IT Career Progression...

Teledude

Teledude

Teledude

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2003
Posts
2,847
Following on from the endless threads about getting into IT / IT job threads etc I thought it might be interesting for those in the industry to post how they got to where they are now and how long it took :)

Mine -

2002 - Took job working for an NHS trust doing first line support (my dad was dating the HR director!)..as people left and I learnt more progressed up to doing 3rd line support.

2004 - A contact got me a job working for a friends firm as a field engineer - basically going around customer sites in London doing any IT related tasks - some were interesting (Groupwise to Exchange etc) and others were boring (printer unjamming).

2005 - Got sacked due to still being young and not taking work seriously enough (my fault!) A friend from my first job put me in contact with his hiring manager who placed me into an investment bank doing 3rd line Domino support for 3 months and then into a media house for 1 month to help do an XP rollout audit.

2005-2006 - Got a new job working for a large global bluechip doing 3rd line support and engineering - my first real taste of virtualisation and SANs. Left due to a large restructure and I thought I was worth more than they were paying.

2006-2008 - Contracting offshore for a large life assurance firm doing VMware/SAN/ISA implementation and support before working in a pure VMware consultancy for the last 6 months - did my VCP here.

2008 - Earlier this year - Back to London and got a job working for a large bluechip. Was employed as "server support" basically to bolster their VMware support in house but quickly got recognised and became more of a technical/infrastructure architect. Delivered a lot of large projects all over europe and along with it came many a payrise.

Feb this year - got bored and wanted a new challenge (and more money!) so am now contracting for another large global blue chip doing infrastrucutre design - currently involved in a global rollout of segregatted MOSS2010 "clouds" on UCS/vSphere based infrastructure.

Wow didnt mean to type that much - but there you go - thats me and how I got to where I am today :)

I guess my advice to anyone would be - never be afraid to push yourself and have the drive to ask for more. a lot of people ask me don't all my jobs on my CV have a negative affect...rarely yes but generally no, as to recruiters I am always honest that I strive to better myself :)

And yes..in IT it always helps to know people ;)

Next! :D
 
My story is very similar although I did have a permie job for a few years in between contracts (never again). Have all of your roles been contracts?
 
gambitt said:
My story is very similar although I did have a permie job for a few years in between contracts (never again). Have all of your roles been contracts?
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Nope a vast mixture - although it never hurts to tell a perspective agent/employer that a short perm role was a contract ;)
 
What did you get sacked for? Funnily enough that happened to me as well for my first role as a 2nd line monkey. I was fresh out of uni and in the habit of staying up till 3am watching errr, movies, so I found it difficult to get to work on time. I was always rushing in 5-10 minutes late. I suppose it wasn't so much as sacked as "your contract is not being renewed"...
 
2001 - Left School went to College

2003 - Left College - Went to Uni

2006 - Left Uni - Started work at a large company dealing with Health and Safety for the Government, Asbestos, Fire safety as part of the 1st line IT helpdesk analyst, progressed my way up, got involved in looking after tasks in the 2 on site data centre's housing around 90 servers, admin stuff, backup procedures, patching, then got involved with some networking stuff, and the main progression in this job was being the man that looked after the companys VoIP system. Left this company in Feb 2009

2009 - Present - Joined a Business based ISP and Network Security Company as a Network Support Engineer, pretty much started on 1st line due to coming from a slightly different background, as this place is pretty much full on Networking and Internet Security, worked my way up to 2nd line and team leader role, dealing with Internet Security, ADSL/Fibre and other WAN connections, Data Backup, Data Encryption, Private Networks (MPLS, Site to Site VPN's Etc), Hosted firewalls, Data Centre Hosting Services, SIP Trunking. We co-locate most of our's and our customers stuff in two datacentres, Telehouse North London and Wolverhampton, however we are in the middle of a massive project of owning our own datacentre, we purchased a building and in the process of becoming a data centre which we will be moving in to soon :)

I was down there yesterday stripping down an old rack and getting it ready for BT to come and install some kit, our first rack there.
 
do you need IT related degree to get into IT career? I read a lot about IT as a hobby but studying something completely different at Uni.
 
1996 - 1999: Finished Uni, (BA Systems Analysis) started doing Analyst/programmer type work for large consultancy.
1999 - 2008: Moved to an Asset Manager, started on WebDev moved about a bit ended up in Front Office IT as a tech lead.
2008 - Present: Moved to a Hedge fund, doing middle office integration/development/architecture, tech lead.
 
Posty said:
do you need IT related degree to get into IT career? I read a lot about IT as a hobby but studying something completely different at Uni.
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Nope

If you can prove you know a fair wack you could easily get a support job...however naturally people with 'experience' would probably win in an application.

Just have to go direct to some people / ask everyone to ask everyone if there are places hiring.

EDIT:

Oh and, left school in 2003 to start a full time job in computer assembly...within this job I went from computer assembly, to server assembly, then onto testing, then onto Project work which was assembling server cabinets and routing all the cables prior to a delivery, then going on site to install the cabinets :) That was fun, just needed more work as while I was doing the projects id also be going back and forth to the old test department to build/test the servers we had coming though...I then got made redundant along with several other colleagues in 2008 :(

After this i've worked for Speaker manufacturer buidling bespoke speakers which was cool, money was low though and i had to do an hours commute each way...

After this, applied for a Wickes job but luckily someone there had a brother in IT that was hiring, so I went for an interview there....Got that job, which was basically a helpdesk job, ranging from anythng to everything basically just supporting 700 odd people over about 20 companies or something which was fun, we then merged with someone and i ended up leaving.

After that...It's not been great, worked back at wickes for about 4 months in the delivery van...

Come to summer 2010 I started a job as an IT Tecnician in a school on the same wage as i was at the speak manufacturer, although ive now moved out and have literally no money :(
 
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When I started out in IT around 1999/2000 I wanted to avoid helldesk work at all costs, so took an appreticeship at a local accountancy firm as a web developer. The pay was shocking - about £6k/year - but it was a foot in the door.

Since then I'm basically doing the same job, but with better pay, prospects and a much bigger skillset.

The next step for me would be to become a senior developer, but TBH I have no interest in management as I became a developer to write code, not to delegate and write nothing but specification documents all day long.
 
Teledude said:
Posty said:
do you need IT related degree to get into IT career? I read a lot about IT as a hobby but studying something completely different at Uni.
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Not imo - FYI my first job was @ 17, finishing education after GCSE's :)
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Exactly the same. I have only got 8 GCSEs. As with most professions, you have to start at the bottom and work up. Once you've got your foot in it's all about experience.
 
1) - Got my 'sandwich year placement' of my comp sci course in IBM. Didn't know what part of IT I wanted to get into, so just went for a good name on the old CV

2) Got my first job after graduating in a really small IT consultancy. Effectively completed a couple of small contracts through the consultancy in the utilities sector

3) 6 months into my first IT job at this consultancy - found out I was out at £340 a day, and they were paying me £940 a month. Immediately thought 'I know where the wodja is' and went contracting. Why EVERYONE doesn't do this is completely beyond me. It baffles me every day of every week. I can only guess it's due to lack of guts. Was aged 24, straight up to 88K - which was just pleasent. The work was no harder than permie work. First contract was with BT. Contracting is no harder than permie work - again .. why arn't you all doing it!! Are you mad?? It's easy ..

4) Stayed contracting right until now .. years and years. Can't see me ever stopping. Had about 5 clients.
 
britboy4321 said:
1) - Got my 'sandwich year placement' of my comp sci course in IBM. Didn't know what part of IT I wanted to get into, so just went for a good name on the old CV

2) Got my first job after graduating in a really small IT consultancy. Effectively completed a couple of small contracts through the consultancy in the utilities sector

3) 6 months into my first IT job at this consultancy - found out I was out at £340 a day, and they were paying me £940 a month. Immediately thought 'I know where the wodja is' and went contracting. Why EVERYONE doesn't do this is completely beyond me. It baffles me every day of every week. I can only guess it's due to lack of guts. Was aged 24, straight up to 88K - which was just pleasent. The work was no harder than permie work. First contract was with BT. Contracting is no harder than permie work - again .. why arn't you all doing it!! Are you mad?? It's easy ..

4) Stayed contracting right until now .. years and years. Can't see me ever stopping. Had about 5 clients.
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I jumped in and out in my early years for the experience, but at 25 now Ill be contracting for the forseable future too :)
 
Why EVERYONE doesn't do this is completely beyond me. It baffles me every day of every week. I can only guess it's due to lack of guts. Was aged 24, straight up to 88K - which was just pleasent. The work was no harder than permie work. First contract was with BT. Contracting is no harder than permie work - again .. why arn't you all doing it!! Are you mad?? It's easy ..
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Because I earn more as a permanent member of staff than I would as a contractor. That's why. And that's not even including the pension and other benefits.

Plus I enjoy giving all the tedious/repetitive work to contractors and doing the interesting stuff myself.
 
2004 - worked at Specsavers head office supporting the staff in 700+ retail stores, my first job.

2005 - went back to SA and came back to UK in 2007

2007 - worked for it consultancy company, placed at estate agents head office and got my first placement in to a law firm as contractor. (got fired for being young and stupid)

2008 - worked for law firm as temp for 6 months (contract not renewed)

2008 - worked for massive property company for a few months

2009-2010 - worked for one of the largest it consultancy firms with clients like, texas instruments, daily mail etc. was placed at large law firm for 18 months. was moved to a student accommodation place, then was moved to an investment bank.

2010-2011 - work for it consultancy company which specializing in legal and accounting IT outsourcing.

All my jobs have been 1st and 2nd line support with the more recent ones have more access and responsibility. Working at the investment bank was the least enjoyable out of all of the, due to having no access and just having to route calls around to different departments, working at the student accommodation was the most enjoyable.

I am ready to move up to something more technical now, i am tired of first/second line. I find it difficult to make that transition.
 
Agencies lap it up. You can almost hear the kerching as the pound signs appear in their eyes when they see that your CV lists plentiful experience in large multinationals.
 
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