Soldato
Short(ish) bit of background - I've been working in IT support in 1st/2nd line (broadly speaking) for nearly 4.5 years, IT was a career change for me (8+ years in financial services before that) so 4.5 years ago I was starting at the bottom.
Spent a little too long at my previous role (4 years) but as a company they were great, very very good at what they do (MSP with a physical datacentre) and a very controlled environment. Everything was strictly controlled and hosted on-site.
Cut to my new job which is quite, quite different Typical small MSP with small customers, 90% of environments are cloud based (O365/sharepoint, should be more AWS in the near future) or workstation based with some various server set ups with file servers/DC's etc etc. Every day is different, and I'm getting a huge amount of exposure to lots of stuff I'd never touched in the 4 years in my previous role. One day I can be at a new office for a customer in London installing and patching in a new switch and getting their network up and running, then the next it'll be doing basic 1st line stuff like setting up new users/installing O365/folder permissions/troubleshooting basic issues, then the next it might a weird group policy issue that has me and the 2nd line* guy looking at it for hours because it just makes no friggin' sense... then the next day it could be installing a UPS in a customers rack on-site, and then the next day troubleshooting network issues for a customer, or setting up VPNs.
*2nd line in our company terms but probably not 2nd line in 'industry terms'. Server rebuilds, high level network issues and escalated stuff from 1st line, that's the same '1st line' that go to customer sites to patch in switches/install servers/UPS or deal with network issues etc etc so not typical 1st line either.
My aim when I moved to this role a few months back was to be earning a certain amount within 2 years of now, with that amount that being 30k minimum, roughly 30% more than I'm on now. Certainly not an unrealistic target as I'll have had 6 years in IT by then (some might say I after 4 years I should already be at that level, but that's what it is). As previously mentioned I didn't get the movement I wanted in my first role and so probably wasted a year or 3 there before moving to my current role - and I'm not a big fan of moving jobs after a short time so have no plans to move again in the next 9 months but I am looking to the future and starting to think about what I can start to specialise in.
I have plenty of choices purely because I get exposed to a load of different stuff every day, and also because my current employers are really looking into ways of doing things better and so there's a lot of potential changes I could suggest/work on based on my previous MSP experience. Automation interests me a bit, a friend and ex-work colleague of mine is heavily getting into this in his new role, he has a fair bit more money and resources to play with though I've only used powershell for an hour tops and not touched scripting stuff but certainly willing to have a play. I learn by doing (and breaking) stuff so setting up a few VM's wouldn't be out the question for me to play with. Networking is a particular weak point for me so again I'd be interested in playing around with that to build up my knowledge.
Oh and I only have CompTia A+ at the moment (well, 2 years ago) but I think MCSA certs will come at some point in the next year or so through work, and probably some AWS certs as that's where we're starting to head.
So, any ideas on how I can decide where/how to start with thoughts about focusing on a certain area in the next 1-2 years? - I've now got my foot firmly in the door in my current place but want to be less of a 'jack of all trades' and more of a master of one or 2 things with still being able to do everything else. I know automation is/will be hot so that could well be something to go into, and if it can improve the processes and procedures at my current place that would be highly beneficial! Also getting off the service desk customer facing side would be a goal to aim for If all else fails then I'm fairly certain in a year or so I could walk into a '2nd line' job at £28-30k without too much issue, but I'd rather start looking at specific areas to focus on.
Spent a little too long at my previous role (4 years) but as a company they were great, very very good at what they do (MSP with a physical datacentre) and a very controlled environment. Everything was strictly controlled and hosted on-site.
Cut to my new job which is quite, quite different Typical small MSP with small customers, 90% of environments are cloud based (O365/sharepoint, should be more AWS in the near future) or workstation based with some various server set ups with file servers/DC's etc etc. Every day is different, and I'm getting a huge amount of exposure to lots of stuff I'd never touched in the 4 years in my previous role. One day I can be at a new office for a customer in London installing and patching in a new switch and getting their network up and running, then the next it'll be doing basic 1st line stuff like setting up new users/installing O365/folder permissions/troubleshooting basic issues, then the next it might a weird group policy issue that has me and the 2nd line* guy looking at it for hours because it just makes no friggin' sense... then the next day it could be installing a UPS in a customers rack on-site, and then the next day troubleshooting network issues for a customer, or setting up VPNs.
*2nd line in our company terms but probably not 2nd line in 'industry terms'. Server rebuilds, high level network issues and escalated stuff from 1st line, that's the same '1st line' that go to customer sites to patch in switches/install servers/UPS or deal with network issues etc etc so not typical 1st line either.
My aim when I moved to this role a few months back was to be earning a certain amount within 2 years of now, with that amount that being 30k minimum, roughly 30% more than I'm on now. Certainly not an unrealistic target as I'll have had 6 years in IT by then (some might say I after 4 years I should already be at that level, but that's what it is). As previously mentioned I didn't get the movement I wanted in my first role and so probably wasted a year or 3 there before moving to my current role - and I'm not a big fan of moving jobs after a short time so have no plans to move again in the next 9 months but I am looking to the future and starting to think about what I can start to specialise in.
I have plenty of choices purely because I get exposed to a load of different stuff every day, and also because my current employers are really looking into ways of doing things better and so there's a lot of potential changes I could suggest/work on based on my previous MSP experience. Automation interests me a bit, a friend and ex-work colleague of mine is heavily getting into this in his new role, he has a fair bit more money and resources to play with though I've only used powershell for an hour tops and not touched scripting stuff but certainly willing to have a play. I learn by doing (and breaking) stuff so setting up a few VM's wouldn't be out the question for me to play with. Networking is a particular weak point for me so again I'd be interested in playing around with that to build up my knowledge.
Oh and I only have CompTia A+ at the moment (well, 2 years ago) but I think MCSA certs will come at some point in the next year or so through work, and probably some AWS certs as that's where we're starting to head.
So, any ideas on how I can decide where/how to start with thoughts about focusing on a certain area in the next 1-2 years? - I've now got my foot firmly in the door in my current place but want to be less of a 'jack of all trades' and more of a master of one or 2 things with still being able to do everything else. I know automation is/will be hot so that could well be something to go into, and if it can improve the processes and procedures at my current place that would be highly beneficial! Also getting off the service desk customer facing side would be a goal to aim for If all else fails then I'm fairly certain in a year or so I could walk into a '2nd line' job at £28-30k without too much issue, but I'd rather start looking at specific areas to focus on.
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