IT Career Progression...

[Dj_Jestar]

Why wouldn't it be?

Because "large global blue chip" companies are horrendous people to work for Well, technically what I mean is there are much better career options than to work for a large, overly bureaucratic, rat-infested organisation.

They drain the living soul out of their employees, everything takes way longer to do than necessary, nobody wants to do it because of the processes adding so much bloat to even the simplest of tasks, and most have a very dog-eat-dog environment that they actively encourage. The company needs to reduce expenses? The first thing to suffer is the pay packets of employees.

You'll get far fewer opportunities in a large company. You'll be given a specialised job to do, and you'll stick to it for a long time.

In short: large companies suck as employers.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

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.

That they do, because they love to work for those companies that only want a personified CV to walk in the door ASAP. If that person is no good, they won't bother training, they'll fire and replace - and guess what? The Agency will be used to find the replacement, so another kerr-ching for their commission

 

[Teledude]

Because "large global blue chip" companies are horrendous people to work for Well, technically what I mean is there are much better career options than to work for a large, overly bureaucratic, rat-infested organisation.

They drain the living soul out of their employees, everything takes way longer to do than necessary, nobody wants to do it because of the processes adding so much bloat to even the simplest of tasks, and most have a very dog-eat-dog environment that they actively encourage. The company needs to reduce expenses? The first thing to suffer is the pay packets of employees.

You'll get far fewer opportunities in a large company. You'll be given a specialised job to do, and you'll stick to it for a long time.

In short: large companies suck as employers.

Thats a very narrow minded opinion, as all places are different - some love it some hate it - me? I don't care either way as long as I'm getting paid as I won't stay their long enough to worry

 

[memyselfandi]

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.

I did Astrophysics at university ... fell into IT afterwards as it was something I was interested in and found easy ...

Sept '97 - Employed as a trainee 3rd line support Unix techie

Dec '97 - Jun '03 - Due to staff resourcing issues was thrown in the deep end to help a couple of other members of staff support a medium sized Unix estate (mostly AIX). By the end of '98 I was the Unix technical lead on the account and making decisions regarding standards and technical direction as well as checking new solutions for supoprtability and implementing projects. '01-'03 did mostly project work and very little support. This account ended in Jun '03 due to factors outside our control.

Jun '03 - Dec '03 - Worked in the projects team for another account but my team leader kept on forgetting to give me any work due to me being remote Ended up developing some internal web systems for our project management people and doing systems acceptance on new systems before they were transitioned into support.

Dec '03 - Jun '09 - Relocated and at the same time our area had a large re-org. Was assigned to another account (mostly HPUX) and by the end of '04 was Unix technical lead. Split my time mostly doing projects, some support and a lot of planning and architecture work. Did have to be stand in design authority for the account on several occasions.

Jun '09 - Now - moved to the technical engineering team (before Fox starts we didn't name it and we don't agree with the name either). This sits outside the accounts and only deals with support by exception, (escalation from third line during crisis'). Mostly we are defining our internal standards, writing reference architectures and cookbooks, assessing new technology, liaising with vendors and reviewing solutions to make sure that they match are standards and are supportable. Can be very interesting and allows us to "play" with new tech but can be frustrating at times.

 

[DJMK4]

its true about large blue chip companies, so many people working for them, hard to progress, generally less pay unless you make your way up the ladder quickly. Smaller company with a good turnover = less employee's which means more money to pay out on salaries, more room to progress in your role

 

[Delvis]

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 ..

Easy? So how would one go about doing this? How does one go about getting contracts?

If it really was that easier to constantly have work everyone would indeed be doing it

 

[anything I don't mind]

@memyselfandi

What is your experience with working in unix teams, are the unix guys very competent? generally speaking?

I know freebsd but I have never supported it in a corporate environment. The unix jobs offer good salaries. How much scripting knowledge is usually required? Do you think that i could support unix, if i only know basic scripting and can install and troubleshoot *most* (some) things on a unix box?

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Thats a very narrow minded opinion, as all places are different - some love it some hate it - me? I don't care either way as long as I'm getting paid as I won't stay their long enough to worry

Actually it's not. I myself have experience of 8 large organisations, and a lot of the friends I've made along the way have experience with many large companies and we all moan about the same things.

 

[gambitt]

I do know what you mean jestar, I have to deal with a lot of processes etc but as long as they keep signing my timesheets I'm not going to complain. Plus they let me work from home which I'm not sure a smaller organisation would be set up to do.

 

[mrbios]

2003 finished school

2005 finished college

summer 2005 - summer 2006 spent as a sponsored gamer (won't go into that)

2006 - now working for a school as an IT tech. I'd move on except i'm learning all the time here and jobs in gloucestershire within my interests are pretty slim pickings.

 

[moss]

Patchy career for me, many lessons learned.

2000 - left school, no real IT quals, went to college and done GNVQ in IT.
2001 - Got a job at the college as IT tech/3D graphics in the Marine Simulation Centre.
2004 - Walked out the job (idiot!)
2005 - Worked in the motor trade for a few years.
2008 - Done a CCNA
2008 - Went to Uni to do an IT degree
2009 - Decided it was rubbish so left uni (once I found a job)
2009 - Found said job doing 1st-3rd line support jobs (around 1000 users, 16 sites, very small IT dept, so we cover all types of jobs). Self studying CCNP, completed ITIL and MCSA. Also doing a distance learning Electronic and Electrical Engineering HNC.
Today - Just had a pre-interview phone call for another job doing a similar role but closer to home and paying £5k more.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

I do know what you mean jestar, I have to deal with a lot of processes etc but as long as they keep signing my timesheets I'm not going to complain. Plus they let me work from home which I'm not sure a smaller organisation would be set up to do.

Most of the guys in my company work from home if they need to. I don't because I'm a developer and me and the rest of the team need to collaborate 100% of the time, which is pretty hard to do from home

I will admit to there being some sterling large companies to work for, but honestly, they are so few and far between. It's also a dying trend as the rats and snakes from the other companies move around and pollute the good companies.

 

[Strife212]

I love how people use phrases like "large global blue chip" and think it's a good thing!

Blue Sky Thinking in action.

He wasn't complaining about the phrase itself

 

[memyselfandi]

@memyselfandi

What is your experience with working in unix teams, are the unix guys very competent? generally speaking?

I know freebsd but I have never supported it in a corporate environment. The unix jobs offer good salaries. How much scripting knowledge is usually required? Do you think that i could support unix, if i only know basic scripting and can install and troubleshoot *most* (some) things on a unix box?

It's going to depend a lot on what environments you are supporting. Most of the teams I've worked in or with have been a mixture of average with the occasional good or very good people. Occasionally you get some poor people but they normally get shuffled off or out fairly quickly. I would say that at over 50% of the Unix contractors I've worked with have been below par, and relied on that they can move to another contract when found out .... there have been some who were very good but a lot weren't (I hope I haven't worked with anyone here ... I don't think so )

Most people will have knowledge of at least one commercial Unix variant (e.g. AIX, HPUX, Solaris) to a certification level and at least a working knowledge of others and commercial Linux (RHEL/SLES). And you would be expected to be able to demonstrate you knowledge (technical questions) before you were hired.

Shell scripting is a must, although some get by with a basic level it is very useful if you know a bit more. For us this mostly used for automation and monitoring. An knowledge/understanding of backup products / basic Oracle / SANs is really needed in more senior roles.

We don't support much FreeBSD, (officially it's not an OS we support if I remember correctly). But I would expect that you could probably get a entry level Unix role with just knowledge of FreeBSD, and possibly some reading around, and leverage the knowledge/experience you get from that to get better paid roles

 

[DiscoDave]

2006 - University placement job, single year, (sandwich course) working in 1st and a tiny bit of 2nd line support. Worked very hard to prove myself, got rewarded; was sent to South Africa for two weeks and got a Wii and Laptop as leaving presents.

2008 - Graduated with a 2:1 in Computing and Networks

2008 - Joined a small consultancy company and worked on a clients site as a Systems Administrator, within a few months solely taken entire responsibility for the back end infrastructure, as well as support.

2010 - Joined a large company that makes well known CAD software. Working at a R&D site as a full blown Systems Administrator, with less importance on end user support (Junior member of the team deals with a lot of that).

Good start I think

 

[britboy4321]

Easy? So how would one go about doing this? How does one go about getting contracts?

If it really was that easier to constantly have work everyone would indeed be doing it

Most important thing:

Don't be picky, including don't be picky on where in the UK you work (unless you live in London!)

2nd:

Have a SPECIALISED CV, without any talk about you personally on it. Technical. What you can do. Thats it. No-one wants to hear about your hobby of hiking!

3rd:

Realise people pay the big bucks not to give a monkeys about you, your career, your interests or your principles. Live with it. Think of the money.

4th - Go on to jobserve and apply for at least 8 per day

 

[Delvis]

Most important thing:

Don't be picky, including don't be picky on where in the UK you work (unless you live in London!)

Don't be picky? I have to be picky to live where i live

 

[Delvis]

2003 finished school

2005 finished college

summer 2005 - summer 2006 spent as a sponsored gamer (won't go into that)

2006 - now working for a school as an IT tech. I'd move on except i'm learning all the time here and jobs in gloucestershire within my interests are pretty slim pickings.

If you're learning buddy then you're learning

I always wanted to get paid to play games in tournaments, but alas I never got the chance

 

[Prophet]

1994-1996 Worked for an indepentant IT retailer as tech support. Mainly building new PC's.

1996-1997 Bought company with 2 others who worked with me. This was great until we hired someone to manage the company. Ended up having to give it all away.

1998-2001 Managed a small independant computer store. This was the most fun working I've ever had. Great team and I was the boss. However the owner was a tool and I could only take so much!

2001-2002 Tried Software Testing at a global software house but didn't like the job.

2003-2004 Changed career to work as an estimator for an industrial window company (that sucked)

2004-Present Work for a software house as SA/Support for us and most of our customers.

Looking for a complete career change as sitting behind a desk or driving around the country isn't for me anymore.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Most important thing:

Don't be picky, including don't be picky on where in the UK you work (unless you live in London!)

2nd:

Have a SPECIALISED CV, without any talk about you personally on it. Technical. What you can do. Thats it. No-one wants to hear about your hobby of hiking!

3rd:

Realise people pay the big bucks not to give a monkeys about you, your career, your interests or your principles. Live with it. Think of the money.

4th - Go on to jobserve and apply for at least 8 per day

EDIT: Just read it's for contracting, so yeah.. but by becoming a contractor you'll sign your life away to being nothing more than a "resource" and you can forget being treated like an actual human ever again.