IT Job/career advice

Shamrock

Shamrock

Shamrock

Soldato
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Looking for some other people's opinions on a career decision I'll soon have to make. Both these opportunities are within my current company and although I've not been given all the details yet, I believe the starting salary is the same.

In terms of future prospects, potential salary and overall job satisfaction, would you prefer a career in IT or database development?

I understand IT covers a wide range of things, but it will probably involve basic software/hardware support, infrastructure, networking etc. The company is currently around 50 employees, but this needs to grow.

The database role will be a step up from my current role which is basic Excel/Access JetSQL stuff. Soon we will be moving to an SQL Server based system and I would be part of developing this.

If anyone could give their views that would be greatly appreciated. For me this seems like a big decision and I don't want to rush into deciding only to regret it later!

Thanks.
 
Choose whatever involves less interaction with the general public, or morons in general.
 
Hmm not exactly the advice I was expecting.

Yes I understand IT covers a lot of things, but I thought I sort of made it clear they are completely different roles.
 
I think he means it's the choice between a general infrastructure support role and a db admin role.

Depends, what do you prefer to do?

Can be good money in database work, whilst it sounds like a rather small place you are in now it could give you som ehandy skills to make the move to a better db role in future.

But end of the day choose what you actually like to do most.
 
Depends on how confident you are I guess, a DBA role is likely to work out if you know what you are doing and are ok with the fact that (in a small company) the buck may stop with you for everything DB related. Whereas in a generic IT support role you will probably have others to fall back on / hide behind but equally because the role is more varied there will be times when you are out of our comfort zone.

Personally I'd view a DBA as more senior to a system support engineer in terms of technical skillset (in part because it is more focussed) but obviously this will range from company to company. The latter tend to be fairly replaceable (assuming they aren't supporting rare or proprietary tech) whereas the former can carve themselves out a niche given the opportunity. There is a danger however that it could become a dead-end role in a small company i.e. if there aren't architect type roles to move up into you may always be viewed as the 'database guy' whereas people doing general IT have more opportunity to get moved into management.

Too difficult to offer a proper view based on the limited information available of course.
 
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Out of the two I'd go for the DBA role. With massive offshoring (and a LOT of general IT roles and a LOT of DBA roles have been offshored/onshored/rightshored), then you need to specialise in something and be better than the person sitting next to you with a foreign passport that I can employ for a third of your cost **

If you REALLY want to be in IT then specialise in something and dedicate your life to being better than the next person who WILL be cheaper than you, even as a new starter.




** note: I said 'cost', not 'wage'... you may not earn much more than a vendor supplied person but the actual cost to a company is much more for a permanent person.
 
Being truthful just avoid IT full stop, become a lawyer, lapdancer or window cleaner instead, your life is worth more than wasting it in the ***** that is IT.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Of course, this company will hopefully just be a stepping stone to something else, but I do need to build up experience first so I think I'll have to stick around for a bit.

I know the details are a bit vague. Until I speak to the powers that be next week, thats all I know really. I don't know if they would send me on training courses for either role to gain qualifications, so it will probably be on the job training for both.

In terms of enjoyment and preference it's hard to say. I've not done any system support stuff before, except on my own pc. I guess learning about servers, networking, infrastructure etc would be quite interesting. Coding isn't exactly exciting, but it's not too gruelling either. The IT bods in our company are often working late and over the weekend to resolve issues which I don't have a problem with if it's not all the time.:p

I don't think I'd do too well as a lap dancer.
 
Mr-White said:
Your questions confusing, either a job in IT or a database development which is an IT job :confused:

MW
Click to expand...

Not really that confusing necessarily.

IT firms still have IT departments, HR depts, finance depts like any other firms - if you're talking about working for IT specifically then you're often referring to a general IT support role you'd find in any firm.

I work in a software firm - technically we're all in the IT industry but we've got an 'IT' dept just like any other mid size company has.

@ OP - assuming the IT role is a generic printer monkey/support type role then go for the database role
 
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