Current feel for the IT job market?

[Throrik]

Problem with IT in particular is you either move forward or you're moving backwards. You suddenly realize to stay in your job you need umpteenth certs because they are more important than umpteenth years of experience.

The same with salary it can't stay static. Unless you cut your cloth.

I mean this isn't right in mine or any of my fellow colleagues over the years experience, for well earning positions the majority of my colleagues have few to no certifications and I have none, in fact I avoid them unless my employer is willing to finance them and give the time in-hours to specifically study for an exam. The only time I see certs as necessary are if you're working on partnership status or something like that. I've just been offered a 26% pay raise to move on an already decent salary without any of these said certifications.

 

[HACO]

Regarding the big US companies, yes the figures look really, really attractive but they work you to the bone. I expect I could get an extra 30-50(?)% by moving to AWS, Microsoft or similar, but when I look at my current quality of life versus what I might experience after moving, I'll stay put I think.

Same as pre-sales, it sounds very attractive but in theory I'd be on the road a lot, whereas now I work from where I want to. I can go to an office, I can work from home, I can work from Spain. It doesn't matter, as long as my projects are delivered. With a 4 week old baby, family is my priority now rather than greed.

Compared to what? If you wanted to increase your pay substantially in the UK, you'd need to work in investment banks and hedge funds in the UK and those definitely work you much harder than big US tech companies do. In a lot of ways, big US companies give you a very good work-life balance compared to alternative ways of earning that much, at least here in the UK.

I mean this isn't right in mine or any of my fellow colleagues over the years experience, for well earning positions the majority of my colleagues have few to no certifications and I have none, in fact I avoid them unless my employer is willing to finance them and give the time in-hours to specifically study for an exam. The only time I see certs as necessary are if you're working on partnership status or something like that. I've just been offered a 26% pay raise to move on an already decent salary without any of these said certifications.

Yeah not sure what they're on about. Certificates are sometimes helpful for people without experience or those wanting to change specialties, but never ever seen anyone care about them once you have good experience and/or formal education.

 

[dlockers]

Not sure I follow.

There was a typo in my post which made it a bit of a word spaghetti but my point was, if you can't prioritise/entertain a competency based promotion round that takes 'about a week' to complete, then the 'other' system is going to be a big culture shock to you - it takes months of relationship building and expert political landscape navigation.

 

[OspreyO]

Maybe it's just the jobs I look at. They want itil/prince2, and beyond a foundation level, hons degree in subject area, agile and certs in subject azure etc to a decent level.

 

[OspreyO]

There was a typo in my post which made it a bit of a word spaghetti but my point was, if you can't prioritise/entertain a competency based promotion round that takes 'about a week' to complete, then the 'other' system is going to be a big culture shock to you - it takes months of relationship building and expert political landscape navigation.

Well personally I can't spend a full week doing nothing else other than working on an application for one job. If I apply to 3 or 4 do I take month off.

 

[azazl187]

I'm not sure what it's like right now but about 4 years ago I just simply dropped IT and went back on the tools as a carpenter. I spent about 10 years in IT working my way upto the testing side of software development and worked in a team of graduates even though I wasn't one myself. After years of me jumping through hoops and constantly being told "not yet" in regards to earning anywhere near what my graduate colleges were earning, even though I was doing the same job, I just told them to stick it. I'm now my own boss earning twice as much as before and much happier.


My experience seemed to be that there were a lot of young people coming through the ranks that would happily work for peanuts and could do a fair bit on the IT side of things and what they didn't know they were told to wing it until they learned. Standards kept slipping but wages stayed low. It just seemed like a complete mess of low staff retention and the threat if constant redundancy mixed in with ridiculous targets.

This of course maybe be different elsewhere but it seemed very overrun with candidates that keeps wages very low.

 

[Beerbaron]

It appears that you're equating wanting to earn more money as greed. I'm sure that you didn't mean for it to come across that way, so I'm wondering what you meant?

What do you do for a living, Beerbaron?

Senior Security Operations Engineer

 

[Throrik]

Maybe it's just the jobs I look at. They want itil/prince2, and beyond a foundation level, hons degree in subject area, agile and certs in subject azure etc to a decent level.

What roles are you looking at? ITIL is always one that is in there, although it's more of a 'be aware of ITIL as a framework' rather than be certified in it, I have only met a few people who are certified in ITIL and one of them was a dedicated 'ITIL Manager' who disregarded most of the framework haha. P2 is more for Project Managers and a degree is less and less important in my opinion these days.

 

[OspreyO]

What roles are you looking at? ITIL is always one that is in there, although it's more of a 'be aware of ITIL as a framework' rather than be certified in it, I have only met a few people who are certified in ITIL and one of them was a dedicated 'ITIL Manager' who disregarded most of the framework haha. P2 is more for Project Managers and a degree is less and less important in my opinion these days.

Mostly senior analyst/pm roles in DevOps/development. Currently admin in DevOps/Cloud/DBA but my (long) experience is mostly on the application/development side. DevOps is a recent move for me.

I did the basic ITIL stuff and tbh I never worked anywhere it was used. Same with P2 but it's becoming a tickbox requirement in my opinion even if you guys feel it isn't.

 

[malachi]

Senior Security Operations Engineer

How did you get into that role?

 

[ChrisD.]

Compared to what? If you wanted to increase your pay substantially in the UK, you'd need to work in investment banks and hedge funds in the UK and those definitely work you much harder than big US tech companies do. In a lot of ways, big US companies give you a very good work-life balance compared to alternative ways of earning that much, at least here in the UK.

I already do work for an American software company, however life is good. I could move to AWS as an example but they have a notorious history of working their staff into the ground.

 

[Throrik]

Mostly senior analyst/pm roles in DevOps/development. Currently admin in DevOps/Cloud/DBA but my (long) experience is mostly on the application/development side. DevOps is a recent move for me.

I did the basic ITIL stuff and tbh I never worked anywhere it was used. Same with P2 but it's becoming a tickbox requirement in my opinion even if you guys feel it isn't.

I can understand the P2 requirement if you're going to PM roles I guess, but for DevOps/Cloud/DBA certs will generally never be valued over experience or tech knowledge unless they have very specific partner requirements. You might see a laundry list of certs tacked on for HR, but this is akin to job descriptions requiring people to have 20 years experience with a service/product released a year ago

 

[Ev0]

Same as pre-sales, it sounds very attractive but in theory I'd be on the road a lot, whereas now I work from where I want to. I can go to an office, I can work from home, I can work from Spain. It doesn't matter, as long as my projects are delivered. With a 4 week old baby, family is my priority now rather than greed.

With pre-sales it does depend on the company.

I've been doing it 8 years or so now for a large US based vendor and work life balance has been absolutely fine bordering on excellent.

I work from anywhere and majority of stuff is done remotely, pre pandemic I used to travel (within UK and Ireland) once or twice a month maybe with usually just a single night away if needed.

Since the pandemic I've not gone anywhere, and still smashing the quota

Had a baby at the start of the pandemic (excellent timing by us there, born at start of first lockdown) and I've been around for absolutely everything all the time.

And bar the couple of days a month I'd usually have been out for the day, possibly overnight, it wouldn't really be any different if the pandemic hadn't occurred.

Potential new role I might me moving to is similar as well.

Variable on the company/role I'd say as to what it would be like.

 

[Beerbaron]

How did you get into that role?

I started out in IT after uni, then did a masters in Computer Forensics (more for interest than a career) and then became a Linux sys admin where i dabbled in VMware and some Cisco networking. Got bored with the lack of work whilst working for a company so sat CEH and CISSP exams. I then became a Security Analyst where i did CISM and S+ exams. Moved more into GRC for a while and wasted 3 years in my previous role where i decided i preferred the tech side and now I've never been happier in my current role.

 

[malachi]

I started out in IT after uni, then did a masters in Computer Forensics (more for interest than a career) and then became a Linux sys admin where i dabbled in VMware and some Cisco networking. Got bored with the lack of work whilst working for a company so sat CEH and CISSP exams. I then became a Security Analyst where i did CISM and S+ exams. Moved more into GRC for a while and wasted 3 years in my previous role where i decided i preferred the tech side and now I've never been happier in my current role.

Ah OK, trying to go down the security route. I'm an IT Systems Engineer and I do abit of everything. Only have Sec+ cert at the moment, will do CCNA Cyber Ops next year once my Azure certs are done.

 

[dowie]

Random one a friend of mine heard recently when they were looking for a new hire in his company, one guy was a bit of a "job hopper" HR woman piped up with "lots of the best IT staff can only be retained for 18 months".

I mean a while back it was generally a worry if people jumped around "too much" you might want to do your time, spend 3 years or so... are people are more open to job-hopping these days? Or are comments like that from a HR person an anomaly?

 

[malachi]

Random one a friend of mine heard recently when they were looking for a new hire in his company, one guy was a bit of a "job hopper" HR woman piped up with "lots of the best IT staff can only be retained for 18 months".

I mean a while back it was generally a worry if people jumped around "too much" you might want to do your time, spend 3 years or so... are people are more open to job-hopping these days? Or are comments like that from a HR person an anomaly?

I was in one IT job for nearly 10 years before I moved to another country. Even the recruiter said "why was you in that job for so long?!?! That's unusual"

 

[dowie]

I was in one IT job for nearly 10 years before I moved to another country. Even the recruiter said "why was you in that job for so long?!?! That's unusual"

Yeah that is I guess though if you've had some progression in that time then it's generally not a drama.

 

[mid_gen]

Problem with IT in particular is you either move forward or you're moving backwards. You suddenly realize to stay in your job you need umpteenth certs because they are more important than umpteenth years of experience.

I haven't done a cert in 15 years, I'm a principal programmer.

In my current field (game dev), all that matters is experience.

I do have a few Business Objects and Oracle certs from way back....but they aren't a necessity in all fields!

 

[dowie]

I agree IME people don't care about certs (probs more important in support roles than in dev, BA, data science roles etc..), degrees can be very useful though initially... a good undergrad degree from a university with a good rep/brand name can increase the options available/increase the chance of scoring a good job early on. Getting a good brand name company/oranisation on your CV can help with initial career trajectory too.

Postgrad degrees - specialist masters or MBA etc.. can help mid-career or with career changes.

Beyond that though it's mostly down to your individual skills/experience etc..