A new opportunity
Discussion
I currently work at a company looking after the IT.
Today I have very much out of the blue been offered a new role within the company. The new role is managing the support team which is unrelated to the work I do now (we support a product).
I have never made a secret of wanting to progress within the company, and I do see this as progression, but I am concerned about it taking me away from IT, and potentially causing me problems in the future with regards to say changing companies etc, in that I will become a little more niche.
I am quite happy managing people, I am just unsure what to do. I do not want to close doors on a career that I have been in for 20 years, but then I could be opening more by getting back into management....
Anyone done anything similar?
Today I have very much out of the blue been offered a new role within the company. The new role is managing the support team which is unrelated to the work I do now (we support a product).
I have never made a secret of wanting to progress within the company, and I do see this as progression, but I am concerned about it taking me away from IT, and potentially causing me problems in the future with regards to say changing companies etc, in that I will become a little more niche.
I am quite happy managing people, I am just unsure what to do. I do not want to close doors on a career that I have been in for 20 years, but then I could be opening more by getting back into management....
Anyone done anything similar?
TheAngryDog said:
I currently work at a company looking after the IT.
Today I have very much out of the blue been offered a new role within the company. The new role is managing the support team which is unrelated to the work I do now (we support a product).
I have never made a secret of wanting to progress within the company, and I do see this as progression, but I am concerned about it taking me away from IT, and potentially causing me problems in the future with regards to say changing companies etc, in that I will become a little more niche.
I am quite happy managing people, I am just unsure what to do. I do not want to close doors on a career that I have been in for 20 years, but then I could be opening more by getting back into management....
Anyone done anything similar?
Are you sure they are getting someone else to do the IT role, and not just adding the product support to your current role?Today I have very much out of the blue been offered a new role within the company. The new role is managing the support team which is unrelated to the work I do now (we support a product).
I have never made a secret of wanting to progress within the company, and I do see this as progression, but I am concerned about it taking me away from IT, and potentially causing me problems in the future with regards to say changing companies etc, in that I will become a little more niche.
I am quite happy managing people, I am just unsure what to do. I do not want to close doors on a career that I have been in for 20 years, but then I could be opening more by getting back into management....
Anyone done anything similar?
Maybe you could retain some advisory role over IT to keep your finger in the pie?
You say "getting back into management", why did you leave it last time? (More of a rhetorical question, if you're not comfortable answering)
Most techies at some point face the go into management or remain techie dilemma, and I my experience you can't do both well.
You need to decide which better suits you and your aspirations and commit to it.
Most techies at some point face the go into management or remain techie dilemma, and I my experience you can't do both well.
You need to decide which better suits you and your aspirations and commit to it.
abzmike said:
Are you sure they are getting someone else to do the IT role, and not just adding the product support to your current role?
Maybe you could retain some advisory role over IT to keep your finger in the pie?
Yes they are. I have been told who they would get to replace me (I put him forward for a role a while ago and he has the skills to replace me). I'd just like to stay involved on the outside just so that I continue to have a few options moving forwards.Maybe you could retain some advisory role over IT to keep your finger in the pie?
zippy3x said:
You say "getting back into management", why did you leave it last time? (More of a rhetorical question, if you're not comfortable answering)
Most techies at some point face the go into management or remain techie dilemma, and I my experience you can't do both well.
You need to decide which better suits you and your aspirations and commit to it.
I was moved back into a support role due to a lack of knowledge in the support team. The other male manager was also moved, which meant that the only managers in the company were female.Most techies at some point face the go into management or remain techie dilemma, and I my experience you can't do both well.
You need to decide which better suits you and your aspirations and commit to it.
I agree that both cannot be done well, I just don't want to limit myself too much, as I don't know how long I'd stay here in the role as tech support is not where I see my future, but management is, I just want to make sure I continue to be employed and can move up the monetary scale as my management progresses etc.
I'd be careful not to lose too much of your existing skills as even a couple of years in IT techie world is a long time. I'm in a tricky situation now because I left software development behind. My story below, more to serve as a warning...
I was a senior developer. No stress, I could do the job in my sleep and it paid enough to have a decent life. I wanted to progress so did some management courses. Fast forward a few years and they stopped in house development where I work so I had the choice to leave the company or stay and become a collaboration consultant. We'd just got into SharePoint and it was a way for me to keep working for the company which was a good place to work for back then. Looking back I should have moved on but I was comfortable. No commute to speak of, good hours and a great work life balance
It turned out that doing TeamSpace user permissions and workflows and none of the complex coding got boring very fast and after a couple of years I ended up becoming the IT Manager. It's made me unskilled in that I'm a generalist. I manage the IT team, do business relationship management, project management, helpdesk management/escalations and everything else. I hate it. The stress and grief (we're under resourced and all my attempts to bring more heads in are knocked back) so I'm totally demotivated.
Getting other work now is hard for me as I don't have a specialist skill anymore, just lots of things I do, some well, some not so well. Managing people is a nightmare. Even a professional team of skilled workers can turn into what amounts to babysitting and parenting. So, can I go back to coding? Not easily. I did VB.NET/SQL 2005, etc. There's absolutely no requirement for those skills anymore and the pay compared to what I'm on now would mean I'd have to downsize the house/car/holidays, etc. Can I get a new job? Well I'm certainly trying but as what? I don't want to do what I'm doing now.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread and make it about me but just wanted to show you what can happen if you leave a skilled technical IT role. You may end up loving the management side more but if the company culture changes or you stop enjoying the job, going back to the previous life can be very hard.
I was a senior developer. No stress, I could do the job in my sleep and it paid enough to have a decent life. I wanted to progress so did some management courses. Fast forward a few years and they stopped in house development where I work so I had the choice to leave the company or stay and become a collaboration consultant. We'd just got into SharePoint and it was a way for me to keep working for the company which was a good place to work for back then. Looking back I should have moved on but I was comfortable. No commute to speak of, good hours and a great work life balance
It turned out that doing TeamSpace user permissions and workflows and none of the complex coding got boring very fast and after a couple of years I ended up becoming the IT Manager. It's made me unskilled in that I'm a generalist. I manage the IT team, do business relationship management, project management, helpdesk management/escalations and everything else. I hate it. The stress and grief (we're under resourced and all my attempts to bring more heads in are knocked back) so I'm totally demotivated.
Getting other work now is hard for me as I don't have a specialist skill anymore, just lots of things I do, some well, some not so well. Managing people is a nightmare. Even a professional team of skilled workers can turn into what amounts to babysitting and parenting. So, can I go back to coding? Not easily. I did VB.NET/SQL 2005, etc. There's absolutely no requirement for those skills anymore and the pay compared to what I'm on now would mean I'd have to downsize the house/car/holidays, etc. Can I get a new job? Well I'm certainly trying but as what? I don't want to do what I'm doing now.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread and make it about me but just wanted to show you what can happen if you leave a skilled technical IT role. You may end up loving the management side more but if the company culture changes or you stop enjoying the job, going back to the previous life can be very hard.
toon10 said:
I'd be careful not to lose too much of your existing skills as even a couple of years in IT techie world is a long time. I'm in a tricky situation now because I left software development behind. My story below, more to serve as a warning...
I was a senior developer. No stress, I could do the job in my sleep and it paid enough to have a decent life. I wanted to progress so did some management courses. Fast forward a few years and they stopped in house development where I work so I had the choice to leave the company or stay and become a collaboration consultant. We'd just got into SharePoint and it was a way for me to keep working for the company which was a good place to work for back then. Looking back I should have moved on but I was comfortable. No commute to speak of, good hours and a great work life balance
It turned out that doing TeamSpace user permissions and workflows and none of the complex coding got boring very fast and after a couple of years I ended up becoming the IT Manager. It's made me unskilled in that I'm a generalist. I manage the IT team, do business relationship management, project management, helpdesk management/escalations and everything else. I hate it. The stress and grief (we're under resourced and all my attempts to bring more heads in are knocked back) so I'm totally demotivated.
Getting other work now is hard for me as I don't have a specialist skill anymore, just lots of things I do, some well, some not so well. Managing people is a nightmare. Even a professional team of skilled workers can turn into what amounts to babysitting and parenting. So, can I go back to coding? Not easily. I did VB.NET/SQL 2005, etc. There's absolutely no requirement for those skills anymore and the pay compared to what I'm on now would mean I'd have to downsize the house/car/holidays, etc. Can I get a new job? Well I'm certainly trying but as what? I don't want to do what I'm doing now.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread and make it about me but just wanted to show you what can happen if you leave a skilled technical IT role. You may end up loving the management side more but if the company culture changes or you stop enjoying the job, going back to the previous life can be very hard.
Thanks for your input, it is very relevant. This is why I want to keep a hand in with the IT side. I do not know how to support the product that we have so I expect my time to be mainly managing (babysitting) the team and dealing with client issues, so hopefully this will allow me to continue in a small capacity on the IT side. I have done a lot of work on the IT since I joined, made things a lot better and I would hate to no longer be part of that.I was a senior developer. No stress, I could do the job in my sleep and it paid enough to have a decent life. I wanted to progress so did some management courses. Fast forward a few years and they stopped in house development where I work so I had the choice to leave the company or stay and become a collaboration consultant. We'd just got into SharePoint and it was a way for me to keep working for the company which was a good place to work for back then. Looking back I should have moved on but I was comfortable. No commute to speak of, good hours and a great work life balance
It turned out that doing TeamSpace user permissions and workflows and none of the complex coding got boring very fast and after a couple of years I ended up becoming the IT Manager. It's made me unskilled in that I'm a generalist. I manage the IT team, do business relationship management, project management, helpdesk management/escalations and everything else. I hate it. The stress and grief (we're under resourced and all my attempts to bring more heads in are knocked back) so I'm totally demotivated.
Getting other work now is hard for me as I don't have a specialist skill anymore, just lots of things I do, some well, some not so well. Managing people is a nightmare. Even a professional team of skilled workers can turn into what amounts to babysitting and parenting. So, can I go back to coding? Not easily. I did VB.NET/SQL 2005, etc. There's absolutely no requirement for those skills anymore and the pay compared to what I'm on now would mean I'd have to downsize the house/car/holidays, etc. Can I get a new job? Well I'm certainly trying but as what? I don't want to do what I'm doing now.
Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread and make it about me but just wanted to show you what can happen if you leave a skilled technical IT role. You may end up loving the management side more but if the company culture changes or you stop enjoying the job, going back to the previous life can be very hard.
The company I work for are good. I have no real issues and like you the commute is good (25 mins on foot), I get working flexibility and a good work / life balance.
The role I do now could turn into something else, but that is a very unknown quantity. The company feel that my leadership skills, as well as my being able to speak authoritatively in the company, after only 12 months of being here shows that they believe in to offer me the position, to me at least.
If I can keep my IT hand in, then I think I will take it.
toon10 said:
TheAngryDog said:
Thread closure.
I've taken it. I can stay on my tools, just a little bit reduced. I can live with that. Thanks for your replies and time, much appreciated.
Good result. Hope it all works out.I've taken it. I can stay on my tools, just a little bit reduced. I can live with that. Thanks for your replies and time, much appreciated.
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