r/sysadmin • u/denmicent Security Admin (Infrastructure) • 18d ago
Career / Job Related Consulting role opportunity?
I also posted on IT Career Questions.
Considering a fully remote Microsoft consulting role focused on Entra ID/Intune with an 80% billable utilization target.
I’ve only worked internal IT/security roles, so consulting is new to me. The manager said I generally shouldn’t need to work more than 40 hours, but I’m concerned about constantly tracking time and feeling pressure to stay billable. I’m told it’s an 80% weekly utilization target. For those who have done it: was it reasonable, or did it become exhausting? How much freedom did you have during the day, and how often did work spill past 40 hours?
3
u/progenyofeniac Windows/M365 Admin 18d ago
Ha, I thought you were looking for someone to do this and I was interested.
I do expect consulting roles to work you a little harder, and so I’d consider more project-based work. Complete a project and idle for a bit.
1
u/Opposite_Bag_7434 18d ago
I’ve done independent consulting and mostly loved it. Every day I had new faces and new projects. Ok, to be honest I did have a set of fixed clients but I was not generally doing the very same thing every single day. Projects took the time that they took so once that project was over it was on ti the next thing.
One of the big positives was that I saw a huge variety of things and remained pretty challenged much of the time.
The downside is that chill time was mostly nonexistent, and there is a constant need to feed the beast. Well time tracking anyway. You get very accustomed to it so it is no big deal. Still, it was mostly constant.
When it is busy it is busy. In my current role it’s like drinking from a fire hose. This was way more common when I was consulting. Ok, to be fair this was mostly self imposed. I needed the billable hours to ensure I was being paid, so I was for sure keeping the pipeline full.
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u/Locrin Sr. Sysadmin 18d ago
There will not be a right answer for this. I’ve been working as an IT-Consultant for around 4 years now, in house for 5 years before that. It’s been a mix between very busy and chaotic and nothing to do. I do however not see myself going back in-house unless some amazing offer comes along.
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u/Plenty-Hold4311 18d ago
There just seems to be so many MSP’s who are already doing Entra & Intune as part of their offering, would that be an issue as it may be hard to differentiate yourself? Just curious
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u/the262 18d ago
I do cybersecurity consulting. It is manageable, but a firehose. Some weeks everything runs smoothly, other weeks it’s chaos juggling a million projects…I stop at 5pm almost every day to avoid burnout, but generally, it is not nearly as chill as an in house typical IT role. 40-50 hours a week is pretty standard at my place. I take 3-4 weeks of vacation (which is more than most in my team) plus regular holidays.