That's true, it's a reasonable wage for my age too. I think what also spurred it on was that I'm looking at relocating down to London as my long term partner lives there and the trips up and down to Derby are getting old! Seems to be numerous IT opportunities there in all sorts of fields where as engineering seems pretty specific and not really what I have experience in!
Career change - Engineering to IT!
- Thread starter Dunks
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I imagine that dropping rungs down the ladder to get into IT would be a hard pill to swallow and would take a fair amount of time to get yourself back to where you are now. Mechanical engineering is a wide field with countless possibilities that you can pursue over the years.
Making a wrong career change is painful and I'm talking from experience. I went from a varied engineering/education role into teaching and absolutely hated it. Over the last year I've been trying to get myself out of the hole that I found myself in and have considered everything from taking a £10k pay drop to telling them to keep their job and just walk. Thankfully I've now landed a great position and am sitting by the letterbox waiting for a contract but I could easily have found myself in a far worse position.
Whatever you choose to do make sure you think it through and don't make my mistake.
You don't always need experience in a specific field to get the job in engineering, it's also about transferable skills.
Don't!
For a longer answer...Basically IT will wear you down with people moaning at you, basically you can't fix problems fast enough and if you are proactive noticing something is wrong or on the way to go wrong and you ask them to do something they moan at you saying no one been complaining today its working ok. Then when it does break prepare for the next moan round.
IT is nice as a hobby and you can help friends family out as most likely you will have far more knowledge than them about computers. But the best thing is its a hobby and you don't have to grind through the pain of it being a job day in day out and its also not fun having to fix friends families computers out after a full day of it at work.
So I would say stay as engineer and keep the IT stuff as fun side bit earning enough to buy the IT stuff you want is also a nice bonus
For a longer answer...Basically IT will wear you down with people moaning at you, basically you can't fix problems fast enough and if you are proactive noticing something is wrong or on the way to go wrong and you ask them to do something they moan at you saying no one been complaining today its working ok. Then when it does break prepare for the next moan round.
IT is nice as a hobby and you can help friends family out as most likely you will have far more knowledge than them about computers. But the best thing is its a hobby and you don't have to grind through the pain of it being a job day in day out and its also not fun having to fix friends families computers out after a full day of it at work.
So I would say stay as engineer and keep the IT stuff as fun side bit earning enough to buy the IT stuff you want is also a nice bonus
Soldato
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To be frank, I think all the posters thus far have had a very narrow and short-sighted view of 'IT'. There is so much more to IT that 1st line support and people moaning! Computer forensics and purple shirt land retail are just as valid IT roles.
Why not combine mechanical engineering and IT. What about something involving factory robotics or i don't know what ever.
Why not combine mechanical engineering and IT. What about something involving factory robotics or i don't know what ever.
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Whilst I'm also of the camp if you're already in an eng career I'd be more inclined to see if there's a move you could make within the industry to make you happier, the above is also very true.
Plenty of scope in IT for roles that are not support based, although no idea how hard it is starting out nowadays.
this. don't do it. I've been working in IT now for approaching 10 years and i'm looking for a way out
B@
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Once you get your VCDX certification, or CCIE, you'll be making more cash then you ever would in Mechanical Engineering.
All the people on here complaining about IT obviously haven't been very successful, but if you're smart and don't mind studying throughout your career, you can easily make 6 figures in your 30's working for a vendor.
All the people on here complaining about IT obviously haven't been very successful, but if you're smart and don't mind studying throughout your career, you can easily make 6 figures in your 30's working for a vendor.
That very much depends what mechanical engineering you do though, obviously not every mechie is going to make 6 figures but there's definitely some industries where that's possible.
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It depends what projects you're working on.
I've met lots of interesting people who are leaders in their field and get to go to conferences all over the world. I'd say I'm pretty happy.
The money does help, I think Robin Williams has other issues going on.
Soldato
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What does that Even Mean? Even if you are limiting IT to the scope of computer repair, I find IT incredibly rewarding as an Enabling role. We are all limited by our own lack of knowledge, but with IT so many people become limited by poorly designed systems and bad support, such that nothing ever works right. By enabling your users to use the systems properly, you increase their productivity and make the world a better place.
Just because you suck at doing that, does not make IT 'soulless'
lol, well thanks for your confidence. I do alight thanks very much, just think it's a crappy profession with relatively small emotional reward - ie. soulless. The best part of my job is getting in front of people (I train them in our bespoke software as well as roadmap and develop it; our software works well too I'll hasten to add) and having some decent human interaction.
If you don't feel like that then that's fine, but most will, and I'd say a career in engineering would be considerably more rewarding.
don't get me wrong, i didn't always feel like this, but years of it grinds you down. No need to get butthurt either because you feel like I've "insulted" your profession, there are loads of stories on this forum of people feeling the same way and getting out.
B@
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