Trying to break in to IT infrastructure field

[opethdisciple]

MCSE isn't difficult. Self study for each exam and you can have it done in no time at all.

As for career progression, I'd apply for jobs at small firms (20-40 people) that offer infrastructure services. Even if you start on the helpdesk, you'll have ample opportunity to get involved in projects. Prove yourself there and move on to a proper engineering or technical architect role.

You really don't get that opportunity that often at larger firms.

I was called last week by a foreign company with a London branch of only 10 people. Second interview still to come.

I just need to get out of my current role. They are wasting my talent and time. I cant get on with my manager. I find him 'uncooperative'.

A new job will also help to beef up y CV a little as well as at the moment I only really have my current job on there. (Been in it for 8 years) Prior was just 1 month here and there trying to get my first proper role.

 

[opethdisciple]

I would broaden your horizons... this isn't an either/or. Learn both.

True. But I have to choose something now to complete. And I think I will focus on the LPIC.

I might play with Active directory and exchange if I can, but doing any MCP's (which would be awesome) I don't have the time for at the present.

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I've bought my self a workstation pc. To install Linux vm's and get cracking.

should have done this 4-6 years ago.

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I am so epically bored in my current role. I just get thrown the crap no one else wants or can be bothered to do.

My manager treats me like 'if I mention something half interesting, this is above your pay grade, don't think about it. Not your job, leave it to someone else.'

I'm actually the most 'on the ball' in the office, the difference is I don't have the technical experience as no ones ever given me any projects to learn from. I'm also the most consistent and reliable out of my department.

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But bye bye, I cant stay here any more. It will be a shock to them as they are used to having the easy life, as I'm the 'water carrier' in the department.

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Using a football analogy, I'm the DM who does the dirty work which no one notices, which allows the rest of the team to play beautiful football.

 

[opethdisciple]

I've had two interviews in the last 2 weeks. One was 100% MS role and the last one was a Linux/Networking role.

The MS one as you can imagine I didn't get. But that's probably for the best. I want a Linux role. Also they called me up, this wasn't a role I applied for. They knew I had no exchange experience etc...

The last one I interviewed for on Fri, is the break I'm looking for. It's junior level Linux and will involve some networking.

It's not perfect as it will be working in an office of only 10 people and I've never worked in a place with less than 70, so I don't know how boring it might get, but this could be my break I need to move away from technical support in to a server side role.

The exciting thing is that it will include training in NY for a couple of weeks.

We'll see what happens. I will keep applying and keep applying until I get something.

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I've set up my home lab and bought some books, including the Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook, ISBN 0131480057 Chicco recommended.

One of my ex work colleagues who is in Dev Ops is going to give me a crash course one day soon to bring me up to speed with a couple of things as in eight years at my current job I haven't even done some super basic things... such as spin up a new server using Vmware etc etc etc... He'll probably give me a run down of all the Devops stuff as well.

 

[opethdisciple]

Is there a legal free version of VMware I can obtain?

Vsphere Hypervisor is free, but I just want to familiarise myself with VMware. (Workstation I believe)

So I can learn about virtualization with that product.

 

[opethdisciple]

Not sure what to do.

I have another interview set for Thu. This one however will be during the day which causes me an issue as I need a valid excuse to not be at work.

So far I have managed to have interviews at 9am. We don't start until 10am so I can get away with it, but this one is during the day.

I'm going to have to pull a sick day. Last week I was at the hospital.

I don't know if it's worth me going for this interview. They want a minimum of 3 years experience, dealing with Linux servers, visualization, automation, HPC cluster administration, firewalls etc etc....

All the stuff I'm interested in, but at this stage don't know about. I have never touched these technologies.

Now they've seen my CV and still want to interview me. But I had another agent call me about the same role seeking more info, who ended up telling me that I probably wasn't the right candidate.

And I don't think I am. The reason why I'm apprehensive is the more interviews I go to the more obvious it is going to be at work what I'm doing.

If I go to the interviews for ones that I am confident of standing a chance of getting I think that is a better trade off than going to all the interviews I get offered.

I do know (hope) that I should be hearing back from another company regarding my second interview with them and potentially needing to go for another interview. (Face to face this time) This one wanted 0-3 years experience. So I was confident that this was a good opportunity.

Last week was the hospital, this week is a sicky, next week?

You get my drift....

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I personally think I'm going to pull out of this interview. They see 8 years on my CV, but they cant judge how much hands on Linux I have done hence the interview. The answer is 'not very much'.

I don't stand a chance for this role. For example I have only today just sat down to read about iptables amongst other things. I do not have 3 years of firewall experience.

Same goes for visualization. I haven't even used Vmware yet.

 

[opethdisciple]

I've learnt more at home in three days with my own Linux box than I have in years at work.

 

[opethdisciple]

So I've got a few things in the pan. Three to be precise.

Two Linux roles and one general role (Mostly windows and Mac admin)

I want a Linux role as I want to kick off my career. The other role (Windows and Mac) is good for the pocket.

But I don't know how much of an impact doing a non Linux role will have on my future employability in getting a Linux role in the future?

For example, I've started studying Linux at home. Employers currently look at my CV and see I'm in a Linux role, so that helps convince them of my suitability for the Linux role I am applying for.

However, if I move out of my current Linux role, in to a Mac/Win admin job paying a nice bit more than I currently earn, THEN try and apply for Linux roles once I have completed my Linux certifications, will employers still look at me in the same way?

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Also one of the Linux roles I applied for is quite far away from me. But it was too good not to apply for. They want to interview me. But realistically it is 1.30hr travel time from my house by public transport.

Given how unreliable TFL is, if there are any delays in service I could be looking at more like 2hr travel time.

Would you consider a job, EXCELLENT for your career if the travel time was quite long?

 

[opethdisciple]

I wouldn't fixate too much on Linux, or indeed any technology. IT is very wide ranging and there are all sorts of niches that you can get yourself into. Don't focus on Linux as the be-all and end-all of your career, especially if you have no current experience on it.



Is that 1.5 hours each way, or total? My personal cut off is 1 hour each way, I've done 2 each way for short periods and it's very unpleasant. It depends to an extent on how you are travelling (car, train, tube) and what you can do to pass the time whilst travelling. I listen to a lot of podcasts in my car, and work on my laptop on the train. The tube is generally too noisy and crowded to do anything other than music or reading.

1.5 hours each way.

 

[opethdisciple]

I've just found a role, which is paying a base salary less than what I'm currently on (1k, 3k with bonus) but looks really good for breaking in to this industry.

Exposure to AWS, Firewalls, San Storage, Hyper V, IIS, Apache etc etc etc.... all the stuff we have at work, but that I don't use.

Am I crazy thinking that going slightly backwards in £ but for a role that will build up my skills will reap rewards in the future?

(Does mention excellent bonuses, so maybe this will make the difference.) I just need a role where I will start learning stuff and gain experience.

Experience is worth more than the money.

I applied for it anyway.

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I've also made more applications for more generic 'techy' roles. Good for the pocket. About 5-8k more £. But applying for these generalist roles doesn't rest well with me. My gut keeps telling me this is a wasted opportunity to get in to a junior role where I will pick up the skills that I will need to move on in to a bigger more demanding/higher paying role.

For example Im conflicted between applying/interviewing for roles where I am admin'ing windows/macs for a university earning 5-8k more than I do now or getting a junior level Linux admin role earning maybe the same as I do now but getting hands on experience with AWS, firewalls maybe some Cisco, visualization etc.... That kind of job will give me a spring board to move on in to a higher payed role.

The Mac/Win technician job, I will still be deficit in areas that companies want when I do look to move on/finish my home study.

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My friend who is also a former work colleague and who is currently working in Devops said to me last night, you just take the techy job, just to get out of current role and continue looking for a Linux role at the same time. :/

Guess I don't have much experience at playing the job market like a game.

___

I've been doing a techy role for 8 years now, which is why I'm looking for a move in the first place.

 

[opethdisciple]

This is the kind of role I am trying to get.

I know that I could learn on the job with a little bit of guidance, but I doubt thats what their looking for. Plus other candidates will probably have better skills than me.

This is why I am undertaking my Linux study.

I suppose, if I must I can take a general IT role whilst I study and then in about a years time look for this sort of a role again.

My other alternative to all this is just to stay put in a comfortable role that current fits my lifestyle. I'm not happy, I'm under paid, I'm bored and I'm ready for a challenge.

But I'm comfortable and it's a steady role which I have been in for the last 8 years. I could just carry on with my study and move in to a Linux role when I have my certificates behind me and I will feel more confident of my own abilities.

 

[opethdisciple]

There are SOOO many roles out there at a junior level for the kind of thing I want to do, that maybe I should be a bit more picky what I apply for. And not waste my time applying for these general helpdesk roles. They wont contribute to my career progression.

After 8 years in a help desk role, I shouldn't be looking for another help desk role.... The only thing is some of these helpdesk role are paying quite a bit more than what I currently earn.

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So tempted to withdraw form the interview I have booked for Wed the 9th. It's a role doing exactly what I'm currently doing just up to 6k more and really I don't want to do technical support anymore. I want an Infrastructure role.

In other words I'm not happy to make a sideways move.

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Not going to do anything rash yet regrading canceling my interview on the 9th as I still have over a week, but I do not want to deal with peoples issues with their: email, laptops, desktops, printers etc etc etc. I couldn't care less. Been doing that for the past 8 years.

 

[opethdisciple]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm just hacked off at the moment. The other two people earning double what I earn, are lazy, come in late and leave all the crap to me. And they know exactly what their doing.

I don't care for setting up user accounts (being chased about by HR) while they go about doing interesting project work and come in when ever they choose.

I'm going to narrow my job search to only infrastructure type roles. No more user support for me.

They are just taking the mickey and it has been engineered like this from top to bottom. They've got it sweet, twice my wage, interesting stuff and don't have to do with the day to day rubbish as they can palm it off on to me.

This was something I spoke to my manager about last year in Nov. He agreed with me, but nothing has changed.

 

[opethdisciple]

And it's a double edged sword. the more people contact me and I hep them the more people contact me and no one else.

I've already been told by other people at work that they don't bother to contact the other guys as they never get a reply and they never bother to do whats asked.

So the company has learnt to just send everything my way, which plays in to the other guys hands.

 

[opethdisciple]

Just found out I have been raised by 2k.

Thing is this is just a tactical move to protect the other two from having to do parts of my job if/when I leave. That will really put the cat amongst the pigeons.

My current role, doesn't forward my career in the slightest.

I'm not doing anything career worthy in my current role or picking up new skills.

Managers just asked me have I been looking and I said yes. And he said thought as much.

 

[opethdisciple]

I have an interview for a Linux Administration role on the 15th March. It looks exactly what I want. I would get involved with every part of the system. (Firewalls, upgrades, DataCenter, networking, system admin and maintenance, San storage etc)

Really good experience. Hopefully* I can finally land a new job!

I need such a role to give me the necessary experience to take my career forward. I'm thinking 2 solid years in a Linux Admin role and I'll be ready for the next step.

I.e try and get a job at the next pay bracket up. Maybe look at junior level Devops role.

But my primary concern at the moment is just breaking in to a junior level Linux and infrastructure role.

A part of me is scared to leave my current role tho. I've been here 8 years. A huge part of my life is this job. Changing is no trivial matter.

But ultimately I am hacked off with it now. What I do in my current role is pretty much just technical support with a little 2nd line. I'm ready to learn more but the opportunity isn't there as they have partitioned the department so that I do the every day stuff and the other guys on twice my wage do the Linux project work.

The guys I work with are very lazy. But I don't get to be lazy as I have HR chasing me around for user accounts, the rest of the company calling me directly as they know they dont get anywhere by contacting the other two and the department leaving the day to day stuff to me, when in reality it is part of their role too.

The only negative about this new job I'm interviewing for is its gonna be about 1.30hr travel each way.

So far I have only spoken to the new company once, but they seem to be handing things in a very impressive way. They said after my face to face interview there would be a technical exam. Given that goes OK, I would get a day to come down and work with them to see if I like it.

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I have a feeling what will happen is, when I do finally get an offer and hand in my notice, current company will know they cant really afford to lose me and offer me a good 10-15% pay rise. But then I'll have to decide if 4-6k extra in a job where I am not building on skills that can take my career forward is worth it compared to taking a job at a lower pay (what I'm on now) but doing a job where the experience and skills will take my career forward and enable me to double+ my wage in the next 3-4 years.

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In the next two years I cant be lazy tho. I need to try and get the LPIC 1 and 2 done in about a year. After that, it could be the case that I'll look at the LPIC 3 Virtualization & High Availability which will be good for moving on in to a DevOps position. Alternatively I might look at the CCNA and CCNA security. Will see.

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The fear I have in leaving is because this is all I've known really. I have to remember that I am moving on to bigger and better things. Ones career is long. I cant stay in this position for ever.

 

[opethdisciple]

Apologies for being a bit blunt here, but it doesn't sound like that's what they are going to do. It sounds very much to me as though the boss has decided you're a liability, can't be trusted with the real work and just wants somebody to do the menial jobs and take the flack when needed.

Thats not to say that you actually are that, you've just fallen out of favour with the boss and his opinion is less of you than you deserve. Don't be scared to leave, he only way you are going to get any happiness is by changing jobs. Your boss is content to have you for a mug and your colleagues are quite happy to lord it up and leave all the boring stuff to you.

I wouldn't expect that pay rise and counter offer. I'd just focus on finding that new start.

It would appear that way. But I can tell you why this is so. It's historical.

Before I started there was just two of them, and they couldn't cope on their own and needed a run around. Someone to go to the other sites to do the menial stuff whilst they could get on with the actual IT.

So they hired me. At the time I had zero experience. It was my first job. So was just happy to have a job. At the time I was going round and round. I was either too qualified (masters degree) or didn't have enough experience.

Over the years my role took on more responsibility as I gained experience and knowledge. About 3-4 years in to my 8 years at this company the other Linux guy started experiencing difficulties with a sick farther. He disappeared for about 6 months. But was all over the place for at least 2 years. Turning up maybe 1-2 days a week. Depressed, going for 3-4 hour lunch breaks etc... So they hired another Linux guy to help out my manager.

This was the only reason why the team grew to four. Fast forward, the other guy is back and more stable, but during this time, the guy they hired is lazy and according to him was only hired to do Linux not technical support, so basically got annoyed with the technical support found another job, quit then accepted an offer with the current company at a higher wage packet. (And must have a verbal agreement with my manager that he doesn't have to do technical support because he gets away with murder)

So this is the reason why all the menial stuff is given to me. It's a mixture of historical and the other two thinking it's not their job/lazy.

Even my manager does the technical support but the other two get away with being lazy.

Even the people I support have complained that the other two are lazy and rude!

With out me, they wont have the luxury of laziness, as the new guy if junior wont hit the ground running and if they hire someone of higher technical ability to me he equally want wont to do aspects of my job so it will have to be shared out, which is going to be painful for the lazy people I work with.

I know for a fact one of the guys I mentioned (who says it's not his role to do technical support - it is) will quit shortly after I go because with out me will have to suddenly do some work!

So yes, I believe they will offer me a counter offer to stay. My manager has indicated to me numerous times 'my job is important'. Even when they verbally gave me my pay rise last week, he asked me if that was enough for me to stop looking....

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But I'm not really looking at this from a money perspective. I'm looking at it from a skills/experience perspective. I know for me to be earning twice my wage which they are, I too need to be getting experience with what they do. And in my current job, not only does my manager not give me anything to get my hands dirty, but I dont have time either with all the support rubbish I have to deal with.

The other reason is the partition of the department. As mentioned above, the other two historically are hired to do the infrastructure stuff and me I was just a run around. So if they give me more interesting stuff to do I'm sort of taking work from them and they wont do my work, so in the end I lose out again as I fall behind with all the support crap.

What they should be doing is telling the other two they have to share more my role and theirs so all three of us can share the workload and I can do some more interesting things. But I know at least one of them will NOT be bothered. He has a few menial stuff to do himself and when he gets chased about it, he just says 'I'm busy coding', when in reality he finds plenty of time for cigarettes and facebook and nonsense on his phone.

Also this same guy, sometimes doesn't even bother to open up his email and definitely doesn't look at the ticket system.

 

[opethdisciple]

Try building on your Linux skills by looking at OpenStack, you can deploy the RedHat version on one VM. Then look at Ceph. Suddenly you've got a fully functional cloud environment. £££

Cool. I'll take a look at this tomorrow. There's just tons and tons of stuff out there for me to get my hands dirty.

At the moment, I've been covering a few fundamentals. I installed Apache and the LAMP stack. And played around with iptables.

I got my head round it now.

 

[opethdisciple]

Theres me starting to panic over the weekend at the thought of ACTUALLY leaving this place, then I come in to work and remember why I really need to go.

My little corner of our department I know like the back of my hand. Manager receives a call from a user about the VPN not working. He hands it over to me (no one else in the office at this point - late as usual). User says they haven't used the laptop in months and says they remember an email that we sent out saying that they needed to return the laptops to us to update the vpn software on them.

Also they've had a password change in that time.

I realize through talking to the end user that her issue is she is using the wrong client.

Manager is on another call and is berating me for what I'm saying to her. Claiming that that doesn't need to be done why am I ripping the guts out of the machine etc ect etc... It's been working all this time ect ect

(She says she hasn't used it in months)

I just say back calmly to him, 'she's using the wrong client', again he goes and ranting off to me, so I repeat 'she is using the wrong client'.

Not much I can do. I either do my job or I don't do my job.

Am I not experienced enough to know after 8 years what I'm doing?

P.s - I'm right about this. He forgets the technicalities because it's not a day to day thing for him and just assumes that I don't know what I'm doing.

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Just to put this in to perspective, I remember the other guy (senior Linux) had the same issue, he did the same I did which was ask the end user to send the laptop in to us.

He didn't get my manager berating him that he doesn't know what he's doing.

He did the same thing I'm going to do, change the client.

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I need a job where it's not assumed I'm a complete dim wit. Some where where my experience is actually valued.

Believe it or not I know stuff they don't. They are just Linux specialists, so look down at me for not being at their level in LINUX!

P.s - Note to self - Reread this when it comes time to leave so that you remember the sort of crap I have to deal with.

 

[opethdisciple]

I have keep meaning to be replying to this thread for the past couple of weeks now!

I have been in the OPs situation before.... My manager at my previous role didn't have confidence in my ability and preferred me doing all of the donkey work, senior staff at architect level was badgering on at the manager to put me in a more senior position..... However he wasn't interested. I gave notice, and then the company tried rehiring for a more senior position for less money than I was on.

They couldn't find a more senior person, so ends up getting someone much junior than me. 1.5 years later I now earn more money than my ex colleagues who were in the senior positions.

When you interview at places, if they ask why your leaving your current role, just explain to them that you need a new challenge and would like to specialise more in the Linux side of things, don't start droning on about how your old company was holding you back, as everyone knows that's one of the main reasons why people resign from jobs.

One of my former colleagues doubled his wage in the first two years after he left the company I work for.

He doubled that again when he went contract.

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I should have moved on from my position years and years ago. But my focus since around 2012 was partying on the weekends. What I should have done was found another role after 4 years (if not before) partied less and studied more.

 

[opethdisciple]

Sorry, I meant to add that I have seen job adverts specifically for roles in a devops team. I'm probably forgetting some; developers, business analysts, testers.

To me. When I refer to DevOps I am referring to jobs involving automation, visualization and things like Puppet, Ansible, Elastic search, Jenkins etc ect ect.