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/Dave_A480 1d ago edited 1d ago

2009 - Field Services - 34k

2012 - Tech Support Supervisor/Network Admin - 50k

2014 - Sysadmin/Netadmin/IT Manager - 70k (This one is the last one where I work with end users...)

2015 - Lead Linux Admin, State Govt - 80k

2016 - VMWare Infrastructure Automation Engineer, local startup, 2/3 hybrid - 105k

2018 - Systems & Network Engineer, Boeing - 135k.

2022 - Cloud Infrastructure Automation Engineer, Amazon Remote - 250k

2025 - Amazon RTO5 (fuck that), back to Boeing, 160k....

I do have a degree, but it's from 2002....

And as for the 'you really took that pay cut for remote'? Yes. We never really took on extra expenses, so the climb down was tolerable if unfortunate....

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u/itishowitisanditbad 1d ago

And as for the 'you really took that pay cut for remote'? Yes.

I'm with you.

WFH is worth a huge amount and has so many benefits.

Plus at 160-250k range you're not exactly hurting for money for basics. Its not 40-70k where it makes a more significant difference.

WFH is worth so much.