How did you get to where you are now?

Gigi

Gigi

Gigi

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Joined
24 Aug 2004
Posts
2,260
Location
Edinburgh
Having read through "do you work in Enterprise IT" and seeing that some people get into specialised areas such as Messaging, SAN, NAS, IBM or HP hardware.

I was wondering how people got into those areas? where did you start from, did you start from 1st line support and progress or did you leave Uni and get into a grad program.

I have been in my first IT support job for a wee while now and always interested in peoples stories of how they progressed, whether what they know is all hands on or hands on plus IT exams.
 
left college with pretty rubbish a-levels, didn't really fancy going to uni...saw an advertisement for a trainee position within my local county council, applied and was turned down. then received a call a couple of months later asking if i was still interested. i hadn't found anything so i said yeah, why not. went for the interview and was called the following morning with a job offer so i took it. as a trainee i started off on the service desk which was boring as hell but a necessary evil i think. they then shipped me downstairs to where all the pc's were prepared and then installed for customers, this was a step in the right direction. after a while i then moved up to desktop support. this was ok, but i got bored pretty quickly. i then expressed an interest in working with the networking guys so got to give that a shot. after that i never really looked back, networking was where it was at for me. fast forward a couple of years and i was still interested in networking but the work i was doing wasn't very challenging. a position came up working with the security guys so i expressed an interest in that. fast forward a couple more years and throw in a few organisational changes and i am now responsible for everything security related in our production environment. i'm currently mentoring another guy too. that's coming up to 8 years, in a nutshell. the politics of the place is *really* starting to do my head in, so i've now started a small consultancy on the side with a few people i've met along the way. the 'full-time' job is now just there to cover the rent and bills. my consultancy is where it's at for me. as i type this i am preparing a new sbs server as a refresh for a 20+ client network where we look after *everything*, love it! being self employed is where it's at, if you can do it! :)
 
Ugh SBS *shudders*

Went from school into a vocational college (no A levels or anything) they put me on work placement at an IT company. Started as a basic office junior in their training division. I showed an interest so they put me to setting up training courses which was the best thing ever since i was deploying 50+ workstations for different courses plus servers for server courses over and over week in week out. Perfect experience.

Went from there to the helpdesk, and then out on site doing rollouts in a team and basic stuff on my own, from there to MS gold partner that went from 30 people to 100+ in the years i was there, left as a senior consultant doing complex implementations for customers large and small.

Did a stint as a team leader at storage company leading the technical team (small company)

Now contractor cashing in on my experience with a shameful abandon !
 
Ill give you my short career, in a nut shell. Went to college to do ICT and COmputer Science Left there and after a year of dossing i went to work for a Local IT company, they were 15 people at the time and are now more around 50 people only 3 years on. I started off in Sales and Still am i guess, i always showed a keen and positive interest in the technical side and quickly impressed my peers. 3 years on other people make the tea instead of me and i now do technical pre/post sales technical consultancy to the rest of the 3 sales teams. Over them years i have gained an MCP and about to do some HP training.

p.s. im only 21 ;)

Phil
 
went to uni, studied computer science... got a job in locl government where I got to do a lot of cool stuff with servers (not so much networks) and did my masters in Information Systems... then decided that the council didnt offer me any benifits so I left and went into the company I work for now... which is ok, but I want more training, which I was promised, but dont seem to be getting any where with... I have done my MCSE and now want to move on to some ESX server training...

most of my on the job experience has help me the most such as server room builds and consolidation, been offered jobs in Hong Kong and Holland (a lot better paid) and the UK wonder why they are losing IT professionals, but I have not left due to the misses, and buying a house...

I think thats about it really... can't think of anything else to say...

Stelly
 
I work for a big corp I dont want to specalise but the people that do jsut put their had up for the training at the time ! - so the best way if you want to specalise is probably to get a job for a big company..

For me I was lucky did btech computer studies, worked for a hardware company for 5 years testing hard drives and scsi controllers etc, then for a IT training company for 7 years then moved to EDS there is the option to move into an specilist role but I like messing about doing nothing
 
I got to work for a big US company, initially in Accounts but I was a self-taught developer and re-wrote all of our Intranet stuff and provided some web-based apps that proved indispensible to the company.
After that I was headhunted by the head of European IT to fill a vacant .NET developer slot :) That was six years ago.

Left college at 18, dossed for years playing in bands etc, didn't think about getting into a career but luckily it just fell in my lap!

Experience is where it's at these days though isn't it - all the paper qualifications in the world don't show you can revive a dying database server at two in the morning etc..
 
I did the whole A-Level, then Uni route (Computer Science). Also took a year out during my degree to do a sandwich/work placement to get some experience working for a decent company before leaving uni.

Now looking for a consultancy/e-security position for when I get back from travelling. Got an interview this afternoon in fact!

Feels like I'm almost right at the start of my career compared to some of you lot :p

aaazza
 
Degree in something completely unrelated (economic policy if you must know), small IT company, contracting doing backoffice IT (novell to AD migration being the headline project), bit more contracting, working for an ISP, support then provisioning then infrastructure engineer, now infrastructure architect. I'll be contracting again sometime this year or next I reckon.

CCNP, CCDP, CCIP, MCSE, JNCIP (x2), RHCE and god knows what else I've done and forgotten about. CCIE and CCDE coming up very soon...

...and I'm still the fun side of 25.... :)
 
Computer Science degree, Enterprise Hosting Support, Hosting Engineering, Contract.

If you can get a job at Rackspace et al you will get exposure to Enterprise tech at the expense of having to work shifts in most cases.
 
Left college 10 years ago with a HND in Marketing, worked in IT ever since.

First MCSE in the year 2002, am MCSE 2000 and 2003. Work predominantly with MS back office products, specialise in Directory Services for a multi national and am the companies MS technical lead.

Plenty of travel, both UK and overseas working on various projects of all sorts of shapes and sizes.
 
Left School at 16 and worked in CEX for 3 months.
Then started off in an NHS trust doing 1st Line and left 2 years later after being promoted to 3rd line stuf. Went to a small consultancy and was doing general support there for 6 months. Then jumped in and out of jobs for a few years before moving to the Isle of Man for 2 years doing lots of virtualisation (got my VCP paid for over there). Now back in London about to start a job in a large financial institute looking after there move to Vmware for about 1000 Wintel server.

And I'm not even 23 yet :D
 
Royal Navy, Degree in Medical Microbiology, PhD in Poultry Science, 10 years as a Technical Manager in food companies, started to dabble a bit in IT, bought an SAP system, trained as an SAP reseller, set up my own business as an SAP consultant, got bought out by my partners, MCSE, CCNA, set up a new company doing Interim Technical and SAP support. I reckon I've had 3 careers already, and I have another planned:D
 
Degree in Computer studies with AI, 4 years in a large high street retail PC call centre (2 years as first line support 2 years as second line support with some smatterings of training as well). I have been in my current role for just over 18 months and although hired as a entry level developer I had been providing 1st and 2nd line support and only in the last 6 months or so I have doing proper development work and have just been promoted to analyst developer and am now solely developing web and desktop apps in .net.

During this time I have also completed a number of qualifications including A+, MCDST, NVQ level 3 in supporting users, ITP and current studying for my MCSA and MCAD/MCTS.
 
Started programming and generally messing around with OSs/networking when I was around 12. Got my first commercial gig at 16 doing some contract work. Started my own small ISP when I was 18, sold it when I was 20 because it was getting unmanageable. Computer science degree with an industrial placement at IBM (Doing some sick stuff with big iron AIX/HPUX/proprietary unix based stuff and message queue based systems). Then I started doing consultancy work on a contract basis up north (there is hardly anyone with the skillz up here). Latest job doing security consultancy for a london based security firm.

I have a 1st class CS degree, CCNA, RHCE stuff.. only useful/interesting thing there was my degree. Rest sucked hard and I just got for CV material. Though I wouldn't mind doing CCIE in future if my company pay for it and I don't go back into academia. Thats pretty much my computing life so far :]
 
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