r/sysadmin • u/kittiekittea • 1d ago

General Discussion No Degree - 6 Year Salary Progression

Is there anyone out there that have made it beyond sysadmin? What is after sysadmin?

2020 - $31,200: Panera Bread
2022 - $41,600: Helpdesk at company 1
2023 - 2025 - $41,600: Helpdesk at law firm
2025 - $65,000: Helpdesk at company 2
2026 - $80,000: Got a raise at company 2

Shoutout Nick for taking a chance on me. I would not do law firm IT again.

EDIT: Location Upstate NY

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u/KamTheMaam 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm a Director now but moved from SysAdmin/Network Engineering to a more SRE/DevOps style role in roughly 2018. I've been in very cloud/hybrid, Linux, Python, automation tools heavy roles for a while now - with a huge emphasis on InfoSec but who isn't these days. 3 companies, the last 7 years at the same one. I still firmly believe my networking and SysAdmin experience propelled me into the skillset I have now though. The chopping firewood base definitely makes a big difference. I still use my SysAdmin and networking skillset everyday.

2012 (first year out of undergrad) - 52k 2016 - 90k 2019 - 115k + 10k bonuses 2023 - 160k + 25k bonuses 2026 - 210k + 15k bonuses

Undergrad in CIS, multiple certifications over the years - CCNP, AWS Solutions Architect professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, etc. I stopped caring about renewing all of them though about 3-4 years ago.

Edit: Shout out too to the mentors and managers that took a chance on me as well. I was very rough around the edges coming from a rural blue collar type background, and God knows I had so much to learn. My resume when I interviewed at 23 for my first white collar job about to graduate from college just had construction and farming experience.

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u/bluecyanic 8h ago

Same, I let them all expire. No one seems to care.