Getting into IT

[Dg504]

Hi, the annual wtf am I doing with my life has come around and for once I have a possible idea of where I’d like to go.

I currently work in finance with a large bias towards modelling and tracking company data. I’ve always had the propensity to learn about IT quickly, enough to be regarded as the ‘ask DG, he’ll know how to fix it’ person in the company for IT issues, learned HTML & CSS in my own time to make my job easier and do get satisfaction out of creating a model, testing it, reviewing the outputs, and repeat.

There is a lot of IT talk on here so I’m wondering if the collective brains could suggest a good place to start (I’ve been learning SQL on the side which again I’ve enjoyed but personally I learn best when being able to put something into practice). More than happy to start from the bottom but life now involves a London sized mortgage and other hobbies which mean I couldn’t really afford to drop down below £30k ish – again is this realistic or do I need to get the savings ready to tide me through the next 12 months while learning/proving myself?

Cheers as always!

[miniman]

You could look out for roles in BI / Data where your financial experience would be useful, and then build out your IT skills.

[jimmytheone]

I worked my way into SAP from accountancy, using experience from counting beans to help my colleagues. My finance boss got the message and I transferred to a project (sap re-implementation) learning more about how the system worked.
Since then, I've learnt about the other elements of the system (procurement, supply chain etc) so I can now support most of the erp system.

Working with interfaces to other systems (bank, b2b) and doing a bit of system admin I now know a bit more about the nuts and bolts.

What floats your IT boat?

Are you looking to get involved with users / people? Do you like the interaction with other people?
In which case support / helpdesk can be rewarding. Likewise cross -discipline projects, getting into different areas of the business you've not seen before?

Users can be a royal pain though. Often the same ones cocking something up.

Else, if you like number crunching then data is the way ahead. There's always a demand for (good) data.
Or system design, backend support, possibly interfaces with other systems?

How big is your current employer? How many in IT? Do opportunities exist or will you need to look beyond?

[arnie12]

Don't know if this is against rules but this is what I do in my local area. I use SQL (in SSMS and SSRS) / VBA / VB.net all day and a bit of XML on the side... great fun for a first time IT job. Lots of colleagues have come from finance too. Drop me a message if you want more info.

https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/doc_viewer/1b47fe9fd0a4...

[Dg504]

Thanks all - some Sunday afternoon research to do - thanks.

Arnie that reads very well - I'll get my head around the skills/responsibilities it lists and PM you later on.

DG

[Vaud]

miniman said:

You could look out for roles in BI / Data where your financial experience would be useful, and then build out your IT skills.

^^^ this. More money in BI, analytics, and the cognitive/AI/predictive, etc. The IT is secondary but if you are good with data then you can make some very good money in most cities (or work from home).

[Ultraviolet]

Vaud said:

^^^ this. More money in BI, analytics, and the cognitive/AI/predictive, etc. The IT is secondary but if you are good with data then you can make some very good money in most cities (or work from home).

This is good advice. I specialise in this area, and it is booming, and likely to be more so in the next few years.

I would skip the SQL, HTML stuff and skip straight to machine learning, predictive analytics etc using the skills you already have. Look at R, U-SQL and the skills that fit your background but also move you into IT.

Why not set yourself up an Azure account, set up a data lake and look at Azure Data Lake analytics etc, which can all be played with in the Cloud? Maybe look at Azure Data Factory and learn how to integrate data, play with the 'out of the box models' and see how you get on?

Cheers,

UV

[Vaud]

Ultraviolet said:

This is good advice. I specialise in this area, and it is booming, and likely to be more so in the next few years.

I would skip the SQL, HTML stuff and skip straight to machine learning, predictive analytics etc using the skills you already have. Look at R, U-SQL and the skills that fit your background but also move you into IT.

Why not set yourself up an Azure account, set up a data lake and look at Azure Data Lake analytics etc, which can all be played with in the Cloud? Maybe look at Azure Data Factory and learn how to integrate data, play with the 'out of the box models' and see how you get on?

Cheers,

UV

Even better advice than mine!