Seat68 Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 Spot on @Davkaus If you want money then think of software Testing, certainly pays more than mid twenties, The real money is in development, learn a popular programming language, see what employers want and invest time learning it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted October 31, 2016 Author Share Posted October 31, 2016 (edited) Cheers for responding folks. Really is appreciated. @choffer - I'm 28! so my thinking was that I am nearly 30 and I still haven't 'made it'. @Seat68/ @choffer / @Davkaus - It would be awesome to hear about your IT careers and how you started off and where you are now etc. To give a bit more of an overview of what I'm doing at the moment, I am providing support on various pieces of software designed to be used by recruitment companies. Some are more complex than others! So there is a bit of SQL in there for example and writing some other scripts specific to the software. It's 3rd level stuff in a way, we only have 2 teams in structure. So if the service desk cannot solve an issue, depending on whether it is IT or application based they will then escalate it onto us to resolve. So I am still learning in this role as only been in it for a few months. But, because I'm not Service Desk anymore im not getting exposure to the IT stuff, such as fixing printer issues, and telephony etc etc.... Edited October 31, 2016 by Tayls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 While I don't work in IT, I can offer advice about the age thing. When I was 26/27 I was earning £18k per year in a job going nowhere. I knuckled down, chose the path I wanted and 10 years later, things are very much different for me. You've still got over 30 years of working ahead of you and be honest your current salary isn't woeful, its about the national average and you're still reasonably young and in the early stages of your career. I'm 38 next year and may consider a change in direction in my working career, maybe moving into a more specialist role, which will probably have a negative impact on my salary in the short term but should open up a load more doors long term. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted October 31, 2016 Author Share Posted October 31, 2016 16 minutes ago, Xela said: While I don't work in IT, I can offer advice about the age thing. When I was 26/27 I was earning £18k per year in a job going nowhere. I knuckled down, chose the path I wanted and 10 years later, things are very much different for me. You've still got over 30 years of working ahead of you and be honest your current salary isn't woeful, its about the national average and you're still reasonably young and in the early stages of your career. I'm 38 next year and may consider a change in direction in my working career, maybe moving into a more specialist role, which will probably have a negative impact on my salary in the short term but should open up a load more doors long term. Cheers @Xela - what is it you do now just out of interest? Good to hear that it all worked out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 I changed career at 35 from office admin to software tester which I have been doing for 11 years. Financially i have done well with it increasing pretty well. I am changing job in the next few months, a similar field but more technical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 1 minute ago, Tayls said: Cheers @Xela - what is it you do now just out of interest? Good to hear that it all worked out! I work in corporate banking. Its been good to me but I do put the graft in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted October 31, 2016 Author Share Posted October 31, 2016 20 minutes ago, Seat68 said: I changed career at 35 from office admin to software tester which I have been doing for 11 years. Financially i have done well with it increasing pretty well. I am changing job in the next few months, a similar field but more technical. Big switch! How did you get into that from your previous role? Congrats on the new role as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 I spoke to a department head in capgemini telford, the company I worked for and asked them how I would get over into that dept. They essentially took a punt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 (edited) Ah that makes sense, with it being Capgemini I'm surprised they didn't put you in charge, not knowing what you're doing seems to be a job requirement. Sorry, couldn't resist. Which kind of role are you moving in to? I've been doing system testing for a couple of years, after jumping around from apps management and then through a couple of sysadmin roles. There's something satisfying about finding a bunch of major problems, and it being someone else's problem to fix the bloody things. I'm weighing up automation vs performance testing for my next move. Edited October 31, 2016 by Davkaus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 A config role, essentially gamekeeper turned poacher, will be delivering to my former team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 I have been in the Army for over 15 years now, but last month, I went through a pivotal moment. I went to see a mate in another department to wish him well, as it was his last day. I asked him what he was going to do, and he had landed a job with Laerdal. He gets a company car, free travel, and a very nice salary. That afternoon, I was curious about jobs that were available "out there". Within 2 minutes, I got quite depressed. There are hundreds of jobs available, paying good wages, weekends off, and not having to deal with the extra crap that comes with the military life, which made me ask " What the hell am I doing here?". So now, wheels are in motion. I am planning to leave mid next year. My life of obligated sycophancy is coming to an end, and I welcome it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted November 3, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 3, 2016 On 31/10/2016 at 18:27, Tayls said: @choffer - I'm 28! so my thinking was that I am nearly 30 and I still haven't 'made it'. @Seat68/ @choffer / @Davkaus - It would be awesome to hear about your IT careers and how you started off and where you are now etc. Apologies for miscalculating your age, old chap. I fell into IT. I entered a short-term contract with an engineering (literally nuts and bolts) start-up just to provide a bit of admin support when I left University. My big advantage at the time was that I'd seen a computer before so I quickly became the go-to guy when anyone had problems turning on the magic box on their desk. I quickly put myself forward to be part of the ERP implementation project and before I knew it, I was responsible for all their IT (managing an outsourced IT service provision). I got my then boss to send me on a MCSE course and that gave me a fair grounding. I realised that I was never going to enjoy the more technical hands-on stuff so focussed my attention on the strategic side of things - change management, BPM, systems implementations. For me it was just a case of right time, right place and I was lucky that I found I had an aptitude for technology that had been untapped until that point. I think my career path is different to the direction of yours though. I always wanted to be business-facing and provide solutions. What's fulfilling for me is engaging with groups of people to ascertain the problem then come up with an answer. I've spent the 20 years since then choosing my job moves very carefully and have walked away from lots of job offers where they wanted me to be sysadmin and tech support. Those jobs could have offered me more money and more prospects but I know where my strengths are and I've been fortunate in that every move I've made has added to my experience and the scope of my roles. I did this by being patient, taking at least a couple of fairly lengthy spells out of work and waiting for the right opportunity to come along. At the risk of coming off as boasting (but you did ask), I'm now Head of IT for a group of companies in the financial services industry. My job consists of line managing support, dev and digital teams and mostly sees me sitting in meetings all day. I find it largely frustrating but until I can find a job that pays as much for doing a lot less, I'm content that it pays the mortgage and leaves enough for the fun tickets too. As far as how this relates to your position, I'd reiterate my earlier advice. Take your time, work out what you want to be doing in the next 5, 10 and 20 years and go after it but be prepared to work hard for it (not many people get it handed on a plate) and be discerning when it comes to decision making. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvfcTheObsession Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 Don't worry about whether you have 'made it' by a certain age or not, or feel down about how much you are earning just because you have friends or colleagues earning more than you. It's always worth thinking long-term, never give up on a dream because of the time it will take to accomplish it, the time will pass anyway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted November 6, 2016 Share Posted November 6, 2016 (edited) On 10/31/2016 at 18:27, Tayls said: Cheers for responding folks. Really is appreciated. @choffer - I'm 28! so my thinking was that I am nearly 30 and I still haven't 'made it'. @Seat68/ @choffer / @Davkaus - It would be awesome to hear about your IT careers and how you started off and where you are now etc. To give a bit more of an overview of what I'm doing at the moment, I am providing support on various pieces of software designed to be used by recruitment companies. Some are more complex than others! So there is a bit of SQL in there for example and writing some other scripts specific to the software. It's 3rd level stuff in a way, we only have 2 teams in structure. So if the service desk cannot solve an issue, depending on whether it is IT or application based they will then escalate it onto us to resolve. So I am still learning in this role as only been in it for a few months. But, because I'm not Service Desk anymore im not getting exposure to the IT stuff, such as fixing printer issues, and telephony etc etc.... I'm no expert in IT but do work in 'data' and I'd say with your degree targeting database design/development could be a decent move. You can earn decent money with those skills in particular SQL, Hadoop/Hive etc. Edited November 6, 2016 by Dr_Pangloss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted November 6, 2016 Share Posted November 6, 2016 (edited) On 10/30/2016 at 21:31, Tayls said: Getting a little bit worried about career stuff at the moment. Essentially I switched careers at the age of 26 from Recruitment to IT two years ago. I'm still studying for my degree in IT & Computing to give me exposure to others areas and to get some extra quals under my belt. I have since obtained my ITIL Foundation cert. I was in a first line role for 10months before being given the change to go on secondment to an Application support role which I have been doing for a few months. When did you get ITIL foundation? I want to do it but it's so expensive. I got off service desk a month ago and now am in Service Management and absolutely love it. It's hard work but so rewarding. There's something rewarding about a router going down in Nigeria, you being the one to spot it and mobilise the teams in fixing it. Then chasing them if they aren't doing it fast enough, and implementing new processes to make next time smoother. Plenty of money in IT Service management if you want to go down that road. I'm hoping my next move is to Service Delivery Manager and I can start earning some decent money. Edited November 6, 2016 by StefanAVFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted November 6, 2016 Author Share Posted November 6, 2016 (edited) 25 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said: When did you get ITIL foundation? I want to do it but it's so expensive. I got off service desk a month ago and now am in Service Management and absolutely love it. It's hard work but so rewarding. There's something rewarding about a router going down in Nigeria, you being the one to spot it and mobilise the teams in fixing it. Then chasing them if they aren't doing it fast enough, and implementing new processes to make next time smoother. Plenty of money in IT Service management if you want to go down that road. I'm hoping my next move is to Service Delivery Manager and I can start earning some decent money. I got my ITIL last month. Only took 6 weeks of self study and the exam was paid for by work - we are moving into an ITIL environment and as such they want all staff to have it. All I used was an axelos book provided by work and that was it. Just read every night and wrote stuff down. Good stuff - glad you are enjoying the new role man! What other quals have you got that helped? Edited November 6, 2016 by Tayls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted November 6, 2016 Share Posted November 6, 2016 Just now, Tayls said: Good stuff - glad you are enjoying the new role man! What other quals have you got that helped? None, worked my way up through service desk. Learnt everything about service management for the new role (mostly incident management and change management) while on the desk and I did an unofficial ITIL foundation within my old role. I reckon I could just do the exam without the course now because I did it all in this unofficial course. I might take a step up through desk management back in Poland but being an SDM is the medium term goal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted November 7, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 7, 2016 Is ITIL still a requirement in big business? I did my practitioner about 8 years ago and I can honestly say it hasn't benefitted my job(s) since. Actually, that might not be true - it might have allowed me to BS about it to get my foot in the door on a couple of roles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 Just now, choffer said: Is ITIL still a requirement in big business? I did my practitioner about 8 years ago and I can honestly say it hasn't benefitted my job(s) since. Actually, that might not be true - it might have allowed me to BS about it to get my foot in the door on a couple of roles. I found the course I did pretty useful, but really only to do with incident management. Everything else I've learnt within Service Management is from my previous experiences and roles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted November 7, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 7, 2016 Just now, StefanAVFC said: I found the course I did pretty useful, but really only to do with incident management. Everything else I've learnt within Service Management is from my previous experiences and roles. I think the thing with ITIL is that it doesn't scale down very well. Difficult to implement properly when you are most of the defined roles within your one job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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