IT Career Path.. Where have you ended up?
Discussion
Jumped ship to IT/IBM in 1989 after completing a 4-year mechanical engineering apprenticeship at Woolwich Arsenal/MOD (lucky break !).
1989 - 2017 IBM midrange service engineer London/Kent/Auckland NZ/Rochester USA/Brisbane Oz/South west U.K./NW U.K.
Consider myself very fortunate as have lived a charmed life unlike many other streams of IT. Although the constant upskilling element remains - and everyone has been saying AS/400's are on the way out ever since the mid 90's !
Have had to diversify to certain degree (you can't completely avoid Wintel unfortunately) but am now with a 3rd party maintainer and our new(?!) venture into mainframe (Z-series) hardware should keep the interest levels up for just long enough ....
1989 - 2017 IBM midrange service engineer London/Kent/Auckland NZ/Rochester USA/Brisbane Oz/South west U.K./NW U.K.
Consider myself very fortunate as have lived a charmed life unlike many other streams of IT. Although the constant upskilling element remains - and everyone has been saying AS/400's are on the way out ever since the mid 90's !
Have had to diversify to certain degree (you can't completely avoid Wintel unfortunately) but am now with a 3rd party maintainer and our new(?!) venture into mainframe (Z-series) hardware should keep the interest levels up for just long enough ....
Started as a hardware techie for Mastercare (PC World) in 1994, jacked it in after 3 months due to it being a crap job and been contracting ever since. From desktop support to architect with everything inbetween, most of the time spent on government or secure contracts. Used to specialise in email solutions in the late 90's - 2000's, currently working on DC migrations / integration stuff and merging a couple of large companies IT together. Being a contractor I haven't had a career path, just chased the £ just ended up doing more senior roles and moving away from support stuff.
Dropped out of Uni mid-80s.
Did a stint as a contract draughtsman - ink on film, none of this CAD stuff.
Started contract programming, mainly in the engineering world.
Spent 2 years as a technician at a tertiary institution, so I could help build a transcontinental solar race car.
And to get paid holidays, sick leave, and regular pay every fortnight.
Back to contracting for a few years, mainly small companies. I was part of a loose network of architects & coders working together.
Went permanent with one client for a few years, writing machine control software.
Joined a small software dev & contracting co.
Then another.
Did some contract work for finance and insurance, but found it a bit uninspiring.
Moved to a small coastal town 7 hours drive from the nearest major city, and did contract software development remotely. Did a fair bit of AS400 work. Stayed there nearly 10 years.
Came back to the big smoke, re-hired by a previous employer, a tiny software dev. company. Still designing & coding, on widows this time. Stayed there a few years.
The machine control company wanted me back, so I went there for a couple of years, then left when I didn't see eye to eye with the new owners. Has some fun programming HC12 micros there.
Contract work again for a few years, this time factory automation and instrumentation.
The new new owners of the machine control company tracked me down and I went back there, contract for 12 months but then permanent.
I'm still there.
I run R&D on the software side, but still get to do a lot of coding, including embedded systems.
I've written systems to control millions of dollars, millions of records, and millions of watts. The megawatt controllers are the most fun IMO.
Did a stint as a contract draughtsman - ink on film, none of this CAD stuff.
Started contract programming, mainly in the engineering world.
Spent 2 years as a technician at a tertiary institution, so I could help build a transcontinental solar race car.
And to get paid holidays, sick leave, and regular pay every fortnight.
Back to contracting for a few years, mainly small companies. I was part of a loose network of architects & coders working together.
Went permanent with one client for a few years, writing machine control software.
Joined a small software dev & contracting co.
Then another.
Did some contract work for finance and insurance, but found it a bit uninspiring.
Moved to a small coastal town 7 hours drive from the nearest major city, and did contract software development remotely. Did a fair bit of AS400 work. Stayed there nearly 10 years.
Came back to the big smoke, re-hired by a previous employer, a tiny software dev. company. Still designing & coding, on widows this time. Stayed there a few years.
The machine control company wanted me back, so I went there for a couple of years, then left when I didn't see eye to eye with the new owners. Has some fun programming HC12 micros there.
Contract work again for a few years, this time factory automation and instrumentation.
The new new owners of the machine control company tracked me down and I went back there, contract for 12 months but then permanent.
I'm still there.
I run R&D on the software side, but still get to do a lot of coding, including embedded systems.
I've written systems to control millions of dollars, millions of records, and millions of watts. The megawatt controllers are the most fun IMO.
Started in 1999 straight from school as modern apprentice.
1999-2004 - implementation consultant
2004-2005 - year off to travel with the now wife
2005-2013 - Pre sales consultant at a few companies
2013-2016 - Pre Sales Manager - moved to USA
2016 onwards - VP of Sales Engineering in Silicon Valley.
Loved pretty much every minute, and love selling.. but want the stay on the technical side.
1999-2004 - implementation consultant
2004-2005 - year off to travel with the now wife
2005-2013 - Pre sales consultant at a few companies
2013-2016 - Pre Sales Manager - moved to USA
2016 onwards - VP of Sales Engineering in Silicon Valley.
Loved pretty much every minute, and love selling.. but want the stay on the technical side.
haventahybrid said:
Olivera said:
A rough timeline:
B.Sc. Computer Science
Worked for a few startups (dot com boom)
M.Sc. Computer Science
US Investment Bank
Reuters (contract dev)
UK Bank (contract dev)
Getting a little bored of IT development now (aged 38), so considering either a career change and/or semi-retirement.
I think that rough timeline translates to ££££. Backed up by the fact that at 38 you are in the enviable position of considering retirement. I am sure that being in the right place at the right time helped i.e. dot com boom but the fact you went back to do your MSc shows you have not taken anything for granted. Good man!B.Sc. Computer Science
Worked for a few startups (dot com boom)
M.Sc. Computer Science
US Investment Bank
Reuters (contract dev)
UK Bank (contract dev)
Getting a little bored of IT development now (aged 38), so considering either a career change and/or semi-retirement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/fin...
In a nutshell...
After finishing my A levels...
1st Line Support Analyst supporting finance software
1st line/Shift Analyst doing general desktop support
General IT bod at a law firm
2nd line / Field Engineer at an Insurance firm, then moved into an entry level IT Project management role at the same firm
IT Project Manager for a small MSP
IT Project Manager at an Insurance firm
After finishing my A levels...
1st Line Support Analyst supporting finance software
1st line/Shift Analyst doing general desktop support
General IT bod at a law firm
2nd line / Field Engineer at an Insurance firm, then moved into an entry level IT Project management role at the same firm
IT Project Manager for a small MSP
IT Project Manager at an Insurance firm
A slightly different view; I work for a VAR and primarily enjoy the network storage side of things - mostly the newer hybrid/AF vendors. BCDR has been a big topic lately so I've been a lot more involved in working with customers from a security and BC aspect. I started back in 2002/3 for about a year before being sidetracked into new media for 7 years but came back to IT in 2012 and have worked for the same reseller for the last 5 years.
I.T. is a huge field with many different specialisms and career paths in the same way that healthcare spans hospital orderlies to pharmaceutical sales.
I've never had a career plan and have just taken opportunities as they've arisen. My path was BSc Physics > data punching for Bloomberg > Bond + FX mkt analysis on a trading desk for a couple of banks > software dev mgr for a software house > financial trading system consultant > contractor > CTO/quant for a hedge fund > contractor > developer for an investment bank.
I enjoy development in a team working directly with users. The way we work, architect, BA, project manager are not roles; they're activities. This reduces the amount of rigid bureaucratic clutter quite a bit and lets us concentrate on the core tasks.
Having a mix of skills so you can act as a bridge between technology and business has proved very useful.
I've never had a career plan and have just taken opportunities as they've arisen. My path was BSc Physics > data punching for Bloomberg > Bond + FX mkt analysis on a trading desk for a couple of banks > software dev mgr for a software house > financial trading system consultant > contractor > CTO/quant for a hedge fund > contractor > developer for an investment bank.
I enjoy development in a team working directly with users. The way we work, architect, BA, project manager are not roles; they're activities. This reduces the amount of rigid bureaucratic clutter quite a bit and lets us concentrate on the core tasks.
Having a mix of skills so you can act as a bridge between technology and business has proved very useful.
Started work in 1980 at the Post Office.
First computers arrived in the office in 1981. Thermal paper terminals and 300 baud dialup to IBM mainframe.
1982 CASU CPM machines with 8' drives delivered
Moved into full time IT support in 1984 general support at BT Comms and Computing (IBM, ICL, bespoke LAN's, 3270 and C03 comms).
Left BT 1988-94 Network Manager in the City and at a large PC vendor
1994-2000 Network Contracting (CCIE along the way) up to Director level at large ISP.
2000-2017 Network Consultancy (added JNCIE) at Partner/Resellers mainly for ISP's
Looking forward to retiring but still enjoy the new technology, SDN, NFV, Cloud etc
First computers arrived in the office in 1981. Thermal paper terminals and 300 baud dialup to IBM mainframe.
1982 CASU CPM machines with 8' drives delivered
Moved into full time IT support in 1984 general support at BT Comms and Computing (IBM, ICL, bespoke LAN's, 3270 and C03 comms).
Left BT 1988-94 Network Manager in the City and at a large PC vendor
1994-2000 Network Contracting (CCIE along the way) up to Director level at large ISP.
2000-2017 Network Consultancy (added JNCIE) at Partner/Resellers mainly for ISP's
Looking forward to retiring but still enjoy the new technology, SDN, NFV, Cloud etc
Edited by ffc on Thursday 20th July 23:46
Mech Eng Degree
Investment Bank Desktop support
Retail Bank Grad Scheme - Networks
Retail Bank International Networks (WAN)
Retail Bank propriety hardware testing
Retail Bank infrastructure DC design
Investment Bank external services design
Investment Bank low-latency design
Market Data provider ultra low-latency design
Market Data ultra low-latency RF architect/consultant + side gigs
Have a decent salary, spend 10/15hrs week study/research currently have CCIE, CCDE, JNCIE & CCNP Sec.
Slightly jaded thou : )
Investment Bank Desktop support
Retail Bank Grad Scheme - Networks
Retail Bank International Networks (WAN)
Retail Bank propriety hardware testing
Retail Bank infrastructure DC design
Investment Bank external services design
Investment Bank low-latency design
Market Data provider ultra low-latency design
Market Data ultra low-latency RF architect/consultant + side gigs
Have a decent salary, spend 10/15hrs week study/research currently have CCIE, CCDE, JNCIE & CCNP Sec.
Slightly jaded thou : )
Edited by Brother D on Friday 21st July 04:48
ReaperCushions said:
Started in 1999 straight from school as modern apprentice.
1999-2004 - implementation consultant
2004-2005 - year off to travel with the now wife
2005-2013 - Pre sales consultant at a few companies
2013-2016 - Pre Sales Manager - moved to USA
2016 onwards - VP of Sales Engineering in Silicon Valley.
Loved pretty much every minute, and love selling.. but want the stay on the technical side.
What is Sales Engineering?1999-2004 - implementation consultant
2004-2005 - year off to travel with the now wife
2005-2013 - Pre sales consultant at a few companies
2013-2016 - Pre Sales Manager - moved to USA
2016 onwards - VP of Sales Engineering in Silicon Valley.
Loved pretty much every minute, and love selling.. but want the stay on the technical side.
1985-1987 A level in Computer Science
1988 to 1993 Degree in Computer Science..... including 1991 - Computer graphics writing in C on Dec Ultix at the Atomic Energy Authority.
1993 - Employed by IBM (which became Xyratex) as disk drive tester (physical, protocol, command layer & on SCSI, SSA and eventually Fibre channel disks). Also did pre/post sales support for storage test equipment sold by Xyratex and participation in various standards bodies around the protocol(s).
1997 - Joined bracknell based consultancy performing load testing using Mercury Interactive software (Wwinrunner, Loadrunner) at companies like Orange, Shell. Hated it.
1998 - Decided to go back to writing storage software for a video editing company called Lightworks (which got absorbed by Tektronix). Got made redudant after 10 months.
1999 - Joined Cable and Wireless and worked for them on HFC networks for the digital TV roll out. IP, transmission, broadcast.
2000- Joined interactive digital TV gaming company to do integrations of their games on various broadcasters. By this point it was unix, networking, firewalls, application integration, blaa blaa. Got made redundant after 4 years.
2004 - Sat on my arse for 6 months.
2005 - Joined a bank doing Unix Platform support which I did as a permie for 4 years then a sequence of 1/2 year contracts (Data Centre moves and migrations, bits of Unix Engineering, bits of platform integration, wielding the big stick against under delivering engineering groups)
2012 - Began working with Splunk (data science/big data technology). Have worked at Banks, hedge funds and media companies doing this on contract since and it seems to be in demand so i'm sticking with this for now.
I am what you would probably call an integrator - I make distributed systems work properly.
I started fiddling with computers in 1981 and though I was numerate and could do Sciences I was only ever *really* interested in computers.
36 years later I'm still at it
1988 to 1993 Degree in Computer Science..... including 1991 - Computer graphics writing in C on Dec Ultix at the Atomic Energy Authority.
1993 - Employed by IBM (which became Xyratex) as disk drive tester (physical, protocol, command layer & on SCSI, SSA and eventually Fibre channel disks). Also did pre/post sales support for storage test equipment sold by Xyratex and participation in various standards bodies around the protocol(s).
1997 - Joined bracknell based consultancy performing load testing using Mercury Interactive software (Wwinrunner, Loadrunner) at companies like Orange, Shell. Hated it.
1998 - Decided to go back to writing storage software for a video editing company called Lightworks (which got absorbed by Tektronix). Got made redudant after 10 months.
1999 - Joined Cable and Wireless and worked for them on HFC networks for the digital TV roll out. IP, transmission, broadcast.
2000- Joined interactive digital TV gaming company to do integrations of their games on various broadcasters. By this point it was unix, networking, firewalls, application integration, blaa blaa. Got made redundant after 4 years.
2004 - Sat on my arse for 6 months.
2005 - Joined a bank doing Unix Platform support which I did as a permie for 4 years then a sequence of 1/2 year contracts (Data Centre moves and migrations, bits of Unix Engineering, bits of platform integration, wielding the big stick against under delivering engineering groups)
2012 - Began working with Splunk (data science/big data technology). Have worked at Banks, hedge funds and media companies doing this on contract since and it seems to be in demand so i'm sticking with this for now.
I am what you would probably call an integrator - I make distributed systems work properly.
I started fiddling with computers in 1981 and though I was numerate and could do Sciences I was only ever *really* interested in computers.
36 years later I'm still at it
XJ75 said:
I work in investment banking and have changed between being a developer and a BA since I graduated in 2007.
I enjoy coding but lost interest in keeping up with latest technologies so I'm now contracting as a front office BA.
I would have to get pretty senior as a permanent employee to earn an equivalent income so I don't intend to stop contracting any time soon unless I got a very generous offer.
Or until HMRC catch-up with you is your operating outside.. you got to be part and parcel being a front office BA.I enjoy coding but lost interest in keeping up with latest technologies so I'm now contracting as a front office BA.
I would have to get pretty senior as a permanent employee to earn an equivalent income so I don't intend to stop contracting any time soon unless I got a very generous offer.
PostHeads123 said:
XJ75 said:
I work in investment banking and have changed between being a developer and a BA since I graduated in 2007.
I enjoy coding but lost interest in keeping up with latest technologies so I'm now contracting as a front office BA.
I would have to get pretty senior as a permanent employee to earn an equivalent income so I don't intend to stop contracting any time soon unless I got a very generous offer.
Or until HMRC catch-up with you is your operating outside.. you got to be part and parcel being a front office BA.I enjoy coding but lost interest in keeping up with latest technologies so I'm now contracting as a front office BA.
I would have to get pretty senior as a permanent employee to earn an equivalent income so I don't intend to stop contracting any time soon unless I got a very generous offer.
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