Tell me about IT careers

[teflondog]

After I graduated college, I got my foot in the door by working in Helpdesk at a big Silicon Valley company. It was the most miserable time of my life. Good thing I only had to do it for a couple years before landing another opportunity in a different field.

[MikeyMike_510]

I worked for an ediscovery firm for 4.5 years. Started out as help desk but moved onto being a sys admin. Never went to college. Left the company and basically took on a job as local IT for my site. I now work for a large manufacturing company with over six figure salary with no degree. Keep in mind though I have a good amount of experience in networking, servers, storage, and some SQL.

[MikeyMike_510]

So you plan on competing against all of the other IT applicants (who will be coming in with certifications and probably a few years experience) just how? Do you think data center jobs are just something people "walk in" to?

I'm guessing that you either have no clue or are particularly dismissive of the skill and experience it takes to work at that level of IT..

Anyways, be sure to let us know how this new career works out!

I had a security guard at GoGrid (DataPipe now RackSpace) who I used to talk to, couple years later he works in the Datacenter. He was basically running cables but moved up to learn more infrastructure. This was a colo too, so multiple customers.

[MikeyMike_510]

Good advice, and true about Linux based appliances and software. I occasionally need to do things which are either a pain or impossible to do via the stock shell or GUI, so I connect directly to the Linux shell and get it done. Example, try creating more than one VMFS datastore on a single LUN in vCenter or ESXi. Can't be done. BUT, it CAN be done (though it's not officially supported by VMware) via parted and vmkfstools. Of course that takes Linux knowledge. It's also much easier to script and automate your own tasks such as custom backup routines if you know Linux well. I've also had to backdoor stuff in OPNSense which is a Linux based firewall appliance.

Bottom line, Linux knowledge is an invaluable skill to have and well worth learning as it's extremely versatile.

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Yup, Linux is also available in Azure in AWS. At least know the basics. I had to learn the basics as a sys admin since I was responsible for 1 server that I was hosting for one of the top law firms in the U.S. Keep in mind also, startup companies may resort to Linux due to licensing.

[MikeyMike_510]

Not necessarily. You still need techs for even the hosted platforms on-prem. Have you seen how many DC's Azure has operating?

What about co-location data-centers? Plenty of them here in the bay area.

[sigstroker]

Just realize that sys admins seldom work just 9 to 5. They often have to work off-hours, staying late and on weekends, so they don't disrupt the users. You might also have to be on-call after hours at times. Expect interview questions about your willingness to do so.

[Lonestargrizzly]

The job market in Los Angeles is pretty competitive since it is a metro area. My organization has done several recruitments in the past year due to a sudden turnover. In Riverside, getting solid applicants has been difficult for us because most IT skilled workers are in LA or OC. Being a state employer, we also need to compete with those areas for those few skilled workers in our region because they are willing to commute for the higher wages in private sector.

That being said, what I feel are the in-demand IT fields are:

• Dev-Ops
• Security/Security Dev-Ops
• Big Data Analytics / Machine Learning

Networking is always going to be in-demand because our entire lifeblood of IT involves the network connectivity. But that market is saturated with workers.

Dev-Ops is pretty much replacing what you would call the traditional systems administrator. We still need people who can administer server infrastructure, but organizations (at least medium and up to large enterprise) have moved to very agile and automated methods of code and infrastructure deployment. Much of that skillset is desirable since it helps with managing cloud infrastructure. You probably heard of the term "Infrastructure as Code". Well Dev-Ops is where all that rooted from.

I'm not saying Big Data / Machine Learning (sometimes referred to as AI) is a huge employment opportunity in terms of the numbers of available positions. But a lot of the automation that companies are trying to incorporate into their products and or infrastructure relies on ML. We're seeing security companies offsetting SOC analysts with ML.

Then of course, Information Security (which is what I am currently in) is in-demand and will be for quite sometime. You have lots to choose from in this sector, whether it's Sec-Ops, red-teaming, blue-teaming, governance-risk-compliance, etc. GRCA work can be viewed as very mundane and isn't overly technical, but is one area that will be overlooked by those seeking employment in the IT arena and can be a nice spot to land in given that this job field won't be saturated with qualified workers.

Help Desk / Desktop support is still a valid entry-level position, but you need to be very proactive to expand your skillset and experience (e.g. participate in enterprise-level projects) so that you aren't stagnating in a Help Desk / Desktop Support position. If you go with Help Desk, do so in an organization or company that helps foster growth and provides lateral movements within the IT organization.

If you wanted to get into red teaming, what is the standard route?
What about blue teaming?

[MikeyMike_510]

Just realize that sys admins seldom work just 9 to 5. They often have to work off-hours, staying late and on weekends, so they don't disrupt the users. You might also have to be on-call after hours at times. Expect interview questions about your willingness to do so.

I can relate, there are times where I have worked 14 hours straight and weekends because some user purged something or the SAN ran out of space, etc. That's how I ended up learning and worked my way up.

[ibanezfoo]

Just realize that sys admins seldom work just 9 to 5. They often have to work off-hours, staying late and on weekends, so they don't disrupt the users. You might also have to be on-call after hours at times. Expect interview questions about your willingness to do so.

Thats a good point. It depends on your company but if I work after hours a lot of times I'll come in later the next day just to balance it out. I'm on salary so I don't get paid for OT. I wouldn't stay at a job where you were expected to come in bright and early and then tons of after hours work. Every once in a while is fine, for big infrastructure upgrades and such, but not all the time. Find a company that recognizes the importance of family. The last company I worked for I put in crazy hours, and often. 7am -> 3am sometimes. But, at that company I was the highest paid hourly employee. They kept fighting to put me on salary so they could take advantage of me. I always refused. If I am working I am getting paid. I'm not working 80 hours for a 40 hour paycheck.

That right there is why I will do my best to never work for a big tech company that just grinds you up and spits you out or a consultant company which just treats you like a spreadsheet number. Most of our IT team now went through the grinder at Dell, and one at Google.

[ocabj]

If you wanted to get into red teaming, what is the standard route?
What about blue teaming?

Either side you need to know how to 'hack' in the actual context of computer intrusion: know how to recon, scan for vulnerabilities, leverage vulnerabilities for exploit, and actually exploit. You definitely need to understand how to program (not just code) because red teaming really goes deep into the technical in terms of exploit writing (e.g. stack smashing).

A solid foundation in actual computer science is pretty important for that (e.g. data structures, algorithms, automata) combined with practical knowledge (e.g. Operating Systems design + systems administration, networking).

I lost an analyst a couple years ago who was in my Security Operations team. He left to work on a red team for a big corp. He had a BS in CS and was doing web dev at another company before he moved over to Info Sec in my organization, and during that time he was doing things off hours to improve his offensive skill set (OSCP cert, etc).

Personally, I think it is handy to have a solid enterprise level systems administration background to be red or blue team since you have to know what will or could exist in a computing environment so you know how and what to recon (including the personnel) and how to attack (or defend) those assets.

I think a lot of people fake their red teaming skills using canned tools (e.g. Kali Linux, metasploit, scripts written by others). I'm not saying those tools aren't good (we use them in our org to in-house pentest), but I've seen self-professed red team professionals that use these tools in what I would call a "script-kiddie" fashion with no true sense security assessment.

[automaton1]

EE major.

You mentioned you're an EE, and that you're looking to make more money now, however, if you're willing to suffer more now to enjoy later consider this: Since you already have an interest in technology, have you considered double majoring in EE/CS? It would be a grueling process, and would likely take you longer, but if you survive that you'll be gritty as hell and poised to rake in the dollars. Having both the hardware and software expertise is super valuable for designing embedded devices, chip design, graphics etc and would open up doors to top-paying venues for you virtually anywhere. If you're putting full-time effort into your studies, you can max out on federal subsidized student loans. Once you finish and get a real job you should be able to pay it off rapidly.

[sigstroker]

Thats a good point. It depends on your company but if I work after hours a lot of times I'll come in later the next day just to balance it out. I'm on salary so I don't get paid for OT. I wouldn't stay at a job where you were expected to come in bright and early and then tons of after hours work. Every once in a while is fine, for big infrastructure upgrades and such, but not all the time. Find a company that recognizes the importance of family. The last company I worked for I put in crazy hours, and often. 7am -> 3am sometimes. But, at that company I was the highest paid hourly employee. They kept fighting to put me on salary so they could take advantage of me. I always refused. If I am working I am getting paid. I'm not working 80 hours for a 40 hour paycheck.

That right there is why I will do my best to never work for a big tech company that just grinds you up and spits you out or a consultant company which just treats you like a spreadsheet number. Most of our IT team now went through the grinder at Dell, and one at Google.

I wanted to mention the hours because someone coming in from outside the IT world might not have any idea. If you're the type of person where the wife wants you home every night at 6 or you LOVE to go clubbing every Friday night, this may not be the best career for you. There's a reason the field is filled with geeks.

As for working in Big Tech, sometimes that's better because there are more people in your department to spread the load on. At the interview it's best if you can talk to one or two current employees and ask them a little about working there.

[mend0k]

@op, do your research on the different paths/specialization and figure out which suits your personality best. I started as support/admin but soon will be moving into a full dev role as its more enjoyable to me.

Also depending on what you want/how fast you want to learn/how stressed you want to be should dictate if you want to work for a big company or a small one.


I got into a small one where I was basically the only real "IT" guy as my boss and my other co-worker were software engineers. And basically all issues/non-major decisions fell to me from the get go (support, administering, managing, keeping everything up to date, deployment etc...). And though I was able to learn in abundance due to this, I had no one to really turn to when I was "stuck". Brute force and googling saved me countless of times.

On the other side my friend was employed by a healthcare company and was "eased" into things more so and had people to turn to when he was stuck.

[MrFancyPants]

Just realize that sys admins seldom work just 9 to 5. They often have to work off-hours, staying late and on weekends, so they don't disrupt the users. You might also have to be on-call after hours at times. Expect interview questions about your willingness to do so.

I wouldn't say it's often. Really just depends on where you work. I've been a sys admin for almost 8 years now, worked at 5 companies during that time, and with all of them after hours work has been very minimal, like the number of times I've had to work after hours at each one can be counted on one hand. Plus, a majority of sys admin tasks can be done remotely, so even if you do have to work after hours on something, it's usually possible to do it from the comfort of home.

The flip side is I have a ridiculous amount of flexibility with my schedule. I can pretty much show up when I want and leave when I want. There's some amount of "give" as an IT professional, but if you find a good company to work for, there's a whole lot of "take" you can take advantage of, especially once you get to the top of the food chain and are able to delegate most of the crap work.

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[InFamous20]