r/ITCareerQuestions

Alright, so recently I applied for internal mobility within my job, and I have an interview this Wednesday for a Tier 1 SOC position. Now, on the job description, it says:

"Cybersecurity SOC Analyst Tier I

The likely salary range for this position is $72,877 - $98,599. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.

• Technical Training, Certification(s) or Degree
• 0 or more years of experience or equivalent years of experience
• A qualifying certification to meet DoD CSSP Analyst requirements. (CEH, CFR, CCNA Cyber Ops, CCNA-Security, CySA+, GCIA, GCIH, GICSP, Cloud+, SCYBER, PenTest+)
• Ability to obtain and maintain CompTIA CySA+, Splunk Core Certified User and Splunk Core Certified Power User certification (within 6 months of hire)

"

As far as certs and job expeirence I currently have:

Security+

Pentest+

A+

Net+

RHEL Certified

Real IT job experience would be this job that im currently at, which I have been at for about 9 months now.

I will graduate from my Associate's degree this year in Sys Administration.

I understand it is no guarantee, and it even says it is not a guarantee, but I was offered $28/hr, totaling to around 59k a year, the location is in Louisiana. My current job pays $24/hr. Im asking for a perspective from real people. Online sources told me the salary ranges from the one described above in the description but it's such a vast difference. What are your thoughts on this? For the people in this industry, does this look about right?

I am trying to get more solid insight from folks in the field about what I am stressing over.

Keeping it short I have the opportunity to go back to school to pivot into a new career field. I’m 36 USMC vet that did chemical weapons defense, I have a BS in management and since 2012 I have 4 years experience in IT/AV with Geeksquad and the rest of my time in finance/insurance sector (insurance sales and claims 7 years and lending and adjudication the rest).

Every aptitude test puts IT at the forefront with cybersecurity and GRC highlighted followed by system and network engineering. I have a family so planning for this move to be my long haul into greener futures. From what I’ve gathered degree + certs is the minimum which I plan to do while I’d be working on another BS in information Technology and stacking certs the whole 2.5 years I’m projecting to finish the new degree in. Based on all that as much as I’d love to have fancy analyst/senior role in 5 yeas from entering the workforce I’m also a realist and can’t deny all the noise of over saturation, job market and AI going on.

So my honest question is what would you do? Looking for honest and raw feedback, and yes trades are in my results too in the electrical/plc automation side. If you read this far I truly thank you for any and all insight you can provide since I am terrified of not even being able to enter the field if I choose this path.

​

I was wondering what the best place listings for IT engineering jobs for my husband.

His current job he has been at for 3 years had decided not to give him a raise(they haven't given him once since he started) and he is severely underpaid for his skills and position.

He has a bachelors degree in Computer Science and has worked IT for 3 years. He's open to Hybrid, Remote and On-site within the Philadelphia area. He's looking into a min of 80k per yr.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I need some advice from strangers on the internet.

I've posted this question across a few other subs, but I think you guys will have some of the best insight for me. I want to note this is not a Help Desk job. Its more system admin work.

I was in the search for a new job and got some amazing offers and I have been trying to decide. I just need some insight, thoughts, or whatever anyone can provide that might help me make a decision. Everyone I know is leaning toward the higher paying job but I need some more insight.

I have two offers in front of me.

One from a large law firm that is offering me a position paying 130k a year, decent benefits, yearly bonus, and a good 401k match. Also 4 weeks of PTO.

The second for a government job at a local hospital. I am not sure of what the pay will be yet as I am waiting on the official offer letter but I was told it will be between 110k to 120k.

What I know is the government job is offering 4 weeks of PTO, a pension, and of course amazing benefits.

The law firm is also remote with the requirement of coming into the office once or twice a year.

The government job is hybrid for the first few weeks and then remote until needed in the office.

What are everyone's thoughts? What job would you take?

Hopefully something not FULLY informative. I want a little bit of joking and entertainment. And I’m new to the industry, so maybe not something SOOOOO technical, but I can still learn some stuff and have fun.

Just from your personal experience, I know location and whether it’s public or private sector. So far I have Sec+, CySA+, B.S in Cyber 8YoE in IT. Looking to improve my salary. My thought is SecurityX then CISSP.

I landed a phone interview with a company in regards to an internship. I have never worked IT before and I have never had an IT interview. What should I expect during the process?

I see this advice getting tossed around very often on this subreddit, to the point that I’m wondering if the people giving the advice have ever spent a minute working in the trades.

This field is in a very weird spot right now, but you’d be challenged to find one that isn’t. The trades aren’t some cake walk to six figures.

You’re looking at 3-4 years of training with harsh physical labor before you can even get the licenses to break into what’s considered “a livable wage” in this economy, even if you go for some of the higher paying trades like being an electrician. Also, that’s for ONE jurisdiction, if you ever end up wanting to leave your state it’s very possible you’d just be starting the whole process over again.

There will also come a point where you won’t want your income to be tied to your physicality, and it is NOT any easier to get supervisory jobs in these fields than jobs in IT.

It’s very concerning seeing so many young people think the trades are some life raft to six figures. Plenty of people do have very successful careers in the trades, but the same is true for IT.

Panic-switching career fields because you aren’t hitting it big after a few years is how people get caught in the cycle of never having enough experience in one field to make meaningful progress.

This post isn’t to talk down on the trades, but rather as a PSA that the trades are NOT an easy out, and that you’re trading some of the uncertainty in IT for immense physical labor and higher potential for burnout. Please think about these decisions.

The last four years I’ve been working for a SaaS web app company as a Tier 2 support rep. Mostly handling app-specific issues and Tier 1 escalations. Ultimately the company became a dead end and I started fearing that all the knowledge I built up was not transferable as it was basically just supporting our janky, tech-debt ridden software. So I decided I would start studying in my free time and try to skill up and add some actually transferable skills to my repertoire. I decided that networking and infrastructure was a good fit for me, so I studied and just recently got my CCNA. Notably, this has nearly no intersection with my current role in Tier 2 support, aside from some basic CNAME and A Record troubleshooting issues, as well as managing our janky API (which is only very tangentially related). My current salary is 65k.

So I started applying to positions that required a CCNA. I was hoping to be able to not take a huge pay cut, but ultimately all the entry level NOC roles I could find were in the 45-50k area and I can’t take a cut that big. Looking in my area, I couldn’t find any real junior sys admin roles or similar, and helpdesk seemed like way too much of a step backward, given I do have a lot of experience with troubleshooting, albeit in more bespoke systems.

Then I suddenly got two interviews and offers. One is with a major multinational company, Company A, and the role would be installing, managing, and troubleshooting patient monitoring equipment in various hospitals all over the state. It seemed IT-adjacent, but mostly field tech work. The job listing required CCNA certification, I believe due to FDA regulations. The day to day may or may not involve touching the actual hospital networks as I do deployments and troubleshoot outages for the devices, but the core of the job is managing the company devices. However this did come with a sizeable pay increase to 79k.

I was hesitant at first because I was unsure that this got me any closer to being able to get a Sysadmin role. Ultimately I figured that working with production networked systems in a regulated environment would be good enough to ultimately leverage into a dedicated Sys or Network admin role as my next goal, so I accepted it.

However now I’m wondering if I made a mistake, and that I’ve shoehorned myself more into the field tech pipeline. I certainly intend to continue skill-building in my free time to prove my more direct networking chops, but with this role being far more demanding of my time on that front, did I make a mistake? Especially considering I also got an offer from Company B…

Which I’ll just say is Amazon. Working as a data center technician. I know this also isn’t super on-path for network or system admin jobs, but it at least is much more network adjacent and does have the amazon name attached. The pay is also more of a sidestep of where I’m at now. A slight cut at worst. I’m just wondering what my current path looks like to those in the know, and if I’m veering off course for my goals.

I live in a M/HCOL area and have no college degree. I would ideally be aiming for a sys/network admin role in around a 2/3 year timeframe from now. Any thoughts on my thoughts would be much appreciated.

I just got a 1k bonus for being a good employee and that officially puts my total comp to above 100k (5% employee match)

Started my IT trek during the covid times of 2020

Left my job cleaning dishes and bathrooms at a texas roadhouse in February of 2020

Started classes at Oregon Tech in March

back at the roadhouse in 2021 August to December

student loans, unemployment, and delayed covid checks kept me going for 6 months

worked two unpaid internships from March to May 2022 (web dev and tech support)

got a web dev type job in May 2022

graduated from Oregon Tech summa cum laude December 2022

Job in Tech support for the dept of veteran affairs May 2023

Salary progression:
texas roadhouse 13-15 an hour

internships 0

webdev type job 37k

Tech support 53k -> 64k -> 75k -> 93k -> total comp 100k

Unrelated weight loss

December 2021 - 165 lbs

2022 - 210 lbs

2023/4 - 180lbs

2025 - 170 lbs

Outside of learning tech I was part of a bicycle shop with tech enthusiasts online, did speech stuff with toastmasters online, basically no life outside of the house for 3 years

dropped a ton of negative friendships and relationships

got sober and slowly took up working out including cardio

the effort was worth it. every day I wake up and feel like my life is only starting again

I am keen to work in the IT department on a cruise line in the future, and wanted to know some qualifications I would need, to join. I'm currently pursuing my Bsc IT, so anything I would need after that (including perhaps certificates or courses I would need) would be really helpful.

Thank you in advance.

I'm an IT Manager at a CRA where most of our employees are data entry specialists. As I've been promoted upwards, I've been looped into many things that feel a bit controlling, but this takes the cake.

A few months ago the CEO contacted me asking if we have a tool that tracks mouse and keyboard activies. I said no and that adding something like that would probably be difficult because we have anti keyloggers in our security software.

But yesterday he told me that he is adding me as an admin to a program he purchased called "Time Doctor". He told me that I need to figure out a way to install it without people knowing.

This software takes screenshots of your screen(s) periodically, tracks your mouse movements, and logs your keystrokes.

This situation is testing my morals. While testing it, the CEO also had it installed on his PC so I saw his screenshots. It screenshotted a conversation he had with our Director of Operations and HR director where they were shit talking people who were on the "Chopping Block", in one message the CEO straight up called an employee a loser.

For some more background, the CEO is known to be mean. He has often told me that I am replaceable, I think too highly of myself, and always says I should be grateful for this job because he's the reason I'm successful. And to be clear - I've never been reprimanded. This has been told when I asked for more compensation. Like after I picked up all of the IT directors responsibilities after she passed away.

Theres a lot of ways I can continue about how corrupt this company is. But this Time Doctor thing is really making me question everything.

I would leave, but I don't have a degree yet (full time wgu student set to graduate in 2027) and I'm making more then I could possibly get anywhere else for my experience (4 years IT, 3 years managing) or for my age (22).

So it's tricky and I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I'm just young an emotional - but my goal is to one day start my own company, and I can't imagine ever being this controlling and mean to my employees.

Any advice appreciated. Thank you in advanced.

I’ve been looking into different ways people break into tech/data/AI roles and it feels like there are two camps. Some say certifications help get noticed while others say employers mostly care about what you can actually build.

For people who’ve interviewed recently or hired others, what mattered more in your experience? A recognized program, strong portfolio projects, internships or something else?

Trying to avoid wasting time chasing the wrong thing.

hey! this might sound weird, but i want to work with computers in the future yet i really do not enjoy coding or any theoretical computer stuff.

im 19 and did a year of computer science at university but ended up falling behind and i recently took a withdrawal because i was really unhappy and anxious.

what kind of careers are there where i can get hands on with computers and fix problems without having to be a coding expert, and how do i get myself into them?

i’m feeling really lost and nervous at the moment so i figured a subreddit like this would be a good place to ask.

thanks :D

I'm a network engineer at a global company. My ccna is expired along with my sec+. I've been doing networking about 5 years. 4 with an engineer title. But I do mostly Cisco, Aruba, wireless. Do some sdwan cutovers. Don't do much with security and our palos but have some training. Recently my role has evolved from being more of network admin to more of a project management, or planning role. I guess engineering. We're layer 4 now instead of 2-3. It's kind of a shit show.

Anyways. I'm doing AWS SAA-C03 because we're doing some migrations. If I were to start looking for other jobs what kind of roles would I want to look for. IT is career 3 for me but always been in industrial companies. Refineries, energy, military. But I'll likely do AWS security specialist next.

I'm taking an IT job readiness class at my community college and they are having us read "Launch Your Career" workbook and one of the steps is to find and contact managers of companies that you want to work for. It shows how we are supposed to find them on linkedin but when I try to follow the steps and search for IT managers at companies like twitch or costco or even my city government nothing comes up. I get maybe 5 results and they have nothing to do with management or they are a different type of manager or their profile is grayed out and I can't contact them. I'm supposed to find their name, job title, and work email and if possible if they are an alumni of my school. It also says to try searching on their website but I can't find anything there either. And it also says to use this chrome extension called Apollo but that doesn't work either. I'm trying to find the work email or linkedin profiles of IT or Cybersecurity managers at Twitch, Costco, State of California, Anthropic, and my local city.

As somebody who is joining his undergrad this year, I am deeply unaware of what the future holds for me.

I know nobody can predict the future in this growth speedrunning sector.

Need advice on what I should upskill on from the very roots .

Also please update me about the current trends, what roles are majorly in demand ,what niches are expected to boom in your opinions and how I should prepare for it

Thanks!

I've been doing L1 help desk for three years now, and while I love my current job, $19 an hour is just not enough to survive in this economy.

What career moves can I make directly from where I am? What certs would I need to do them? I already have an associates in CS, although I obviously don't use it much with HD work. I'm open to pretty much any direction in terms of skill niches, although I would like to move away from user-facing work if possible.

I'm a manager at a mid size company and I think I just torpedoed my career with a spreadsheet. Here's what happened. About eight months ago we got pressure from finance to reduce our IT support costs. So instead of hiring two junior technicians like I requested, my director convinced me to "optimize" by having our senior engineers absorb tier one and tier two tickets between their normal project work.

Sounded reasonable at the time. We have four senior engineers making between 120k to 160k. They could knock out password resets and basic troubleshooting in their spare time, right?

I just pulled the metrics.

In the last quarter alone, these four people spent roughly 480 hours clearing tickets that could have been handled by tier one. Average ticket value around 30 to 45 minutes. We're talking password resets, printer driver issues, email setup, cleared caches, rebooted machines. Stuff that would cost us maybe 35k a year to outsource or hire entry level for.

Instead we spent roughly 240k in senior engineer labour on work that generates zero value and actively prevents them from shipping the infrastructure projects they were actually hired to do. One of those projects is now three months behind because the team was too scattered.

My director looked at the spreadsheet, said nothing for about thirty seconds, and asked me to schedule a meeting with our CFO.

I cant believe I let this happen. I sat in status meetings watching these engineers report "ticket clearing" as their weekly accomplishment and I never connected the dots. I have a team of specialized architects and senior technicians doing help desk work while we miss project deadlines. How do I even fix this????? Do I admit this was a catastrophic misallocation of resources or do I just quietly hire the junior staff now and pretend the last eight months didn't happen. My director is going to walk into that CFO meeting with ammunition and I'm the one who handed it to him.

Hello all,

I'm an experienced Middleware/Devops professional (12 years) that is currently employed and mostly has experience with very little certification qualifications. I'm currently looking to expand into making myself look more qualified for potential job opportunities. I never finished my college degree and if I went back it would require me to take about 14 credits of course work of which most are Math courses that I'm not very good at.

My other option is to look into taking certifications that also show qualification for potential jobs alongside my experience.

My question is, should I finish getting my 2 year AAS Computer technology degree or should I disregard that avenue and just pursue certificates (or both)?

What would you do/suggest if you were in my position?

Thanks