralized, centralized, etc.   It's like breathing.  Same with server and back-end tech.  I used to be a Unix admin (databases) when the air was clean and sex was dirty.  When a new server had to be built in netware, we actually had to calculate the drive size using the blocks printed on the drive labels.  Yes...those are actually there for a reason. 

The very first "large" server I purchased on my own was a Compaq pro-liant 4500 with a full rack of storage.  It was $500,000 and it had a massive 500MB of storage.  This was enough to pull an entire company. 

Remember what Bill said.  "640K is all you'll ever need".

AJ

The next generation of superstars will have skills with Linux administration (I mean REAL skills), automation using things such as scripting languages, and saving money by using open-source software and OS distros.

Of course you also just described the typical 60 year old UNIX admin.  It's a cycle.

[Dawgz Rule]

Good ole' netware.    Loved it and it was a time when certification actually had a lot more weight to it.  It was amazing to see the difference in how the CNE's worked and what they knew as compared to people who were in MCSE's in those days.  NDS was awesome too! 

[mcseforsale]

Active Directory IS NDS.  It was licensed by Microsoft so they could get out to market.  It's among the most notable things they COULDNT steal.  VMWare, too.  HyperV can't compete with it because while they could host OSes in Windows, they couldn't license/steal some of the inner workings.  Look what they did to Citrix with Terminal Server.

The thing that killed Novell was IPX.  They were hesitant to adopt TCP/IP and thought IPX was the way to go.  That lag in development killed them.

AJ

Good ole' netware.    Loved it and it was a time when certification actually had a lot more weight to it.  It was amazing to see the difference in how the CNE's worked and what they knew as compared to people who were in MCSE's in those days.  NDS was awesome too!

[Dawgz Rule]

It is and it isn't.  It certainly borrows from the X500 standard but it leaves a lot to be desired.  AD does not have the same replica scheme with a master, read write, etc.  AD also does not incorporate file and folder permissions the same way NDS did.  Last, it is bloated as hell because it wants to replicate everything, everywhere.  MS may have licensed it but they certainly turned it into a crap pile along the way.

[mcseforsale]

It's the MS way.   NDS was a much faster x500 implementation, true.  And, it integrated with Unix much better....if you could get IPX running on it.  Man, I wish they had adopted TCP/IP...

AJ

MS may have licensed it but they certainly turned it into a crap pile along the way.

[Dawgz Rule]

DSREPAIR was like magic.

[mcseforsale]

DSREPAIR...wow.  I'm so old my first version was Personal Netware 2.  My first gig as an admin was with Netware 3.  NLMs baby!

Whuta couple of old farts.

AJ

[Dawgz Rule]

Netware 3.12 was my first exposure when I was learning the ropes.  I certified CNE on 4.11 and got my first IT job as a network engineer in the same.  I worked at a publishing company which was a lotus notes/novell shop.   In 2000 we migrated from Notes to Exchange and at that point it no longer made sense to keep the Novell side of the house so we moved to AD.  By that point I had moved more towards Cisco IP Telephony and thankfully so. 

[mcseforsale]

Yep.  And now, that IOS experience pays off, don't it.

Sadly, all the IT shops in Atlanta are HUGE and you either have to have a degree from GT, or know someone.  So, I'm thrilled that I'm now doing continuous integration in a software shop.  I'm learning new crap every day and it's difficult, but fun.  Now that our daughter's health has stabilized for the past couple years, I'm actually picking up some new skills that should be portable to any company. 

AJ

Netware 3.12 was my first exposure when I was learning the ropes.  I certified CNE on 4.11 and got my first IT job as a network engineer in the same.  I worked at a publishing company which was a lotus notes/novell shop.   In 2000 we migrated from Notes to Exchange and at that point it no longer made sense to keep the Novell side of the house so we moved to AD.  By that point I had moved more towards Cisco IP Telephony and thankfully so.