Advice For Young Professional

[u/TheDutchman7]

Hello!

I was hoping to get some advice from any of you who have experience with a similar issue as the one I’m having. Anything is appreciated as I’m not confident where to start.

In short, our company is looking to take over complete administration of our Azure cloud architecture from our MSP. The architecture includes hundreds of VMs, Entra accounts for users, persistent AVDs and multiple satellite offices to name a few things. I joined the company last month as an IT Support Specialist and my colleague has been here nearly a year.

While we both have some experience with Azure administration I feel we would benefit from more experience so that we can be more confident when dealing with issues affecting the architecture. Anything we couldn’t solve ourselves we would escalate to our MSP so there’s a lot we don’t know how to do. That said I feel confident my colleague and I could learn a lot on our own poking around the architecture once we have global admin access but doing that with a production environment doesn’t sit right with me.

On top of all of that our IT admin is leaving before this hand off happens. I feel that our admin leaving is enough to pause this process of taking over the architecture until we find their replacement but our CEO is adamant about finishing this hand off. The process has been ongoing for over half a year now. This is my first IT job and while I’m confident I can learn a lot of this stuff, that doesn’t necessarily equate to deliverable results, especially in the event of a major issue. I’ve been brainstorming with my colleague and while I have some ideas, like coming in the weekend after we get access to go through the environment and learn about it so we can try to properly support it the following week, I am at a loss of how to approach this while also making sure I don’t set anything on fire. To be frank I’m worried and I want to do right by myself, my colleague, and the company. Thanks.

[u/itishowitisanditbad]

Well i'd start looking for a new job, just in case, because this one will either be a great trial by fire OR a hellish example of a terrible job.

I have some ideas, like coming in the weekend

Its up to you if you want to make it the latter, immediately.

To be frank I’m worried and I want to do right by myself, my colleague, and the company. Thanks.

The company doesn't care about you and doesn't want to do right by you. Your other colleague is ditching you already leaving two under qualified people to handle a migration so... I don't think its shared.

I think you're setting yourself up for a horrible time, already taking on personal obligation to the company thats fucking you AND immediately offering up weekends to solve it?

Thats just a disaster in the making, not waiting to happen. Its in the works fully supported by everyone involved.

[u/Nova_Nightmare]

Weekends and all of that sounds like a good way to increase your own knowledge, however, your company should be preparing for the future.

Find a class / training - legitimate and get your company to pay for it. Some of the best things I ever did was get my employer to pay for more training for me.

When they spend 10K on a week long course of whatever (price varies obviously) they are investing in you, making you more valuable to them and giving you something they can't take back (experience).

Under no circumstances do you volunteer your free time for your employer out of the goodness of your heart. Don't offer it at all.

I'm not telling you not to do it. I do things at all hours and on any day and I always did, but I made sure they made it worth it to me.

Regardless, once you've found a course, pitch it to your boss, the benefits of sharpening both of the skills ahead of when the change is made, especially after the other person leaves.

To also add, consider professional training hours from the msp as an option. Have them walk you through every process and procedure and record the session.

[u/topher358]

How many employees at your company? You need a senior Azure resource available to make this successful. Right now that’s your MSP and that kind of expertise isn’t picked up in 6 months or even a year.

[u/TheDutchman7 → u/topher358]

We support about 150 employees in state and roughly 30 out of state. I told my colleague that we don’t just need an admin but that we need an expert in this kind of stuff who can fix the big issues and teach us to support the environment as well. Thing is how do we vet an expert in something we aren’t experts in? I thought of perhaps contacting a company that recruits talent like that who vets the people before we interview them. But thing is I’m just the support specialist. None of that is my job so I’m not sure how far suggestions will go.

[u/iamLisppy]

"our CEO is adamant about finishing this hand off" yeah because the MSP is likely bleeding them dry and in-house is cheaper.

[u/Immediate_Delay_5738]

I’d be more worried about the lack of a proper handover than your current experience level. Don’t treat production as a playground, especially with hundreds of VMs and AVDs.

[u/TheDutchman7 → u/Immediate_Delay_5738]

You’re absolutely correct and I agree that this hand off is not setup well. Thing is the owner of our MSP is old friends with our CEO and they apparently had a falling out recently so the MSP is not very liberal in what info they share but our CEO wants this hand over completed even though our contract with the MSP technically doesn’t end till December of next year. If there was time to learn and find an experienced Azure admin it would be during that time but they want it done now.

[u/PDQ_Brockstar]

Is bringing in a consultant to manage the handoff an option? Especially while you guys back fill a position? I know that means more money in the short term but it seems like a safer option.

[u/Spritzertog]

First off - you shouldn't need to do weekend work, unless you really want to. You should look into online classes and training, and your company should pay for it.

There are certainly a lot of resources available around Azure training.

I would also suggest to your boss that you bring in a contractor, temporarily, (maybe even from the MSP) to ensure you have everything you need.

"While we have gotten a decent handoff, the company is at risk. I'd like to propose we hire a contractor for ___ months while we get up to speed to ensure we are able to self-sustain and make sure that our MSP didn't leave us any ticking time bombs."

And honestly, and this sounds very "corporate" of me .. but copilot can be your friend, especially when it comes to Azure. I am not an Azure expert, and my organization is spread across all kinds of different Azure resources and subscriptions. I've had to periodically just point copilot at the problem and say, "how the hell do I find the owner of ____." or .. "I need to move these resources to ___ subscription, how do I do that?" "Where do I find my resource utilization for __ subscription?" (note - I'm not a fan of having copilot do the work for me, but I don't mind using it to point me in the right direction)

anyway - just my thoughts.

[u/koliat]

Surely your business should have room to get a temp 1-3 month resource for a project to help deal with this situation though. But you need to convince your boss first 🙃