Where does my career go from here? [IT]
Discussion
Evening folks,
Looking to sound off and hopefully get some advice.
My history is as follows:
Education:
Middle of the road GCSEs at a good school
Distinction grade in an IT practicioner BTEC
A 1st Class BSc with Honours Computer Security and Digital Forensics
Just took the ITIL Foundation exam- certain I've got it but don't get preliminary result until Monday and certificate a few weeks later.
Work (oldest to newest) :
A year out for work placement during my degree as an IT Technician in a secondary comprehensive - mostly 1st/2nd/3rd line support, desktop/asset procurement and management, AV support and some project work. Left this as it was always going to be a year only (though the headteacher elected to extend my period a further month).
2 years as an IT support engineer at a mid sized charity (the last 9 months of that under the title of senior engineer, not a promotion as such, more differentiated as the department grew). Similar tasks to the previous role but with additional responsibility for client configuration/security, telephony and had more involvement in strategic projects. Biggest achievement in this role was being part of the information security management system implementation group, including delivering information security training to ~600 non-technical staff all over the UK.
6 months and counting working on the service management team at a nationally known fintech company. Bit of a departure and definitely the "next level". Responsibility in this role is for various ITSM processes. I'm primarily responsible for business continuity, asset management, reporting and access management. Also due to the current volume of work and employee absence, I'm heavily involved in incident and problem management. I and others have noticed huge improvement from myself over the last 6 months in my ability to handle incidents and the problem management process.
Unfortunately, I'm getting a tad bored in this role as it seems like 90% of my time is spent following processes and there isn't a whole lot of autonomy right now- I miss being relied on to deliver things, whether that be support or solutions to problems.
However, I'm not sure how to remedy that? My manager has advised that staffing issues should be resolved in the new year and I should regain some of that time lost on getting involved in incidents as well as my other responsibilities in order to get back to delivering continual service improvement and taking ownership of some of those processes. I did quite enjoy the role prior to the staffing issues (they started presenting themselves after my probation ended) and would like to be back in that frame of mind.
However... I'm young, free of commitments and feel I'm capable of working a bit harder (through challenge instead of volume) than I am now as this seems more like a role I'd calm down into. What are my options?
Contracting seems to be a common step on and a way of getting out of roles where I just 'work'. However the majority of roles are based in London (I'm currently in Peterborough) and to make the travel costs work and get a boost financially I'd need to be on 300/day outside of IR35.
There's scope for promotion in my current role prior to becoming a manager but be looking a year or more for that to even become a possibility.
I could potentially look to perform a different role elsewhere in my current organisation (BAs seem to be wanted and have some crossover skills wise) but as I'd be coming in at a more junior level in a different career path, it'd almost certainly be a drop in pay which I'd rather not have right now unless it could be easily demonstrated as an "investment".
Any ideas?
Looking to sound off and hopefully get some advice.
My history is as follows:
Education:
Middle of the road GCSEs at a good school
Distinction grade in an IT practicioner BTEC
A 1st Class BSc with Honours Computer Security and Digital Forensics
Just took the ITIL Foundation exam- certain I've got it but don't get preliminary result until Monday and certificate a few weeks later.
Work (oldest to newest) :
A year out for work placement during my degree as an IT Technician in a secondary comprehensive - mostly 1st/2nd/3rd line support, desktop/asset procurement and management, AV support and some project work. Left this as it was always going to be a year only (though the headteacher elected to extend my period a further month).
2 years as an IT support engineer at a mid sized charity (the last 9 months of that under the title of senior engineer, not a promotion as such, more differentiated as the department grew). Similar tasks to the previous role but with additional responsibility for client configuration/security, telephony and had more involvement in strategic projects. Biggest achievement in this role was being part of the information security management system implementation group, including delivering information security training to ~600 non-technical staff all over the UK.
6 months and counting working on the service management team at a nationally known fintech company. Bit of a departure and definitely the "next level". Responsibility in this role is for various ITSM processes. I'm primarily responsible for business continuity, asset management, reporting and access management. Also due to the current volume of work and employee absence, I'm heavily involved in incident and problem management. I and others have noticed huge improvement from myself over the last 6 months in my ability to handle incidents and the problem management process.
Unfortunately, I'm getting a tad bored in this role as it seems like 90% of my time is spent following processes and there isn't a whole lot of autonomy right now- I miss being relied on to deliver things, whether that be support or solutions to problems.
However, I'm not sure how to remedy that? My manager has advised that staffing issues should be resolved in the new year and I should regain some of that time lost on getting involved in incidents as well as my other responsibilities in order to get back to delivering continual service improvement and taking ownership of some of those processes. I did quite enjoy the role prior to the staffing issues (they started presenting themselves after my probation ended) and would like to be back in that frame of mind.
However... I'm young, free of commitments and feel I'm capable of working a bit harder (through challenge instead of volume) than I am now as this seems more like a role I'd calm down into. What are my options?
Contracting seems to be a common step on and a way of getting out of roles where I just 'work'. However the majority of roles are based in London (I'm currently in Peterborough) and to make the travel costs work and get a boost financially I'd need to be on 300/day outside of IR35.
There's scope for promotion in my current role prior to becoming a manager but be looking a year or more for that to even become a possibility.
I could potentially look to perform a different role elsewhere in my current organisation (BAs seem to be wanted and have some crossover skills wise) but as I'd be coming in at a more junior level in a different career path, it'd almost certainly be a drop in pay which I'd rather not have right now unless it could be easily demonstrated as an "investment".
Any ideas?
In 20 plus years of IT the best move I made was to get an IT skill. By that I mean something other than meetings and babysitting geeks in an IT background.
Pick a speciality and focus on that.
I've always found support, incident management etc to be the arse of the IT world.
AI, DevOps and Security seem to be the big growth areas.
Best of luck!
Pick a speciality and focus on that.
I've always found support, incident management etc to be the arse of the IT world.
AI, DevOps and Security seem to be the big growth areas.
Best of luck!
rustyuk said:
In 20 plus years of IT the best move I made was to get an IT skill. By that I mean something other than meetings and babysitting geeks in an IT background.
Pick a speciality and focus on that.
I've always found support, incident management etc to be the arse of the IT world.
AI, DevOps and Security seem to be the big growth areas.
Best of luck!
We've got DevOps and Security teams elsewhere within my function. Maybe I can work out some secondment opportunities next year perhaps? The security lead has already said he'd be happy to but the staffing issues are making it impossible for me to make any internal moves at the moment. Pick a speciality and focus on that.
I've always found support, incident management etc to be the arse of the IT world.
AI, DevOps and Security seem to be the big growth areas.
Best of luck!
Join one of the big consultancies. Personally, I'd recommend a French one...
Once you're in, you'll get access to a massive range of different projects, clients, technologies, and roles that you can do. You get the variety you'd get as a contractor but no worries about bench time, training, sick leave or pension. Ok, you won't make quite as much but salaries are very much at the decent end.
And as a singleton with no ties, your ability to travel for the job with be a massive bonus for both you and the organisation.
Once you're in, you'll get access to a massive range of different projects, clients, technologies, and roles that you can do. You get the variety you'd get as a contractor but no worries about bench time, training, sick leave or pension. Ok, you won't make quite as much but salaries are very much at the decent end.
And as a singleton with no ties, your ability to travel for the job with be a massive bonus for both you and the organisation.
mholt1995 said:
However the majority of roles are based in London (I'm currently in Peterborough) and to make the travel costs work and get a boost financially I'd need to be on 300/day outside of IR35.
£300 is a derisory day rate for London, especially with an £8k rail season ticket to pay for. Don't undersell yourself.slow_poke said:
You have "A 1st Class BSc with Honours Computer Security and Digital Forensics"? And you're arsing about on Problem and Incident Management?
I don't think you know your own value.
I think you're right to be honest. I've set a meeting with the security lead to pick up where we left off last time.I don't think you know your own value.
Thanks for the words folks, gonna look into getting back into security.
Cyber security is a priority spend right now with a massive shortage of skills.
Get into a consultancy if you like a challenge.
The Big 4 all have large cyber practices and pay well. Deloitte is arguably number 1.
Accenture, Capgemini and ATOS have some big security functions. Accenture if you want to be worked hard, the two French companies are not as intense, but the pay reflects that.
Can mean a lot of travel, but it varies and you are close enough to London.
If you PM me I may be able to help.
Get into a consultancy if you like a challenge.
The Big 4 all have large cyber practices and pay well. Deloitte is arguably number 1.
Accenture, Capgemini and ATOS have some big security functions. Accenture if you want to be worked hard, the two French companies are not as intense, but the pay reflects that.
Can mean a lot of travel, but it varies and you are close enough to London.
If you PM me I may be able to help.
This feels like an appropriate thread to jump into and hopefully the OP doesn't mind a bit of a hijack, been in my current role for a good 8 years now, mainly doing support and deployment on Windows servers, built up a few SQL skills in that time and I'm a pretty good all-rounder. Put my CV out there on Reed and the like recently to see if anything interesting came up and I've been approached and interviewed for a support role at a Cyber-Security consultancy that specialises in implementing identity management solutions from a number of providers. They have an in-house training academy and would train me up to support the software suites in use (likes of IBM IAM), with a chance in future to work towards implementation and consultancy work for them.
Haven't been offered anything yet, but the feedback from all of the interviews so far has been very positive. Just after some impartial thoughts to back up my own thinking should it come down to making a call.
Current Role
+ Good salary for what I do
+ Held in high regard by the company
+ Good job security
+ Flexible working hours meaning I can pickup my son from nursery at a reasonable time
+ Promise of support to move sideways into a more DevOps-oriented position
- So much work on and lack of staff means that the chance to take on that DevOps position has thus-far failed to really materialise and I can't see that really changing in the near future
- Constantly bombarded for advice and help from all areas of the business who should know better
- As a result I'm a bit bored and frustrated
New Role
+ Great training opportunity in an on-demand sector
+ New challenge
+ Potential to bump up my salary significantly if I can begin consulting later
+ Can work from home a good 2 days a week
- Less money than I'm on now, potentially up to 20% less, though the agent is going to try and negotiate
- Longer hours, 40 vs 37.5 in my current role
- Commute is in the opposite direction to where I am now, so the days I'm in the office I'd not be able to pick up my boy. My wife works a condensed week, working 5 days in 4, so we'd need to work out logistics of how to pick him up if I do take the role as she'd not be able to leave as early as I do now in order to get him.
I know that my current company is fairly likely to come back with a strong counter-offer, which makes the salary side of things even more tricky. My thinking is that we should work out the logistics of childcare and we can survive on the salary cut, as the opportunity here for all the training and future potential is something I'd be a fool to pass up.
Haven't been offered anything yet, but the feedback from all of the interviews so far has been very positive. Just after some impartial thoughts to back up my own thinking should it come down to making a call.
Current Role
+ Good salary for what I do
+ Held in high regard by the company
+ Good job security
+ Flexible working hours meaning I can pickup my son from nursery at a reasonable time
+ Promise of support to move sideways into a more DevOps-oriented position
- So much work on and lack of staff means that the chance to take on that DevOps position has thus-far failed to really materialise and I can't see that really changing in the near future
- Constantly bombarded for advice and help from all areas of the business who should know better
- As a result I'm a bit bored and frustrated
New Role
+ Great training opportunity in an on-demand sector
+ New challenge
+ Potential to bump up my salary significantly if I can begin consulting later
+ Can work from home a good 2 days a week
- Less money than I'm on now, potentially up to 20% less, though the agent is going to try and negotiate
- Longer hours, 40 vs 37.5 in my current role
- Commute is in the opposite direction to where I am now, so the days I'm in the office I'd not be able to pick up my boy. My wife works a condensed week, working 5 days in 4, so we'd need to work out logistics of how to pick him up if I do take the role as she'd not be able to leave as early as I do now in order to get him.
I know that my current company is fairly likely to come back with a strong counter-offer, which makes the salary side of things even more tricky. My thinking is that we should work out the logistics of childcare and we can survive on the salary cut, as the opportunity here for all the training and future potential is something I'd be a fool to pass up.
I'll fully agree that security is a good place to be right now, however in my experience a lot of companies undervalue security - ultimately it doesn't generate any money for the organisation and is really an insurance policy of sorts if something were to happen.
I've worked for global companies and delivered security projects for them, some just pull the funding a couple of months in as they don't see the value, another big breach and getting stung by GDPR will re-invigorate peoples views no doubt!.
Development seems to be a good growth area too, I've recently switched from security project to more agile development (more for my own skill uplift and curiosity) and it's interesting/challenging.
I've worked for global companies and delivered security projects for them, some just pull the funding a couple of months in as they don't see the value, another big breach and getting stung by GDPR will re-invigorate peoples views no doubt!.
Development seems to be a good growth area too, I've recently switched from security project to more agile development (more for my own skill uplift and curiosity) and it's interesting/challenging.
I've been a divisional, international and laterly global CIO for a few years in large companies and might be able to provide some insight on what I think are the trends (probably be as wrong as everyone else)
Many "commodity" jobs have/are moving off shore and some are moving back after poor experiences. There will always be opportunity in a few areas though:
- Enterprise architecture - Really knowing how the business fits together and sharing advice on how the solutions/process/data should fit into that. This is especially true given the nature of apps and the agility demanded by business today
- Security - You don't have to be amazing, just know a framework and measure/communicate results. Money is usually available here even if everything else is closed down
- Business Partnership - Really understanding the business KPI's and strategy and working out how IT can make this happen. This is not a business analyst who looks at the process, but someone who really knows the business and can show how IT and Digital can help improve the top and bottom line. (This really is a forward looking role and many people are just servce managers who do this job)
- PMO - I would love to reduce the governance but PMO is with us to stay
To do most of the above roles, you need a bit of business analysis, a lot of leadership skills and some good breadth of IT knowledge
Where I would personally focus less:
- Programming - Going off shore and cheap
- Infrastructure - Being outsourced and becoming in my opinion devalued (until everything goes wrong)
- 1st/2nd line - Being off shored
This is my opinion and it might be wrong, but if I could find a good business partner, I'd hire them very quickly!
Personally I would try and back up your degree with some recent certifications and puff up your CV.
Grab a Security+ first, this should take no longer than a few weeks and the exam can be done at any PearsonVue - self study is the way to go. Then start studying for the CISSP which is a fair bit trickier.
Some people would say all that is a waste of time but if you have security certifications on your CV that are recently dated it tells me that you are a life long learner which is something you certainly have to be in the security field as the sands shift constantly.
Grab a Security+ first, this should take no longer than a few weeks and the exam can be done at any PearsonVue - self study is the way to go. Then start studying for the CISSP which is a fair bit trickier.
Some people would say all that is a waste of time but if you have security certifications on your CV that are recently dated it tells me that you are a life long learner which is something you certainly have to be in the security field as the sands shift constantly.
The jiffle king said:
I've been a divisional, international and laterly global CIO for a few years in large companies and might be able to provide some insight on what I think are the trends (probably be as wrong as everyone else)
Many "commodity" jobs have/are moving off shore and some are moving back after poor experiences. There will always be opportunity in a few areas though:
- Enterprise architecture - Really knowing how the business fits together and sharing advice on how the solutions/process/data should fit into that. This is especially true given the nature of apps and the agility demanded by business today
- Security - You don't have to be amazing, just know a framework and measure/communicate results. Money is usually available here even if everything else is closed down
- Business Partnership - Really understanding the business KPI's and strategy and working out how IT can make this happen. This is not a business analyst who looks at the process, but someone who really knows the business and can show how IT and Digital can help improve the top and bottom line. (This really is a forward looking role and many people are just servce managers who do this job)
- PMO - I would love to reduce the governance but PMO is with us to stay
To do most of the above roles, you need a bit of business analysis, a lot of leadership skills and some good breadth of IT knowledge
Where I would personally focus less:
- Programming - Going off shore and cheap
- Infrastructure - Being outsourced and becoming in my opinion devalued (until everything goes wrong)
- 1st/2nd line - Being off shored
This is my opinion and it might be wrong, but if I could find a good business partner, I'd hire them very quickly!
Please excuse my ignorance but what do you think about "Big data" or "data science" do you see companies offshoring their databases? Many "commodity" jobs have/are moving off shore and some are moving back after poor experiences. There will always be opportunity in a few areas though:
- Enterprise architecture - Really knowing how the business fits together and sharing advice on how the solutions/process/data should fit into that. This is especially true given the nature of apps and the agility demanded by business today
- Security - You don't have to be amazing, just know a framework and measure/communicate results. Money is usually available here even if everything else is closed down
- Business Partnership - Really understanding the business KPI's and strategy and working out how IT can make this happen. This is not a business analyst who looks at the process, but someone who really knows the business and can show how IT and Digital can help improve the top and bottom line. (This really is a forward looking role and many people are just servce managers who do this job)
- PMO - I would love to reduce the governance but PMO is with us to stay
To do most of the above roles, you need a bit of business analysis, a lot of leadership skills and some good breadth of IT knowledge
Where I would personally focus less:
- Programming - Going off shore and cheap
- Infrastructure - Being outsourced and becoming in my opinion devalued (until everything goes wrong)
- 1st/2nd line - Being off shored
This is my opinion and it might be wrong, but if I could find a good business partner, I'd hire them very quickly!
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