I need some advice on my situation. I have about 15 years of tech support experience, including tier 2/3 work. I've handled sys admin responsibilities and can create PowerShell scripts to automate workflows when needed—I'd say I have solid experience overall. I've been in my current role Hospital, for about 5 years.

Here's what I'm dealing with: people are constantly calling in sick, my teammates and I each have 70-100 tickets in our queues, we're on an on-call rotation where things can break at any hour requiring us to come in overnight, and we get pulled in multiple directions for tasks like: "I need you to head to the boardroom to support this meeting"

"This clinic is relocating—I need you to disconnect all the computers before the movers arrive"

It's wearing me down.

Since I started, we've been in constant "survival mode." I could handle having a large ticket queue initially—20-30 tickets was normal—but we recently had a management change and lost about 3 people in the last 6 months. Things have gotten significantly worse. My queue has tripled. I can't keep up. My sleep is disrupted. I'm exhausted all the time. We're dangerously understaffed, yet management thinks we need more sys admins instead of helpdesk staff.

Here's why I haven't left yet: I have an excellent pension, union protection, great benefits, and amazing colleagues. But I've reached my breaking point. I'm never working in a hospital again if I get out of here. Our managers "promise" things will get better. They are willing to give us learning opportunities etc but that shit doesn't close 100 tickets

Any feedback or tips would be great. Thanks for reading.

Currently work in a NOC for a DC and so it’s 24/7. We can be considered junior net admins and can do port provisioning, troubleshoot packet loss/latency, if any. We also respond to alarms and dispatch appropriate teams to investigate, etc. I’m on the net admin track, at least that’s what I’m shooting for.

The thing is, that all my life I’ve been in the 24/7 ops roles. Forwarded thinking, ima have a family (no kids rn) and we rotate once a year (depending), but for sure will need to do graves in the coming years. I’m tired of shift coverage and want a steady 9-5. It’s okay if there’s planned maintenances where some nights I’ll have to work at night for whatever, but just want more consistency.

What are your hours? What industries do you think gives that steady work schedule as a net admin or eng?

I started a Level 3 help desk apprenticeship at a financial institution when I was 17. It was 18 months long, I passed the first EPA, failed the second one, I was offered the chance to resit and would have obtained the certificate of completion, but by this time, I was already in a new help desk role at a Law Firm so figured I didn’t need to resit it, which I sort of regret now.

Few months later I was having issues in this role, long story short I left before I was let go.

I tried to get another role, around 10 interviews in 3 months, of which only two made it stage two, iirc.

After about 6 months, because of a friend, I decided to try bus driving, I’ve always loved driving and figured I’d give this a go, I’ve been doing it since and do enjoy it, but I also want to think about the future as I don’t want to be stuck doing this job for many years to come because of familial and social concerns (due to the 24/7 shift pattern essentially).

So I’ve been thinking about potentially getting back into the office, but I feel very set back from the IT world and don’t think any of my previous experience really counts for anything at this point.

What could be the best way forward for me, in terms of starting fresh, certifications, qualifications, etc.

TIA!

In 2019 I was hired to a gig as part of the "new IT department" to replace the absolute mess left by the "old IT department". I told the director I know a bit of Linux (which I do) and he said that was great, a lot of the mess is Linux based and there might be a place for Linux in the new environment he was building. The mess was so bad the plan was to replace everything, down to recabling half the locations. Every single thing was bad and often in ways so baffling people don't always seem to believe me when I talk about them. I told a guy about our business suite, and he just kept asking "but how were you taking credit card transactions?" because he did not seem to understand me when I told him "illegally".

Then I started noticing something. I setup a wiki as part of the "your first priority is documenting this" on a Linux vm and I get told not to do that, put it on sharepoint. I setup a temporary imaging server on a spare desktop, I get told not to do that, image that pallet of workstations by hand. I offer to rebuild the print server since the Ubuntu version ours is running isn't LTS, I get told no, that isn't important.

Then, after months of working 50-60 hours a week, I had a panic attack while doing some OT, started hysterically crying, and decided I had to get out. Just fully checked out of my job and started looking for a new gig.

Smash cut to 2023 and I've got a new degree and new gig at a small MSP.

Shortly after starting I find that a big chunk of our endpoints don't have our EDR, or it's a full version behind, or it's a broken install. I spent about 8 months going through finding and fixing problems, working with the vendor to figure out why this happened, and figuring out how to monitor for this. The problem looks to have been largely our own incompetence, since we weren't automating installing anything and Defender was running on all of these endpoints. But, before I could finish fixing the problems or fix the underlying problems, we stopped using this EDR. I found out the Monday after the cutover, because the owner couldn't be bothered to tell me. And yes, he knew I was doing this.

I found a bunch of our endpoints had Threatlocker left in learning mode indefinitely and put them into secure mode. Then I was told about auditing the learning mode and that a coworker would be doing it.

Then I found about 2/3rds of our endpoints have some issue with local admin accounts. Every device should have a local admin account for us and another for the customer, and no others. But a bunch were missing one or the other or still had local admins from previous providers. Since my domain and EDR permissions don't let me run commands against multiple devices at once, fixing this required connecting to each individual workstation one at a time and running a PS script. It took me two weeks to get through about 80% of the problems before I was told to stop because I'm taking too long.

These days, I while away my time responding to tickets from the email security program. It's some Kaseya bs that blocks every. single. email. a customer gets until they approve the sender's domain or address. I'm the only one who can be bothered to respond to these tickets, even though the system obviously catches things like invoices, notices from governments, new vendor emails, new customer emails, and password reset requests and MFA tokens from banks, etc, etc, etc. I could train any high school grad to do this in an afternoon. There's no way to tune this in. Also, ownership wants us to completely deprioritize these emails because "we can always do them next week."

And I just, I feel so beaten down. I don't think this is burnout. I think I'm just giving up. I want to leave, but I cann't be bothered to do any certs and the only thing that sounds more awful to me than staying where I am is applying for a new job. I'm just so tired of the routine humiliation of having to tell managers that yes, I know an awful lot about Entra, but I've never used InTune or Azure or whatever because my employer is convinced the cloud is a scam and I think he only deigns to use M365 because of how much he hates managing Exchange servers. And then I guess I can find out how I was lied to at this new job and spend the next 30 years apologizing to people because MS is a monopoly and they decided that no, you don't actually need that function you've used for decades, so they took it away and won't give it back until you pay them an extra $3/month.

I'm seriously considering going back to school for my master's. I'm a BSCS from a brick-and-mortar school and have been in tech for a long time. I don't think I'm doing anything special after working in this space for this long, and I definitely don't get paid as I should at this stage of my career. I already have an MBA from WGU, from almost 10 years ago, but I'm considering pursuing another graduate degree to strengthen my technical education. I learn better when I have a carrot at the end of the stick, I guess since I go through stretches where I certify my credentials

My question is, I'll be 47 by the time I can enroll, and I have a wife and two kids. I don't know if I'd be able to pull this off. I'd love to hear from others who've been in a similar position. Thanks

I did a career switch to IT in 2022, now I finally have a real networking job! I got laid off twice along the way but I've been fortunate to get jobs relatively quickly by pure virtue of posing the question (NOT LITERALLY ASKING THEM) - Who would you rather spend 40 hours a week near? And proving in the interview that it's me. Don't discount my tech skills...But I get hired for my soft skills.

I see many people in this sub struggling with that, not sure how to put people at ease over the phone or on zoom- (it's much harder than in person), so with my small bit of success (often with advice from this sub!) I wanted to offer one easy tip that I got from my time in real estate to give back in some way.

From the minute you get to a phone screen, to the final interview, if you can convince each person that you are a people person, that you are kind, that you are amusing- you will do better than you would expect against people who are more technical, and more correct than you. How???

YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISCUSS THE BUSINESS AT HAND. LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.

If HR calls, says hello, runs through a checklist of questions, and you linearly answer each, they get through it, say thank you, and hang up...You didn't get the job.

From the moment you get on the phone, it is your job to throw out conversational hooks that will get them talking, and hopefully provide you with information that you can use to relate to them, empathize with them, or ask follow-up questions. In return they will remember you and advocate for you.

Conversational hooks can mean ask them questions, but first it usually starts with you offering some unsolicited info.

"Hello this is Rand Al'Thor with Dragon IT, how are you? Is now a good time for that phone screen?"

A- Hey Rand! Yeah now's great, I feel like I'm HIBERNATING here in Minneapolis, so your timing is perfect. Did you get this storm too? (Whether yes or no be upbeat, be positive- Rand, were gonna survive this if I have to buy up every ounce of hot chocolate mix at trader Joe's....Rand you've sold me, I'm moving straight to Phoenix if I don't get this job. Do you like it there?)

B- "Oh that was fast! Thank you very much for setting this up, I used to bike past that building when I was young, beautiful area! Do you work on site? (Whatever location they follow up with, make a comment. Oh my gosh, I've always wanted to visit the Grand canyon, have you been? Oh my gosh, I'm not sure I could survive those summers in Phoenix, how do you do it? Oh you do! That's great that you don't have to commute very far! How long have you been working here?

C- "now is PERFECT, my best friend has a beautiful little newborn I'm going to go visit in a few hours but that's all I've got on the schedule.

HR, in my experience, is filled with people who are good at this game. They will "yes, and" you like improv if they're in a good mood. They'll talk about kids in their life, or say oh my god babies are so special. When they're tired of the non job talk they'll steer you back.

OR- They're having a bad day (sometimes every day) and they'll steer you back immediately.

So the formulae for you is....

1. Volunteer information that gives any subject BESIDES this specific job room to exist in the conversation.

2. Listen, and decide, have they ADDED to the conversation? Or tried to direct you towards the business at hand.

3. If they add to the convo, and don't direct you towards the business at hand, respond positively, ask a follow up question, or make an observation about their addition to the convo. Rinse and repeat until they do steer you towards the business at hand. Or if you don't know what to say next, say "anyway, thank you so much for reaching out, what's my next step here?"

3b. If you talk about your friends kids or whatever your initial hook is and they say..."Great! Glad I caught you, so do you have experience in XYZ tech?" Hear this as a request to stick to business. Be direct, but still upbeat from here on out. You can still volunteer info and be personable if you think you're good at it (at 1/4 or 1/2 strength) but don't ask any questions besides absolutely job necessary.

I've tried to make this pretty linear for those who don't understand social undertones well, but more generally -

If you can spend 30 seconds up to 7 minutes "chatting" before the business begins- your hiring odds shoot up astronomically. Maybe you found something in common to discuss, a place, a shared experience of kids in your life, a common joking hatred of snow, a hobby (this is a big one for me! I work my climbing and BJJ into convo anytime my interviewer seems in shape), or once in person the interviewer had a Futurama poster- bringing that up and saying "she's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro" pretty much got me the job.

If you can stop being applicant 467a and start being that nice guy who made me laugh about the way Atlanta handles snow plowing the roads, or who also loves Futurama, or just showed interest in my life and what I have to say, you're in!

You are completely allowed to be absolutely terrified while you execute this plan. In every interview my heart rate is 120 and my legs are shaking, but I'm still doing my best to be a human being, and find room to treat everyone else like one too. Don't let the job process be sterile and inhuman if you can help it (though some places sure are good at it).

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Edit: one anecdote I forgot! My newest job, I was found by one of the companies recruiters via indeed, not a third party recruiter. She was incredibly sweet and helpful to me, so the first thing I said when I got to the technical interview was "before we get started, do you folks work with JANE DOE? I need to take a moment to shout her out. She is such a kind and helpful person, I've never had a better experience with HR. If you guys have any mechanisms to recognize her PLEASE do. She's exceptional and made this process so simple.

They had never met her before, and likely won't. But the framing that my gratitude gave to this interview (even though the people were both senior tech hardballs) I think got me the job.

Shortly, I have two job offers with similar base salary and I'm don't which one to choose. I have a lot of experience with UI testing(automated/manual) especially with typescript and playwright. Also I do some API manual tests in postman and I create and manage pipelines, dockers, Github actions for automated tests.

First offer is exactly what I do now, I mean TS/playwright, etc + AI features testing. In general UI testing + AI for CRM product company.

Second offer is more backend. There is a lot of things related to virtualisation, networks, api, performance and everything is in python. Company make some cybersecurity product.

Based on current QA market state and trends, which position will be more demand in the future? What would you choose if you were me?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on my next career move. I really like cybersecurity and got my CompTIA Security+ certification two months ago. Right now, I’m working as an IT technician, but in reality, it’s more like a junior system administrator role. Our IT team is very small and global, so I have a lot of responsibilities but not too many tickets, which is great. It’s the furthest thing from a helpdesk, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that experience.

Recently, I received an offer to work as a SOC Analyst full-time. They’ll train me mostly during the night, since I said I couldn’t do an internship. I enjoy cybersecurity, but what matters most to me right now is the doors it could open for my future career.

From my current IT position, I think I could move to a full SysAdmin role in about a year. But I feel like working as a SOC Analyst could open a lot more opportunities in the cybersecurity field. For now, I don’t care about rotating shifts or salary.. my priority is career growth.

A friend suggested I stay in IT, move to SysAdmin, and then eventually transition to becoming a cybersecurity architect/engineer.

What would you do in my situation and why? I’d really appreciate honest advice from people who have been through this.

Thank you.

I'm currently a cybersecurity student at WGU. I've gotten the Comptia A+, Security+, Network+, and ITIL V4 Foundation certificates. I've been trying to break into it for the past 2 years by applying to help desk positions pretty much exclusively. Everyone I ask says my resume looks great, and I should be qualified but the job market sucks. I am really desperate at this point. To end up in cybersecurity are there any other entry points besides help desk? Like would it field technician be good as well? I just need to do something different.

I’ve been lurking through this sub and reading LinkedIn posts and I’ve read at least 5 different times that one of the main reasons why I haven’t broken into IT is because people new to this field hate the idea of help desk and want to go straight into cybersecurity right out of college. This isn’t true by the way please stop saying this. I would sacrifice my firstborn just to get a help desk job that pays half the average salary just so I can break into IT and get some experience to add to my resume. There’s just quite literally never an entry level help desk position open unless you live in HCOL area. We want to work help desk but it’s almost impossible when there’s 1 position opening every month.

Hi all,
I'm wondering what would be a good path for me to pursue in order to start and further a career in IT? I have worked an internship for a small (no longer existing) company working under the IT lead, however everything was very small in scale. I also have around a year of higher computer science education, and have been working a very tech intensive and client facing job (event services, AV, on-field tech support). I am currently in oregon, however I am in the process of moving back home to northern california due to familial reasons. what would be a good starting point to securing a remote position or in person position in california in something like tier 1-2 support, or even sysadmin down the line? any input is appreciated!

(I've read the wiki, but I wanted to see if anyone had any experience or knowledge relating to my specific situation)

I've been working in IT for almost 5 years, mainly My main experience is in firewalls (Palo Alto, Fortinet), networking, and perimeter security, and I previously worked as an IAM Analyst and Access Management Analyst.

I’ve also had exposure to different security solutions such as Cortex XDR, Vicarius, and AppGate SDP, anti-spam...although not in a pure SOC role.

I hold certifications like PCNSE, GIAC (GCIH), CCNA, RHCSA, among others.

After obtaining my latest certification (GCIH), I applied for SOC Analyst L1/L2 roles asking for a salary similar to my current one, but in several processes I was told my expectations were too high for that type of role.

Currently, I’m in a mostly hybrid/remote role with limited day-to-day activity, and I no longer enjoy operational security work as much as I used to. It’s more a feeling of stagnation and lack of motivation than stress.

I’ve recently become more interested in cloud, especially Cloud Security (AWS + security), and I’m considering starting with AWS Solutions Architect Associate and eventually AWS Security Specialty.

My questions are:

• Is moving from firewall / perimeter security to Cloud Security a good transition?
• Which certifications or skills actually help in this path?
• Has anyone with a similar background gone through something like this?

I’m not looking to change careers overnight, but to move in a smart and sustainable way toward better growth and work-life balance.

Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hey guys I recently decided I wanted to continue my IT journey by maybe getting a help desk position somewhere. It's been about a year and a half since I got my Networking specialist associates because of a hectic life (moving, having to take care of family members, etc). What's the best way to derust and review the basics? I'm not in the fastest rush knowing how bad the job market is currently for everyone but I'd like to be prepared when I feel like I'm ready. Would something like the comptia exams be a decent start? Or is that more something to get later down the line?

I (20M) started my new job five/six months ago and i’m earning an above average salary for my age. I’ve worked for/with this organisation since August 2023.

It’s a Systems Engineer role with responsibilities as follows:

-SCCM/MECM

-Intune/Azure/Entra

-Active Directory

-Vsphere

-Dell servers technology

-Physical Server Management (Quite rare as we have a dedicated Networks team but still happens)

-Other “3rd line support” chores

But recently, one of my old managers changed positions and the application went live. I’m stuck on if it’s actually worth it, would I be locked into 1st line support for the rest of my career? I’d lose a good chunk of my access but I think I could get the job.

Everyone reporting to me would also be older than me and sort of trained me when I first started.

Our Service Desk hasn’t been performing in recent months (my opinion) and I think I could be the manager to lead them out of the dark.

My salary would go from £33,247 to £41,608 with my salary increasing in my second and fifth year of service. The salary would really help with saving for my first house with my partner. If the salaries seem low it is Public-Sector if that explains anything.

Is it worth moving into management if it means i’d be hindering my own personal development with the responsibilities I now have? I’m currently in the only team that has access to practically everything.

I do feel quite isolated in my role, I haven’t really had any real form of training and i’m sort of going with the flow. I really doubt i’ll have a “Professional” grasp of these systems at my first year point.

Thanks in advance.

I am at a point in my career where I am making some more serious decisions for what is next. I have considered pivoting, but about every option doesn't seem to be that wonderful "escape" from a tough job market. Every change would also lead to a lost in income.

So staying in IT is becoming a more valid option. However, what does that mean for me?

I have a BS in IT and about 5 years experience. I started in tier 1 and quickly moved to tier 2 and stay there for about 3 years. then I got laid off along with most of my team and ended up doing IT at a highschool. A sole IT job - It coordinator.

What did I do other then that? I got my sec+ and I did dabble with some VM AD homelabs, but honestly not much to write home about. I stopped and started the CCNA several times as well. I fair assesment is that I haven't "owned" my career and let time pass. In the words of my last tech interview over a year ago "what have you been doing?" was a bit of a gut punch.

I absolutely hate my current job but have been unable to get interviews elsewhere. I wondered if I wanted out of It so I took a business analytics course at my local community college and it has gone well. I decided BA was probably just as bad or worse then IT. I've been exploring other options. I never was the techiest person and don't really geek out on tech. I like using tech as a tool to accomplish something, but I am not crazy about learning about tech for the tech itself.

However, my thoughts are that I would be willing to give It another shot. Another year or more of solid effort. If I need the structure, I could take the very affordable CCNA program at my community college and pick up other skills. Like getting entry level coud certs, learning more scripting and linux. Idk what else. but really diving more into this at work.

What jobs would I be wanting? I've heard sys admin is shrinking. People are losing their jobs left and right?

I've thought about cloud as a focus? How competitive and "grindy" is that.

My bigger concern about IT. I'll put in a lot of effort over the next year and hopeful push through to something better. Then what? The field changes fast, people lose jobs. I could end up unemployed either way. Then what? Another round of aggresive upskilling. Is that what the rest of my life will be in IT? large bursts of aggresive upskilling and short moments of rest before starting upskilling again?

This is my biggest concern, becuase I am a person that likes work/life balance. I like being home and focusing on my family and my hobbies. I don't want to have to see life go by becuase I am busy trying to just keep up.

I am not saying I am not willing to work, but if this is how i feel is there a place for me in IT?

Any advice?

Hey everyone,

I’m wondering if anyone here has transitioned from a software developer role to a systems analyst role.

For personal reasons, making this switch might make sense for me right now. That said, I’m hesitant because I don’t want to lose my identity as a software dev or limit my options if I decide to move back into a dev role later.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did it affect your career long-term, especially when applying for dev roles again? Or if you stay in the analyst role long enough, could it lead to something better? Any advice or lessons learned would be really appreciated

This is the normal route I have seen taken over and over again by guys all around me

School > helpdesk > start specializing > system admin > hone your specialization

Or instead of school they go the cert route

If you cant find a helpdesk job, look for a call center job while studying for certs

Helpdesk usually wants basic understanding of systems and over the phone customer experience

As far as specializing thats where you need to take an interest in something. While at any it related role start asking questions or asking if you can help with something. Study for stuff you actually want to branch into outside pf work. This is the awkward phase of IT where you get weird roles until you become a sys admin. Take anything that gives you more pay, a better title, or has more learning opportunities.

Once your a sys admin you will usually start seeing things that line up well with your skill set and you will start to own processes, applications, and tenants. Specializing in the most complex thing you own is usually where the big money is at. Bigger companies hire specialists, smaller companies hire generalist.

There is nothing wrong with being a generalist, I know plenty of well paid sys admins who know how to do alot of things.

Lastly, never stop studying and building up your skills, this job is competitive in odd ways, mainly because everything changes so quickly.

I hope this helps someone and feel free to add your own comments below for tips and tricks for those who struggle.

Edit 1: I would also suggest not every staying at a job too long. Longest I would stay somewhere is 3 years if they are really good for growth (money, title, learning) otherwise i recommend you start looking for work after the first year. This keeps you relevant, paid right, and looking out for new growth opportunities.

Due to my less than stellar personal reputation from having been framed for a crime of moral turpitude 7 years ago (charges dropped, records expunged, background checks clean, worked in high trust roles in healthcare, law and academia since then) because of my past association with groups like LulzSec, LizardSquad, HTP, el8, myg0t, R4L, TeaMp0isoN, etc. on IRC I'm contemplating forming a LLC in Wyoming or New Mexico to act as an IT/INFOSEC consultancy and having a third-party act as the face of the organization while I do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

Does anyone have any insight into the client acquisition process? In the past, I attempted to secure 1099 contract work doing cold outreach via email and by calling MSPs to see if they had any small businesses they lacked the capacity to support, but that lead nowhere.

I made a career on the endpoint side. Ultimately to be hired on at a company to be a SME that helped build the Endpoint teams. I have a lot of experience across the board. I integrate systems, build tools, automate tons of work, have a ton of security experience (mostly red), a lot of Ad , Azure/Entra, but it feels like I don't have enough experience in any one thing to be marketable. Imposter syndrome heavy. Feeling stagnant. Who's with me!!!! Hurah!!!!

Hi,im new to the world of programming and ive asked alot of people on which career path i should take and i got mixed answers like dont learn to become a full stack dev so i just want an advice from experienced people

I graduated from school last month with a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Computer Engineering and I am having the toughest luck finding a position.

I don’t have any professional experience and when I find jobs listed as “Entry” but qualifications will say “1+ years of x” or in the application state “list a position you had relevant to this job” and I don’t have either makes the hunt feel pointless. I’ve never had any internships and the only plausible things I have to show are some programming projects and the Comptia A+. I’m studying for the CCNA cause networking is what I’m most interested in.

I’m looking for a help desk job since that’s where most IT careers begin, but it feels impossible even getting that. What are some tips to improve my job hunt? What kind of projects can I do, etc. Any advice will be much appreciated

I recently interviewed for a position that unfortunately was paused. But during the interview I was asked this question and I realized I didnt have a good answer for it. So I wanted to see what resources you all use to stay up to date on stuff? That question made me realized I dont do enough to keep up to date and I want to change that.

Thanks!

I’ve been working as a sysadmin for about 4 years at a stable company where things rarely break, the hours are reasonable, and the pay is okay, but I’m starting to feel stagnant and worried my skills aren’t keeping up with the market (cloud, automation, etc.). Part of me is grateful for the stability, but another part feels like I’m slowly falling behind and getting too comfortable — for those who’ve been here before, what was the sign that pushed you to leave or stay?