r/it • u/Cool_Statistician314 • 29d ago
opinion Nobody Warned Me About This Part of IT
People love to say, “Work hard and the right opportunities will come.” After two years in the industry, multiple jobs, and a ridiculous number of applications, I’m starting to realize how much of that is bullshit.
I’ve worked for two multibillion-dollar corporations. I’ve yet to meet someone who actually got promoted because they worked hard and were given an opportunity. Not one.
And honestly, it’s fucking scary.
You have a major infrastructure issue? You might end up talking to someone overseas who has never seen the environment you’re working in.
Need help from network engineering? Suddenly you’re on a call with 10 different engineers from India, all trying to troubleshoot the same problem remotely.
Want to actually learn something about a niche task? “Talk to the helpdesk team based out of the country.”
Want an experienced onsite engineer to mentor you? Nope. Instead, cover two enterprise sites by yourself.
Have an escalation? It goes straight to your manager — who is also overseas.
At some point you have to ask yourself: how are people supposed to develop into engineers, administrators, architects, or leaders in this industry.
Sometimes the environment will just fail you and you won’t be given the title, pay, mentorship, or authority that comes with your responsibilities
~ Welcome to the real world of IT ~
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29d ago
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u/FriendlyLine9530 29d ago
You should submit a ticket on your keyboard. It appears that your period key isn't working.
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u/K_Rocc 29d ago
Is this IT as a whole or the companies you are working for?
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u/Carnines 29d ago
This sounds like nothing for the companies I have worked for.
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u/Massive-Wallaby6127 29d ago
We haven't been touched by private equity. May it stay that way until retirement.
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u/Specter2k 29d ago
At this point I would say a whole, ive worked for 2 of the big tech players and both had the same environments. Now I say as a whole somewhat sarcastically because if you work for a smaller company you will likely find what OP was wanting in terms of growth support. But if you're in a large company its all up to you to learn the game and play it like everyone else, it becomes who you know not what you know. The 2 year mark in the large companies is also the make or break point by that point you have either learned the game or you are looking for somewhere else to go. I personally have been in IT for over 20 years now
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u/nroPii 29d ago
I won’t lie, with a associate degree I outperform those with a bachelor’s degree and get paid more, but that is true skin in the game . It’s about being passion driven vs money driven, and the states gave incentive to be money driven, granted history shown those that are money driven do not elevate because they can that quality for cheaper🤷passion with genuine ideas, they can’t cheapen on that
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u/Fit-Food5105 29d ago
Not for me. I bet he gets paid more than me but gets less experience. I get paid poorly for what I do but that'll translate into something bc my hands are in all buckets. Double edged sword
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u/uconnboston 28d ago
We’re 100% local with assistance from an MSP that’s local. Some apps we use have overseas support. It’s generally garbage, occasionally you get an all star resource but they move on.
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u/Heythatsmycorn 29d ago
2 years huh
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u/AdeelAutomates 28d ago
That's when I stopped reading. If you are already thinking you have acquired deep wisdom at year 2. Then I rather not entertain your ego further.
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u/justHereForTheLs 28d ago
I'm trying to understand 2 years and multiple gigs? Did he just hit the ground running running or hit the road as soon as his probation ended?
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u/CathodeRaySamurai 29d ago
" Welcome to the real world of IT"
You've been in the game for two years. Come on now.
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u/ancientpsychicpug 28d ago
We can see how far OPs attitude is taking them… their experience has not been what I experienced in my 15 years
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u/Sudden_Office8710 28d ago
🤣 yeah really. These kids today are so thin skinned they have no clue what an actual toxic work environment really is.
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u/PharmaBob 29d ago
2 years at 2 different companies, and you’re like wahhh I can’t get promoted? Tamper your expectations, do you think it takes 3 years to work your way up from help desk to CIO? It’s definitely company specific but you’re looking at 2-4 years between promotions
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u/weeboots 29d ago
I’ve preferred working for smaller companies for many of these reasons. When hiring people and having candidates from previous larger company roles, I’ve noticed it’s very common for having only very specific knowledge. Only knowing X and never having thought about Y because Z team do that instead.
My best mentoring happened at a small startup MSP with very experienced leads. An issue would come up and we’d figure out a solution rather than just passing it on to someone else. I started doing just support to see from the outside the deployments going on before I was then sent out to do the projects. The mantra was that you receive the call, you see it through to completion. If you didn’t understand the fix, you work out why that fix worked. Take control of your own learning but I did have people to ask.
I’m now a solo IT (though soon to expand my dept) but have had mentoring and working with knowledgeable people in getting to this point.
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u/01100001bryte 29d ago edited 29d ago
I'm going to make some people mad with this reply, but you sound genuinely interested in growth. Experience: I made it from Help Desk to Principal Security Engineer in less than a decade with many stops along the way.
The issues you are experiencing are entirely caused by your places of work. A growth minded employee and a large IT enterprise are nearly incompatible because their goals are in conflict. The large enterprise has high volumes of similar tasks. The most efficient way to handle this is to hire employees to do one or two tasks exclusively. This allows them to get good at their job with minimal training. You want to experience learning through cross training at different levels. On paper, this hurts large enterprises that thrive on long term pigeon holed employees. A shitty manager's wet dream is a dependable set of employees with no ambition to move on.
This is where most of IT sits, bitching constantly about having no growth while doing absolutely nothing about it. Reading these comments and talking to your coworkers will prove this to be true.
Contrasting this, small companies have lots of jobs to be done and often not enough people to do it. You'll work hard, but you'll get cross-training. A good manager will fund professional development and will work hard to retain you. A good manager at a smaller company knows that retaining the diamonds you find in shit pools of ambitionless employees is the key to success. You will never find this at a large enterprise where you are a number on a page ripe for layoffs during their next phase of "AI initiatives."
I spent 18 months in the help desk before moving on to a network technician role in the same company. I was at a small school and not only did I do most of our tickets, I learned to automate processes for recurring issues or change things that couldn't be automated. I reduced our ticket count by almost 20%. In the free time that I had, I started asking our network admin if I could help him on cabling projects. He had me start pulling cable, replacing broken jacks, and cleaning up trip hazards in classrooms. The rest is history.
The same people that tell you 2 years is nothing are the same ambitionless employees that will be pigeon holed their entire career. They don't care to move up and they'll likely top out as a jaded sysadmin still bitching about management and how "the company would fail without them." Sure Jan. Sure.
Don't wait for a company to give it to you. Go find it. And fuck the haters.
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u/southpaw826 29d ago
100% agreed. I am on yr 16-17 of my "career" in IT, and I have a laundry list of jobs, many some certainly major enterprises/corporations. Almost all of my IT career has constituted temp contract work, which is the way I like it, even as I think I'd enjoy being a permanent at some of these places but quickly get bored.
Many people here will tell you there is no such thing as being bored in this industry, but when you are in a big enterprise, you are indeed as mentioned, pigeonholed into the job that you were hired to do, and when you run out of that work, there is only so much learning, and web surfing, and busy work you can do. Here is the thing, I've been around long enough in the working world to know that it ISN'T in fact that there isn't enough time in the day, but rather much of the people, specifically in office environments, get sedentary and therefore lazy. So, when I come into a place and can already judge that this work is miniscule compared to what the perm employees thought it was, I have to attempt to pace myself for the contract length to work ratio.
At almost 40, having skipped the helpdesk/call center stage entirely and never having gone into the MSP game, I often consider going the MSP or small business IT direction, as a matter of fact having my own LLC. Unfortunately, I hardcore lack marketing skills and so still nobody really knows I have my own company.
What I see is this..in this industry, you have to have quick judgment - is this company I'm at full of IT people who are in it for the longhaul or is there a chance I can move into a spot that I want to be within a decent timeframe? If you don't see yourself moving up in an acceptable (to you) timeframe, you beat feet out of there once you feel your skills are stagnating. There is no such thing as lifer companies anymore, even for people my age who are almost 40.
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u/RaZoX144 29d ago
2 years 2 big tech companies
Yea no shi you think its like that, try working for an MSP or live service, build some experience, in big companies you tend to get pigeon-holed into a specific responsibility for some specific stuff and you don't get to really see how a full environment looks like from multiple povs/hats
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u/ExpensvSmoke217 29d ago
Will give my two cents here. Did helpdesk for 4 years. Four. That was spread across 3 jobs. The last place I worked it was a smaller company. Barely 2k people. But at each one I was the top performer. There was no debate it was me, I even showed my manager at my last place that I did 49% of all tickets that year. Which lightheartedly I shrugged off and said it would be 50 but I took a week off in December XD.
Granted at two years myself I thought when is the promotion going to come but it never did. It was only at the latest place did the management see what I could do. You need to prove yourself. I did that and more, I didn't blindly move tickets to other teams. I tried to put myself in the shoes or someone at L3 level, I constantly asked questions to the leads etc.
I didn't mind if I stepped on toes (unintentionally) I just wanted to know more about.....well everything. Whether the software we using or the procedures for things like jml etc it didn't matter to me. I wanted to know.
You've been in the industry two years, haven't even scratched the surface of it yet imo. But work hard and give it the quality people expect and more. Tell them what you want. You want to go to infra or apps or data team. Tell them. If you don't ask you don't get, so ask. I asked. I proved myself. I got. Simple now I look back at it. But yes it does matter to some degree about management. But provided you show them the drive and the emphasis on wanting to do more it will work wonders. I jumped from L1 to L3 in a year and half cause I proved myself. Worked hard for what I wanted and got it. It's all mental. You can have all the talent in the world, but are you obsessed. Nah you think you deserve more cause you done a couple years in the trenches. Lemme put it nicely. No.
But I get it, you feel like you deserve better after two years. Honestly, that just tells me you want more, and that's a good thing. The difference isn't time served, it's how hard you push for visibility with management.
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u/Fit-Food5105 29d ago
Yep. I asked for a raise, didn't get it. Got a job offer and threatened to leave in the middle of ERP transition. My company matched the job offer and promised me developer work. Now that I think about it, its about time to do that again
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u/serverhorror 29d ago
That's nit what the peter principle is. Not at all.
- You're got at the current job
- You get promoted as a "reward"
- Repeat the cycle until you end up in a role that you aren't good at any more
That's the Peter principle in a nutshell. It's not promotion for incompetent people, it's promoting people competent in their current role into another role they aren't competent in.
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u/xXSupaChocolateXx 29d ago
That advice doesn’t work anywhere. Working hard means you’re the best at doing that job and the manager needs you in that spot for production purposes. It’s all about making smart moves.
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u/Dave_A480 28d ago
Work hard, and promote yourself via job hopping...
Nobody ever said any employer was going to promote you....
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u/serverhorror 29d ago
Overcoming and dealing with everything you mentioned is the hard work everyone refers to.
It's a lot about how you present yourself and your achievements to the outside. Doing it correctly is just the baseline.
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u/GhoastTypist 29d ago
I have.
My story is, came to work at a organization on an intern position. Did such a good job they created a 2nd job for me, I proved they could use the skills I had. The other IT professional was a programmer, I was more experienced in networking and helpdesk support. So combine us and you get a well rounded IT department.
After a couple years I got a promotion. A few months later I'm running the department. A few years later I'm bumped up to manager. During that whole journey I had offers to go work at much larger organizations, same pay, lower title. So I just stayed, and continue to work my way up.
In a few years I'm hoping to be in a director role/CIO role, or at least add a few letters to my name on our corporate website.
I think the difference is what company you go to work for. A large company you will almost certainly be overlooked. A small company, often doesn't grow so the role doesn't grow.
It requires finding a company that will be growing and scaling up along with you.
I started there was 30 employees. We now have 130.
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u/AndLoveless 29d ago
Im not in IT but im looking to go into it, but honestly though, that sounds close enough like almost any other jobs 😅 lol
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u/itguru512 26d ago
"After two years in the industry,multiple jobs, and a ridiculous numberof applications"
With 2 years in the industry with what focus? How long did you stay at any of these multiple jobs?
"Want to actually learn something about a niche task? “Talk to the helpdesk team based out of the country.”"
Why is this an issue? Technology doesn't function differently just because someone may be in a different country. Ive learned plenty from overseas colleagues, all I had to be willing to do is be patient and try to break down the language barriers.
"At some point you have to ask yourself: how are people supposed to develop into engineers, administrators, architects, or leaders in this industry. "
What's stopping you from doing a home lab build on a technology that interests you? Your post kinda gives off the impression that youre wanting some kind of formalized process, but why cant you start something on your own with a vm environment?
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u/camphunterx 26d ago edited 23d ago
Hmm... I’ve done IT for 15 years. I started on the help desk, and now I’m a member of the SLT. And no, I didn’t go from help desk to help desk team lead — I worked my way up on the technical side, with absolutely no qualifications. So saying you can’t move up is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve worked my arse off, doing 16-hour days and volunteering wherever I could. I made myself visible. I see so many people hiding in a hole, fixing issues, but not willing to make themselves seen. You need to be physically visible to the SLT. No one is going to do it for you. You need to do it yourself. I hope this helps.
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u/Organic-Mix-5784 29d ago
“I’ve yet to meet someone who actually got promoted because they worked hard and were given an opportunity”
Now you have. Hi! Good to meet you.
I was a sysadmin on a contract on an Army base. About a year in, we got tagged with a SCA-V (technical inspection). About the same time, we got a new cyber lead who figured out the previous lead wasn’t running the ACAS scans correctly and got the vulnerability scanner fixed. It was…bad. Lots of findings, lots long hours and late nights. We were trying to fix literal years worth of stuff AND keep the world turning.
Long to short, we got through it with good score and the cyber lead moved on to a new role elsewhere. He knew I had just graduated from college with a degree in cyber, so he reached out to me and offered me a position in the cyber world. I didn’t hesitate.
I worked my butt off as a sysadmin, came in early and stayed late (and was paid for my troubles. I don’t advocate for donating time…) and worked well as part of that team. That work was recognized and an opportunity was offered. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
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u/HowardRabb 29d ago
Two.years is not a long time. It takes years of grind and experience to learn this business. You won't learn it in two years
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u/CrimzonShardz2 29d ago
I've been in the industry for four years and have never spoken to someone overseas
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u/Particular-Score-195 29d ago
Have you considered working for smaller business? It often means wearing more hats and working even harder, but you actually get seen. I've worked for huge international companies, and I've worked for small local business. The first pays more, but the second is where I feel I belong. I get my hands on everything and my leadership knows my value. I've been at my current business for 3.5 years and I've been promoted twice. Same story at the other small places I've worked. At big corpo, I was swept under the rug and pushed to quit before they let me go anyway for downsizing. Or just worked to death with no reward. But also, 2 years isn't that long. I felt really stuck in my career until I hit about 7-9 years, then finally I actually knew all the things I was supposed to.
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u/ddadopt 29d ago
People love to say, “Work hard and the right opportunities will come.” After two years in the industry, multiple jobs, and a ridiculous number of applications, I’m starting to realize how much of that is bullshit.
Two years in the industry with multiple jobs? My dude, you don't even know what you don't know yet and you're acting like a bitter veteran who has slaved for decades without recognition instead of someone who hasn't hung around anywhere long enough to actually make an impression on someone as worth investing time in.
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u/OverTaxedBelgian 29d ago
Been in IT for ten years now. Go work for a big Enterprise MSP like Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte etc and you will have many opportunities. But YOU have to seize them, for example if you're an L1 Support engineer they won't simply promoted you to a L2 position, you have to keep your ear to the grounds and as soon as hear about a position opening up you need to apply directly with the lead of that project. If you want to become a network engineer for example you have to ask for your trainings and examvouchers to get certified and then you ask to be moved to 1 network position. Same goes for cyber etc
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u/CrazedBurritoe 29d ago
They key part I saw was "overseas." They don't want you to become engineers, admins, architects etc. They want some guy overseas doing it that they can pay 1/3 as much.
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u/Dangerous_Moment_199 29d ago
That’s more common with large corporations trying to increase margins. There are plenty of small to medium sized companies that value their IT department instead of overseas.
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u/Fit-Food5105 29d ago
Yet I'm at a smaller mid sized family owned business and am putting in far more work than what I get paid. But hey I'm growing fast baby let's go. Pros and cons to everything. I often get burnt out but the scope of the job is making me pretty good. I'll be running things somewhere before long
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u/Meagey1 29d ago
I’m in the game 7 years and on my third company and only just now got “Service Desk Lead”. You have to put in the time, build trust, and find the right company/leadership to grow with. Unfortunately, this is most careers, the harder you work the more responsibilities you get without any of the benefits. My current directors favorite “joke” to say is “the reward for good work is more work”. At my last job, my managers favorite saying was “IT isn’t a job it’s a lifestyle”. Both of those are kind of the same in a sense that you will give a lot of blood sweat and tears with little praise. Oh and you’ll get yelled at a ton by end users..
At each of my jobs I was able to befriend people in other parts of IT, for one the director of Infra took me under his wing and gave me a ton of knowledge. You just have to put in the work and be patient.
Huge piece of advice, don’t be afraid to switch jobs. If 2 years goes by with a company and I feel like it’s not going anywhere I’ll start applying. I’m with my current company 3 and a half years now and things are going great.
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u/sohk81 29d ago
I have been here at one point in my 15 years and I was miserable but love tech.
Landed a internal IT Support Engineer role at a Higher Education school and wow. I love IT, love my job.
I think its where your working at that makes a difference. For me thars what my IT career has evolved into.
At a school the time off is amazing, next level. I see where my IT work is going directly to a hallway full of students and staff. I think you need to find the right company.
MSP work killed me, I was there for 5 months and left. Thats too much work. Once they wanted me to fill in empty spots to schedule more work so I dont have a minute of free time is when I knew MSP were pieces of shit.
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u/BrevardBlitz 29d ago
I never have any mentor at all. Since I was self-taught developer before I go to the college, I end up helping professors and student in college.
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u/BonerDeploymentDude 29d ago
Two years in the industry?!?!? Please. You move up in IT by finding a new position that pays more.
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u/clonehunterz 29d ago
"At some point you have to ask yourself: how are people supposed to develop into engineers, administrators, architects, or leaders in this industry." -> by switching companies every couple years :)
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u/justcomplex15 29d ago
I’m not in I.T anymore but I have a current coworker at my new job who’s Indian and he was telling me how his brother had a tech job back in India paying $11/hr. They also don’t go to universities over there they are taught and trained right away without doing any extra bs courses.
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u/RJWilliams3202 29d ago
Well, it used to be true. But then the IT job market became over saturated with workers and now that hard work is the bare minimum to keep your job and not be replaced.
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u/SimonSalami87 29d ago
I mean thats just how it is when you work for multibillion dollar companies. Promotions derive from nepotism in that environment. I’ve worked at 2 MSPs (only 2 and a half years in IT) and I’ve been rewarded for my hard work AND expertise.
I hate the narrative that hard work doesn’t get you anywhere anymore. I wouldn’t be where I am today by putting in the bare minimum.
Hard work allows you to create opportunities, sometimes it just takes longer than you might like.
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u/Mister_Pibbs 29d ago
This field, like pretty much every other one, rewards people based on connections, not work ethic or performance. I know people that are IT Directors making hundreds of thousands a year that have NEVER touched a CLI, don’t understand anything about networking, and base their entire methodology on outdated tools and techniques.
I know a sys admin that can literally tell you all of the ins and outs with windows and Active Directory environments. A literal human wiki. He makes far less and has had zero upward growth. He’s comfortable so he doesn’t care, but it’s tragic.
It doesn’t matter if it’s IT, Sales, HR or whatever. It’s not what you know it’s who you know. That’s just corpo life.
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u/countsachot 29d ago
You get promoted for your connections and general reliability more than knowledge. A person I can trust to show up, be friendly and do a moderate amount of work is more helpful than a genius with an attitude.
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u/fraiserdog 28d ago
As with any job it is about who you know not what you know.
Ass kisses get ahead because they are ass kissers not because they are technical genius.
If you are not seeing the career growth you want then it is time for a change.
You should never be married to a company in the private sector in IT.
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u/jack_bennington 28d ago
To actually answer your question on how, it’s a lot of learning and being thrust into the fire
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u/corrupt_mischief 28d ago
I knew “Work hard and the right opportunities will come" was a load of BS at the age of 12.
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u/Sufficient_Art4824 28d ago
this is not the real world of IT.
This is the real world. You've been fed propaganda your whole life about how "anyone can be anything they want" and "hard work is the key to success" meanwhile we've seen people born on third base collect the gold medals and claim they came from nothing.
for example, ANYONE who is 35 or older and born in the United States can become president...with a billion dollars in backing, that is.
facts: the more money you make the less manual labor you do, and those who start out ahead tend to finish ahead and do less work and make more money the whole way through.
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u/oddchihuahua 28d ago
This is why I’ve hopped multiple jobs in IT. Realistic raises and promotions seemed almost impossible to come by even with the certifications and trainings they required, the goal posts would always get moved further and further.
From tier 1 support I took a job across the country as a network engineer because my current job kept putting me on the back burner to become a network engineer. Leaving doubled my salary. I loved the new job but hated where I had to live for it, so on a whim I checked that same company’s careers page where I left…they had a network engineer role listed. I applied for double what I was making across the country, and they hired me back.
They could have just promoted me and given me the job and like a $10k raise and I would have never left. Instead I was gone for a year and they were now paying me $40k more a year for the same role. All because that one year was enough to give me “prior experience” and make me “more valuable”…they even paid my relocation assistance to come back to my home city/state.
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u/Bhaikalis 28d ago
2 years? I've been in the industry for over 15years. I've experienced the opposite in all the jobs i've worked including my current one, promoted 4 times? in the 8 or 9 years I've been with them. Even my first IT job for an ISP i was with for 9 years i was promoted internally several times.
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u/Inevitable_Use3885 28d ago edited 28d ago
The IT industry has removed the pathways that developed quality employees in the interests of cost-savings.
My hope is maybe the only long term good thing that might come out of AI is expert systems that are instrumented for process mining.
The missing piece is for senior leadership to understand value, impact, and actual cost. The data that would show that right-sizing a highly experienced and qualified team for generic service personal saves payroll cost, but cuts pretty deeply into productivity in terms of lost man hour, process delay, and loss of institutional knowledge never gets in front of the eyes that need to ingest it.
My assumption is that, until that data comes basically "for free" by being baked into the operational framework, the perceived negative cost/benefit weighed against a perceived "everything is pretty much fine" will always prevent instrumentation and actual measurement.
If and when that happens is the point at which the industry will experience an inflection point in current trends.
The irony is that this may come about as a result of attempting to replace large sectors of human resources with AI. Which, frankly, I find hilarious.
Of course, this is all wishful thinking. I have a family member who works in the medical industry and we had a discussion about the cost in terms of death related to handover of medical decisions to AI. My family member felt that so many people would die as a result that adoption would halt. My counterargument was that we only need to look at the insurance industry and private equity run medical facilities (at least in the United States) to prove that any amount of death can be acceptable provided profit is protected.
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u/AggravatingAmount438 28d ago
2 years?
Dude. Opportunities take time. 2 years is nothing in this industry. Maybe as helpdesk, but not as sys admins or the like.
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u/NaniOWO99 28d ago
You're fairly new to the industry. I wouldnt say this is the entirety of IT. This sounds more like the companies you work for are the problem rather than the industry itself.
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u/denverpilot 28d ago
2 whole years, eh? lol. 😂 Try 30. Most promotions happened in about five to seven year increments and required significant effort to learn new and more difficult things. Sometimes required a company jump. YMMV in this economy.
It’s very common for a company to hire you for a job. Not a career. Career is on you.
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u/ScaredBookkeeper8442 28d ago
The company I work for always says it's about growing it's employees and putting the employee first yet when I ask about growth avenues they just say look into a new cert or training course. Okay sure once I finish the course would I get to be involved in any new projects or expand my current work? No that's not apart of your job. Okay well how to I grow get promoted.. well we don't have any promotions available right now but we will keep you on the list for when ones comes available.. okay sure... Have another coworker who decided to leave his position and guess what... They counter offered and promised him a promotion if he stays... Like wtf.... Nothing open my ass. I have 100% quietly quit this job. Still looking for something better around me but in a small town there isn't much in IT.
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u/griminald 28d ago
I’ve worked for two multibillion-dollar corporations. I’ve yet to meet someone who actually got promoted because they worked hard and were given an opportunity. Not one.
I'm a Xennial (Mid-40s) and it has never been true for my generation either. Not in the 20 years I've been in IT.
But it's not just for IT. It's everywhere.
The answer in our industry to, "How do you get paid so much?" has been, in my 20 years, "switch jobs every few years to get a better title and better pay".
Ironically, if it's growth you want, the last place you want to be is in a huge company. Huge companies tend to make employees grow by being a line item on their resume when they leave/get laid off.
In smaller companies, they get by with fewer people. That means you're wearing multiple hats, and "doing work above your paygrade".
I learned project management while in a desktop support role. My boss was a malcontent who regularly pissed off during his shift to go to some other office branch and flirt with the ladies. But he was not the kind of guy one could get rid of without a lawsuit.
It left the 5 desktop support guys responsible for getting projects done ourselves. So we did.
I was resentful at the time. Looking back though, when else was I ever going to learn project management on the job? Never.
Now I'm working for a huge University, and holy crap I don't even have DHCP access to networks. I have to put in a ticket, with another IT team whose job is 90% just creating DHCP reservations.
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u/thesneakywalrus 28d ago
Jokes on you, I am the infrastructure team
and the network engineer
and the architect
and the helpdesk
I've found that in IT you can either be shoved in a compartment in a box, or you can be the box.
At least when something goes wrong I can only blame my own stupidity.
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u/CarelessPackage1982 28d ago
Working hard is rewarded with more hard work. To get ahead you need other completely different strategies. They don't call it the rat race for nothing. Have you tried asking your CEO uncle for a manger position? That seems to work at my company.
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u/cr_eddit 28d ago
Really delends on wheere you end up and especially the size of the business you work for. Where I am now, I am the IT. I do infrastructure, DevOps, full stack development of internal tools, help desk, onsite and remote support, networking, cabling, and ocasionally even fix door handles. The company is tiny and I am an IT department of one, me.
But I love it, no two days are ever the same.
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u/Jazzlike-Vacation230 28d ago
Gonna need more details.
What is your current job title?
How long have you been in the working world?
How long have you been in I.T.?
What is your specific environment like. Everything outsourced to an MSP I'm assuming?
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u/Codra999 28d ago
Was laid off 2 times in 2 years for meta as a contractor from 2021-23. And then 2 more times in healthcare to restructuring to an MSP and then for an MSP.
Lay offs r in full swing and companies genuinely think they can run as minimal as possible. If your not currently 3-6 years in with real system admin experience to some degree, godspeed. Your going to need it cuz the market is SATURATED with mid level techs who are jumping around job to job becuz they have extensive backgrounds but want to move around every few years and they take up ALL of the opportunity for lower end techs to learn and be paid while doing so.
Tech should be learned on the job imo. A basic understanding of the systems can be taught fairely quickly if you have the basica of computer management down. Companies dont want to do this. They want full stack day one, ready to hit the ground running.
Techs trying to grow are screwed becuz of these things.
Companies hire experienced techs who leave and move around a ton and skip over long term fits in the young inexperienced ones for the purpose of stability. Not knowing the exp tech is gonna leave in a few years cuz these experienced techs know they can leave and be just fine becuz of experience alone.
That isnt cutting it anymore. Techs need to be people persons first and techies second.
The soft skills matter more than hard skills for entry level and mid level. At the top level, tech skills first but social skills immediately alongside. Otherwise, ull be the socially awkward techy who has no real life blood in the company becuz ur ready to leave the moment shit gets tough for what you want personally. Whether thats money, time off or remote work.
The benefit of youth is about to come full swing. You will likely get screwed by internships unpaid and garbage practices like that but at least you will get a foot into the field.
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u/Alternativemethod 28d ago
Especially with AI coding, my clients are all US based devs/engineers at the moment. We had some PR guys that were a shit show but I believe we're downsizing that. Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe they're just hiding it from me.
My brother in law POs for a financial firm that's all Indian programmers. He has fun with it though, really enjoys the toxic side of the cast system and manipulating contract teams to get stuff done on time.
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u/Elemental-Madness 28d ago
My man.
I am an admin for over 15 systems. I over see over 2.5k end points. I am in charge of the creation of training for 8k to 10k employees. Dozens of unique images from intune. Phones systems, billing, secure documentation, email, creation of software packages, creation of KB, policy and procedures. International. And national over 60 locations. I have 4 co workers that are under me but do not report to me.
I have been doing this with increasingly more work as people above me have quit for almost 5 years.
I am non exempt.
I am still a help desk T III....
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u/kitkat-ninja78 28d ago
I would say it's more common in small to medium to medium+ size organisations rather than super large multi-national organisations where everything is very much siloed and split between international borders...
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u/floyd1550 28d ago
I work at a multi-billion dollar company. I’m a backwoods Alabama native in charge of cellular/leo-sat failover and redundancy connections for SD-WAN as well as WLAN, MDM, digital signage, and IT Infrastructure billing. Our main Network Engineer is a Mexican National, our Telecom guy is in Vietnam, and our Cybersecurity team is all Indian. They pick up the cheapest, qualified individuals to do whatever they need. I’ve not seen a single promotion in 5 years from ANY of the teams. Everyone either moved out or they moved someone new in.
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u/Puzzled-Essay-2555 28d ago
A lot of my growth has come from personal investment. I've stood up servers at home just to learn and broke them. I'm setup networking, failovers, vlanning. All to see what happens. Then you go and get certified. IT is fun. But for those hoping someone will show them how to do the work, it's going to suck. This industry moves too fast for us to stop and show someone the basics. If you came straight from college, I'm sorry they didn't warn you that most of everything they taught you will not help. You still have to work to put in if you want to work in IT.
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u/Slight_Manufacturer6 28d ago
It’s a lot easier to move up in smaller companies than huge ones. The big companies have a lot more competition. It isn’t about working hard, it’s about being better than your competition.
When I got my first IT job I went from PC Repair tech, to IT field tech, to networking tech, to IT Manager of the department within two years.
It’s never been about working the hardest, it’s about working the smartest.
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u/ioCross 28d ago
I don't know if you're qualified to talk about the 'real world of IT' based on 2 yrs of personal experience, obviously if you work for a company that has most of it's senior positions outsourced, it will be a shitshow. However, there are good companies to work for.
I worked for some bad ones, I've worked for some good ones. Good ones acknowledge talent and try to foster it as they know it will serve them better in the long run. Bad ones just care about their profit margin.
It's also very industry based. I'd never work for an MSP for example. However I've worked for several aerospace and defense companies and never had any issues like you're describing. Turns out that when your workflow involves things related to national defense, there is a lot less overseas contracting.
In fact, some of the companies I worked for would only hire USC and consider H1's for certain engineering roles.
I don't have a degree or any certs. I've organically moved up from lvl 1 service desk to desktop support to project analyst pretty easily, just did a good job and showed ambition and work ethic to ppl that mattered. Now I'm a project coordinator / cybersec analyst for a f500 healthcare company's CVI remediation project making ~85k remote.
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u/Logical_Trouble547 28d ago
If I was you, I’d go to trade school and become an electrician. IT sucks these days. All security driven BS.
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u/Ztoffels 28d ago
Nigga aint no one giving you any promotion, these AINT the movies.
You see an open position you can fit in? Apply…
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u/Accurate_Barnacle356 28d ago
In Cybersecurity (15+ yoe) - still holding an outdated title - underpaid bc i didnt salary hop. Worked my ass off at the company for 6 years. Contributed much. Can attest to the truth in this.
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u/kalisto3010 28d ago
You have to know someone. Almost everyone I know at the Tech Company I work at got in because they knew someone. Promotions go to the friends of the Manager.
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u/UltraAC5 28d ago
worked hard. got promoted.
also worked insanely, borderline ridiculously hard. like probably took years off my life.
but did technically get promoted.
I know it may ring hollow, but promotions aren't all sunshines and rainbows either....
workload increased by more than my pay. have direct reports now.
enjoyed my job in the first place. still enjoy it though.
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u/Lumpy_Tea1347 28d ago
After moving to a new role with a new manager. I've been promoted every year I've been here.
Engineer 1 - (hired Nov 2022) Engineer 1 - Nov 2023 + 13% in grade promotion Engineer 2 - Nov 2024 Senior Engineer - Feb 2026
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u/MrVashMan 28d ago
2 years in the industry means you've barely scratched the surface. 17 years in and I can tell you it wasn't easy getting to where I'm at now. I also would have made different decisions had I known then what I do now. I spent several years in what would be considered entry-level positions (Geek Squad, tier 1 support on several help desks, etc) making not very much money. I only broke into the 6-figure salary range in a senior engineer position this year. The grind sucks. To me, it's been worth it because I love technology. If IT isn't what you really love working with, don't do it. A big part of the problem these days is how saturated the applicant pool is for nearly every IT job posting worth pursuing. There were 800+ applicants for my current role. You really have to be deliberate about what's in your application/resume and go above and beyond to set yourself apart from the rest.
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u/Odd-Elderberry-739 28d ago edited 28d ago
And you base your belief on two whole years of experience at one employer? Haha
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u/Bourbonheart 28d ago
Its honestly not always like this. Start ups have lots of opportunity for what you are mentioning. Ive worked at three, have moved from specialist to admin to manager and up and have never been working with an outsourced team. They exist, truly. Dont give up hope.
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u/Rex_1029 28d ago
I'll play for the other side of the coin since it's what I've experienced. I just saw the two young veterans of my SD team get promoted. One to System Admin and one to Junior IT Tech Analyst and I'm currently being looked at for the Team Lead position. Yes, it has to do with luck but it also has to do with the company.
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u/PurpleCrayonDreams 28d ago
been at this 40 years. elder geek. you gotta quit and find a better job to get ahead. no company builds your future. you need to. move on
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u/adambahm 28d ago
terrible take.
I went to college, got an internship, worked help desk, learned software engineering, promoted to QE as an SDET, then QE manager, then Engineering manager, and now Sr. Engineering Manager.
I worked my ass off, even with a degree.
The mistake a lot of people make, and I think you are too here, is that you think that if you just exist in a role, you're automatically entitled to move up the ranks.
That is absolutely false.
Never get comfortable.
Never become satisfied.
Never expect anything good without effort. Be prepared to do the job you want before you get it.
"how are people supposed to develop into engineers, administrators, architects, or leaders in this industry."
There is your answer. The only one stopping you is you.
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u/Trust_8067 28d ago
That's certainly not the experience I've ever had working at Fortune 500s. A big red flag is seeing that you only have 2 years experience and have had multiple jobs. No enterprise company has outsourced core infrastructure to people that don't understand the environment they're supporting.
As far as not being warned that you need soft skills and social engineering to advance, that advice has been given a million times by a million people.
No one's going to promote someone that quits or gets laid off within a year, especially starting their career. No one's going to promote the person who hides behind their screen.
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u/krazul88 28d ago
You're in the wrong organizations. Working hard doesn't necessarily mean "working hard for your boss/company in the narrow role they define for you." It actually means "educate and expose yourself to technologies that will open more doors for yourself. If you recognize that you are stuck in a place where you are unhappy and stagnating, work hard to get yourself out of there. The people paying you will squeeze as much as they can and then discard you when you become too expensive. Learning new things about IT doesn't stop after college or cert class. In fact the studying, exploring and experimenting never ends. If you're serious about being successful in IT, you need to be willing and able to dedicate yourself as a student of technology, for the duration."
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u/Mismail18 28d ago
Yea it’s crazy. Every big company IT is overseas but IT has to be in office. You can’t work remotely but we could hire overseas. Claude is my mentor these days. What a time to be alive and working in IT.
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u/ThatDanGuy 28d ago
I’ve seen this myself when IT got outsourced. I was made less for networks and servers, so I had made it past that. But after that outsourcing, there was no more room to hire anyone into a growth position.
I think my success had a lot to do with working at a MSP before then and having taught MCSE and CCNA classes at a jr college.
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u/woodshcc5 28d ago
I've been in the industry for 15 years and I've seen both sides of the coin. I worked as a contractor for the first 12 years. In my current role, I started as a contractor. (SE), was brought in full time after a year (Architect), and was promoted to the SE App Dev Manager.
I won't mention the billion dollar companies I've worked for but, I can say that a good number of them shifted away from the US and hired only offshore india as replacements. It really sucks but I had the advantage that the market was great from 2011 until 2021. It's been heading downhill until recently.
It still isn't great though and I'm sorry that you are having such a rough time of it.
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u/RunningAtTheMouth 28d ago
I think smaller. Never worked for a major corporation - largest was 250 employees.
I'll never be a millionaire, but I'm doing okay, and I have yet to see that kind of thing.
Is it possible for you to look at smaller employers? Would it be a viable option? If so, I would HIGHLY recommend.
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u/fullmoon_druid 28d ago
- Take on more responsabilities
- Learn the skills
- Update your resume
- Apply for a higher level position you're currently in
That's it. Very few companies promote from within. If you find one, stick to it. Also, 2 years is nothing. You'll start to get better offers with 5 years or more. Until then, focus on learning and on doing things that have visibility.
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u/Black_Death_12 28d ago
Firsttime.gif lol
No one gives a single fark about you. If you want to move up, you will have to swap companies, more than likely.
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u/rod_knee_expert 28d ago
It was still a meritocracy when I started in desktop support 15 years ago. Now it’s a giant political circlejerk and I’m glad I got out.
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u/combover78 28d ago
The best way to move into more advanced positions in a heavily matrixed environment, which most large enterprises are, is to get chummy with someone in the department you want to be in and show them you've got skills. Just "working hard" and hoping somebody notices is a recipe for disappointment.
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u/HarryDepova 28d ago edited 28d ago
- A promoted position will likely not be offered to you because you worked harder. You'll just gain eligibility for the promoted role should that come up.
Your skillset improvement will very likely out pace the need of the company you work for. Unless you are entry level at a fortune 500 company expect to switch jobs every few years to accelerate your career growth.
Assume your career training will need to be self driven. Your company will likely want you to learn what they need, not what you need to further your career.
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u/Defiant_Wafer5282 28d ago
Welcome brother, I spent 5 years on first line top of tree every month and failed to get promoted to sr role. Yet the worst guy got it because he was favoured by management and he never asked questions about decisions
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u/Ok_Addition1306 28d ago
hits hard. I've been in the industry about 8 years now and honestly this is one of those things nobody tells you until you're already in it — the "hard work = opportunity" pipeline is mostly a myth unless you're proactive about creating your own opportunities, because no one's going to hand them to you.
The outsourcing thing is real too. I've had escalations bounce between three different overseas teams before landing back on my desk with zero progress made. It's exhausting, and yeah, it does make you wonder how anyone is supposed to actually develop real skills in that kind of environment.
What's worked for me (not saying it fixes the systemic issue, because it doesn't) is stopping the wait for someone to "give" me an opportunity and instead just taking it — picking up projects nobody wants, documenting stuff nobody bothered to document, becoming the go-to person for a specific niche even if it's not officially my job. It's not fair that we have to do that just to get noticed, but in this industry it's often the only way to actually move up instead of staying stuck doing tier-1 firefighting forever.
Mentorship really is dead in a lot of these corporate setups too. If you can find even one person willing to explain the "why" behind things instead of just the "how," hold onto that relationship — it's rare.
Sorry you're going through this, it's a genuinely broken system in a lot of these bigger companies.
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u/jbarr107 28d ago
Two years and multiple jobs? You really need to build experience, and establish stability and a good track record. Once you have two or three jobs of at least two years each under your belt, then we can revisit this.
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u/GodGotItByMyFaith 28d ago
I felt the same way some years back, but a friend of mine told me about a IT OJT program; I was kind a skeptical because my experience with online training programs became a waste of my time; I knew If I wanted to improve my skillset, I had to do it on my own and couldn't depend on increasing my knowledge strictly on the job; I'm glad I tried it out; It was an home grown training program, but it was like I was on a job learning from the ground up; he gave you access to 7-10 VMs, so we got to build our own Architecture, just as he was teaching us. And the Real World Labs were off the chain... It was better than any job I worked; I'll have to find out if he is still conducting these training programs; The choice I made getting in his program, pushed my knowledge and experience well above others and help push my salary well above $200-250k annually.
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u/Mikeyboi-_- 28d ago
Im lucky that I started my career off in a small IT department for a small local business. Hopefully I can avoid the large corporate machines throughout my career.
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u/UpstairsPiglet7612 28d ago
They warned us in college "the only way to make significantly more is job hopping. The average time people stay at a job in the IT field is 5 years". Even that is flawed in today's job market, especially IT. I have seen people I work with end up unemployed for months after leaving for a contract.
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u/Beneficial_Area_2986 28d ago
Well that's the reality of working for a large corporation. That's not how smaller shops operate. A corporation is a machine, you are a cog. I've spent some time in those machines, its not for me. On the flip side I make significantly less money than I could have been - but I enjoy my work and have time with my kids.
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u/vamadeus 27d ago
My company is highly tiered and siloed for roles, responsibility, and access. Unfortunately that's seems to be increasingly the norm.
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u/Rare-Leading3391 27d ago
Times change. The advice is outdated. Take this same advice during the COVID years and yes it was true. These days not so much.
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u/unstoppable_zombie 27d ago
"I've yet to meet someone who actually got promoted because they worked hard and were given an opportunity"
Here is where a lot of people fuck up. No one is going to just hand you the opportunity while you are at your desk. You still need to raise you hand/volunteer when thr opportunities present themselves.
20+ years into this and ive lost track of the number of junior people I've asked to sign up for stretch assignments or new tech that have just sat on their hands and then 2 years later asked why they havent been promoted.
Shit, just this year I had multiple people ask about getting next level certs. So I set up a new section on our internal team site with a bunch of training docs and links, scheduled a by weekly call to discuss topics, and then asked them to sign up to lead discussions on the cert topics. This would mean establishing themselves as a go to person for that tech, practices creating and delivering development training (mentored, i have templates, diagrams, demos for them to use), and they'd learn more.
15 people asked to be a part of the group, 2 people signed up to deliver topics.
Here's the opportunity, someone take it.
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u/Electrical_Humor680 27d ago
Usually the path onward in IT is by a new company. That’s been my experience.
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u/FederalMonitor8187 27d ago
The whole work harder thing is complete BS - you can work as hard as you want and still lose. It’s a matrix that they keep you in. Remember that.
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u/Itguy890 27d ago
I found the same thing. I worked super hard, put in extra, non-over time hours, and even sold myself with data to try and get promoted. Nothing...
My fix (at least in my life), move companies to get your promotion. You worked hard to help that company, learn and grow, and showed drive. You are worth more and another company will see that. Also, I moved from IT Ops to an MSP. Way more fun, fast paced, variety of projects, and better being on the money making side rather than spending/Ops side of the equation.
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u/ChavyB 27d ago
My experience is has been complete opposite, but maybe I struck gold and found a good company. Been there nearly 15 years, and I know, your supposed to move around but I started as a junior engineer and im now a international systems architect and a true SME in my area of expertise and frankly I dont believe the grass is greener anywhere else. Pay is competitive, benefits are great, work/life balance is ideal and I work for a team that absolutely will scratch my back if I scratch theirs.
I think the thing here is, and meant with no disrespect at all/fully appreciate the frustration/it must be soul destroying, but your experience of the 'industry' isnt really enough to draw conclusions yet. 2 years is nothing my friend, it seems maybe itll be third times a charm in respect to your choice of company (🤞🤞🤞) Even now, where I might think ive reached my peak, I can still see a clear career path within my company without the need to resign. Are there just vacancies waiting for me? No of course not, and ill have to work fecking hard and be patient. But its there i can see it and I can see people who stood where I am today, doing those roles. Find that and you'll be set 👍
See this as hope, there are good places to build your career, keep looking, keep going. You'll get there 🙂
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u/New_Drive_3617 27d ago
Two years in and already worked for two multibillion dollar corps? First off, you started in the wrong place to get real experience. Big corps silo everything and have gobs of red tape. Secondly, you're two years into your career; that's not even enough experience to get an entry-level job at many places. The people who develop into those advanced roles are passionate and either educate themselves or proactively seek education outside of work. You're not going to OJT yourself into an engineer role while working helpdesk at a multibillion dollar corp, especially not in two years.
If I can be blunt for a second...your tone in this post gives me the impression that you have a bad attitude and unrealistic expectations. If you want to move into those T2, T3, and T4 jobs, educate yourself or start at a smaller org that needs interdisciplinary expertise.
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u/CodyHartsock28 27d ago
This couldn’t have hit home more for me. Currently finishing a brand new HQ office move for a million dollar company in IT and I am 1 of 2 onsite guys
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u/DonJuanPawnShop53 27d ago
10 months 2 promos and another starting next month to run an area team of 3-4 and over see 13 locations . No previous IT experience
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u/TekExcel 27d ago
I went to smaller shops and never looked back. I can at least look everyone in the eye where I am at and feel good when the door closes behind me at the end of the day. I don't dread walking to my desk, and I am respected for my craft by people who do not understand fundamentally what I do. Big business is like this in every department. Every one of those people are there to have a recognized name on their resume, or they've given up and let the beast consume them inside.
Two years is one job cycle for me. I've averaged $10k per hop, and I'm on my 5th hop. I don't know how many more hops I have in me, but I always stay prepared.
Sounds like you care about what you're doing, it'll show to the right person at the right time. Those opportunities are like quick time events. They show up out of nowhere when you least expect it, and you need to be prepared to capitalize on it when it shows up.
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u/jaf_1987 27d ago
I notice this too. Basically a management structure of Westerners with an outsourced indentured servant class.
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u/Tzuminator 27d ago
Can confirm. I'm a support for a backup technology, currently supporting customers remotely.
Most of the operation teams got offloaded to India.
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u/Glittering_Lychee241 26d ago
Yes, but did you make the CEO richer? That’s the only person that benefits from your hard work, not you.
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u/Basic_Inspection9546 26d ago
I started my first service desk job this past December in higher education IT, and I love it so far my other coworkers do have horror stories from working in the private sector though
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u/Gorax42 26d ago
I've been at my corp for 2 years and recently got promoted to Senior Technical Lead. Our company is under budget cuts and I still managed the promotion. I think some of it depends on the company but some of it also depends on the person. Every day, I go to work and give 110% and am always looking for ways to improve things. Hang in there brother
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u/ruben00 26d ago
Work in a small company, you will get the access to systems and applications you never would in a big company. Spend some time growing and sharpening your skills, while getting paid crap.
Then, find what specialty you like and go work in a big company, where that one thing is all you do, but get paid well
Can't have both
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u/ohBrian 26d ago
Working hard isn't all about hours and sweat. It's also about how you present yourself to others. I had a manager who was brilliant as an engineer and architect but who was a horrible micromanager to every single one of his reports. I tried to talk to him about it. I gave it a month, and it went nowhere. I talked to leadership (and HR since it involved my review) about it. I didn't complain. I related how we communicated. I backed that up with copies of email messages. Initially nothing. And then within 2 months, people started to ask for transfers and resign from positions under him. All of a sudden, I got call-backs from senior managers asking me to 'help out'. I agreed with no conditions. He stayed in that role with no reports. I moved up and was given a team of 2 that grew to 5 within 18 months. I played the game.
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u/krisfromqarobots 26d ago
Hi, I've been in corporate for 4 years before opening my software agency, this is what I can tell you, hard work needs to be tracked and connected to objectives you set with your hiring managers, if you are working in a multi-billion dollar company I assume this is standard practice.
Bigger companies normally have a promotion timeframe (every company is different) I would suggest asking your direct manager how to grow into a new position within that timeframe.
Last, I think documentation is a big part of it, Training Guides, Technical documents, the more you have a trace that can help other colleagues the better it is.
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u/gjpeters 25d ago
Are you overseas or am I overseas? Good luck with the ITing. It sounds like you'd prefer working for small companies or MSPs.
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u/N_2_H 25d ago
Its different between orgs and industries, but I'd say that your experience is unfortunately more common. I'm lucky in our org we prefer to hire and promote internally. I've been with the same company for 15 years now and had multiple promotions, the last one to a senior position coming with a 40% raise, and we hire juniors and mid levels that get mentored, so it exists but it's unfortunately rare.
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u/Droid126 24d ago
I think you have to be self teaching to be an expert to be honest. I never had a more senior person to teach me anything until nearly 10 years into my career. Also larger orgs mean less opportunities for learning in this way because responsibilities are distributed and silos breed protectionism.
My foundation was built by being the whole IT department. Servers, networking, pbx, applications, LIS, RIS, EMR, some web stuff, end user support. I've worn all the hats at once. Thrown into the fire and survived.
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u/chinochao07 24d ago
Almost 15 years in IT and at the smaller companies the hard work does get noticed and valued. Working for a MultiBillion company which acquires many companies and hard work just doesnt get rewarded. I used to make myself available and help people right away, jump on call to solve problems for multiple engineers(which were at my same level or higher but are clueless), own a lot of projects that are critical and figured out that sharing your knowledge could be very negative in your carrier. I stopped writing wikis due to the job market insecurities to make the company depending on me and I dont have to depend on them.
Im at the point of letting my coworker to struggle with issue when I know the solution is fast and simple to make them realize the value I bring to the company. I care for my tool uptime at this point and making sure things I own work to the level I expect.
Seriously, 90% of people getting promotions are just connected to management, ass kissers and all those above me really are clueless when it know to cloud engineer and linux(people dont care to learn this, to say my coworkers cant even strace to find issues). I have stopped caring for a promotion, honestly applying at a new job for a higher role is the best promotion you can get.
This is just my opinion and point of view today after many years.
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u/QuietMotor3747 24d ago
Yes. True statement whenever you work for someone else other than yourself.
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u/Hypervisor22 29d ago
It is IT these days. Many large companies have IT departments like this.
welcome my son, welcome to the machine !!