IT Career Progression...

[Teledude]

Following on from the endless threads about getting into IT / IT job threads etc I thought it might be interesting for those in the industry to post how they got to where they are now and how long it took

Mine -

2002 - Took job working for an NHS trust doing first line support (my dad was dating the HR director!)..as people left and I learnt more progressed up to doing 3rd line support.

2004 - A contact got me a job working for a friends firm as a field engineer - basically going around customer sites in London doing any IT related tasks - some were interesting (Groupwise to Exchange etc) and others were boring (printer unjamming).

2005 - Got sacked due to still being young and not taking work seriously enough (my fault!) A friend from my first job put me in contact with his hiring manager who placed me into an investment bank doing 3rd line Domino support for 3 months and then into a media house for 1 month to help do an XP rollout audit.

2005-2006 - Got a new job working for a large global bluechip doing 3rd line support and engineering - my first real taste of virtualisation and SANs. Left due to a large restructure and I thought I was worth more than they were paying.

2006-2008 - Contracting offshore for a large life assurance firm doing VMware/SAN/ISA implementation and support before working in a pure VMware consultancy for the last 6 months - did my VCP here.

2008 - Earlier this year - Back to London and got a job working for a large bluechip. Was employed as "server support" basically to bolster their VMware support in house but quickly got recognised and became more of a technical/infrastructure architect. Delivered a lot of large projects all over europe and along with it came many a payrise.

Feb this year - got bored and wanted a new challenge (and more money!) so am now contracting for another large global blue chip doing infrastrucutre design - currently involved in a global rollout of segregatted MOSS2010 "clouds" on UCS/vSphere based infrastructure.

Wow didnt mean to type that much - but there you go - thats me and how I got to where I am today

I guess my advice to anyone would be - never be afraid to push yourself and have the drive to ask for more. a lot of people ask me don't all my jobs on my CV have a negative affect...rarely yes but generally no, as to recruiters I am always honest that I strive to better myself

And yes..in IT it always helps to know people

Next!

 

[Teledude]

My story is very similar although I did have a permie job for a few years in between contracts (never again). Have all of your roles been contracts?

Nope a vast mixture - although it never hurts to tell a perspective agent/employer that a short perm role was a contract

 

[Teledude]

Slept with a client + lewd emails - oops

 

[Teledude]

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.

Not imo - FYI my first job was @ 17, finishing education after GCSE's

 

[Teledude]

1) - Got my 'sandwich year placement' of my comp sci course in IBM. Didn't know what part of IT I wanted to get into, so just went for a good name on the old CV

2) Got my first job after graduating in a really small IT consultancy. Effectively completed a couple of small contracts through the consultancy in the utilities sector

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 ..

4) Stayed contracting right until now .. years and years. Can't see me ever stopping. Had about 5 clients.

I jumped in and out in my early years for the experience, but at 25 now Ill be contracting for the forseable future too

 

[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