IT Career - Stuck in a rut!

[Rev Limit]

Hi All,

I’m after some career advice/guidance. I’m early 30’s, currently an IT Project Manager (Infrastructure/cloud focused) and have been for around 7 years. The last few years I’ve lost all enthusiasm for the job and really feel like I want to do something else.

Before I was a PM I worked in 2nd line/field support which I always enjoyed but moved into a PM role because I wanted a ‘step up’ and of course more money. I’ve considered going back into a technical role but, where I’ve not done a hands on role for a while it would mean going back into a 1st line role, which would be a significant pay drop, so I’m not sure it’s feasible (mortgage, saving to move house etc)

I’ve considered trying to move into an IT Service Relationship/Delivery Manager role or an IT Account management role as these all require similar skillsets to project management; stakeholder management, understanding technical concepts, problem solving etc etc but these roles seem to be low on the ground at the moment, probably due to the current situation I guess.

My current contract finishes next week and at the moment I’ve not a clue what I want to do!, Any career advice/guidance would be massively appreciated...

In the meantime I’m going to look at picking up a driving job to keep me occupied.

Cheers

[Rev Limit]

Moominho said:

Cloud focused? AWS/Azure?

Loads of demand for Cloud Ops or even DevOps if you have any dev ability. Cloud Product Owner? I'd probably get some vendor specific certs and go down that route...

Just Azure. No development experience/ability unfortunately. Product owner roles look interesting, I’ve no idea what skills/experience would be required though?

[Rev Limit]

Sounds a lot like me, although I'm much older!!

Been in IT from my teens, started as a component level engineer looking at circuit diagrams and fixing stuff, then into 2nd/3rd line support, architecture and then project/programme management which I've been doing for the last 15 or so years, contracting for 23 years.

I've delivered (and I am currently delivering) multiple cyber projects and programmes and have a good knowledge of security principles and standards to the point where I've been asked by a previous colleague to come in as a security guy rather than a project guy, but landed another project role at around the same time.

I find cyber interesting, but possibly a hard nut to crack without any real experience but I'd certainly like to move that way if I wanted to stay in the tech space, otherwise it would be a complete change of job/career path with probably huge salary implications, but probably more enjoyment.

Freakuk said:

It sounds like you've just done that much of the same stuff it's just boring, same politics, same blockers regardless of company and people that only a complete change could address?

Yep - you’ve hit the nail on the head there, I’ve spent most of the last 4/5 years on long, tough programmes, lots of stress and actually not a lot of variety in the work, really grinds you down!

[Rev Limit]

rog007 said:

Would need to know many more insights to your personal situation for a more meaningful response.

Notwithstanding that; teaching/higher education sector?

Thanks for the reply - what else would you like to know?

Most of my experience is in Insurance/Financial services.

[Rev Limit]

deebs said:

What kind of IT PM are you? Do you have a static team of people who get work in and turn it round or do you float from project to project doing end to end delivery? In my view the latter is more interesting.

I know this sounds daft but what about switching across to business change? Im a "originally" a business change PM although I do IT/technical delivery as well these days, depends on what roles are going (contract). It's all the same skills but with different types of challenges. Working on developing a new operations target operating model for a transformation on one project; leading a business readiness workstream on a big finance programme on the next; implementing the desired business and culture change for field engineers in a service company afterwards. I find the diversity of the projects on the change side keeps me interested.

Mainly internal project delivery, complete project lifecycle, from requirements gathering, design etc through to delivery and closure.

It’s not so much the subject matter of the projects, I just don’t enjoy the role at all anymore! Time for a change

[Rev Limit]

theboss said:

They all say that, and it goes out the window when they can't find the skills they're looking for to start next week. There's loads of cloud oriented contracts out there at the moment.

OP feel free to send me a PM. I'm doing some work (as a contractor) for a rapidly expanding Azure MSP and they are hiring for PM and SDM types. Perm and contract considered. Happy to bung your CV in.

PM’d you - thanks

[Rev Limit]

vaud said:

If you are a good PM then getting into bid management for larger contracts is a gentle entry to sales.

Good PM skills, risk/issue management, grow contract negotiation skills, etc. If you can write as well...

Money is generally OK, smaller bonus than sales but rarely carries a target. A good bid manager is a bit of an allrounder and can migrate to sales or account management.

Thanks, not an area I’d ever thought to look at really. I’m sure there are loads of roles where the skills I’ve gained as a PM over the years would be transferable, it’s just knowing which roles they are!

I’ve had a couple of conversations over the last week about Account Management roles at MSPs but they seem to be very business development/sales heavy with very little relationship management which was not what I was expecting.

Edited by Rev Limit on Saturday 27th February 22:12

Edited by Rev Limit on Saturday 27th February 22:12

Edited by Rev Limit on Saturday 27th February 22:14

[Rev Limit]

Better to start a new topic mate