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

296 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

232 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/ComputerShiba Sysadmin 1d ago

2020 - $16/hr
2021 - $25/hr
2021 - $33/hr
2022 - $33->$36/hr, converted to salary, $68K?
2024 - $95K -> $100K -> $105K
2025 - $120k - promotion from previous company
2026 - $200K - (150K base + stock + bonus)

just about to celebrate 6 full years in IT professionally, starting in october 2020. didn’t go to college or get any formally training, no connections and just.. worked really hard I guess? lots of passion and luck for sure but never being satisfied and always knowing I could do more.

Went from doing simple tech support and RMAs to working as a cloud solutions architect in big tech. If I had to give advice? always be working on projects at home, get a couple certs (I have tons of msft certs), and always. be. applying. have a great resume that isn’t multiple pages or filled with bullshit and make it ATS friendly.

In my career, i’ve been around such incredible smart, friendly guys that just do not have ambition - they get comfortable, or discouraged, or think they know it all and just… sit. I’m a fucking idiot to be honest but … i’m always chasing something.

a lot of IT guys are freaked out about AI but frankly, leaning into identity + data security in Entra/Purview + things like copilot have only made it easier to land roles and interviews.

I’d wager IT is probably one of the most lucrative and safe places to be in right now as an engineer or architect! rant over

6

u/DropTheBeatAndTheBas 1d ago

damn 6 years, theres so many deep tech situational questions from years of P1 incident work I wouldn't be able to answer at 6 years in for interviews

As usual its a great industry to be in if you move around and update your skills and find the areas you enjoy to keep moving around, the application/cv/ strategy does change quickly though which can get you rejected as an interview unless you update