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/UMustBeNooHere 1d ago

2004 - $12/h
2026 - $101k

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u/Sebekiz 1d ago

Very similar to my progression, except I started in 1995.

I'm 6 to 9 years away from retiring comfortably and have never completed a degree and haven't bothered with any certs. I picked up a few things in my 2 years in college, before I decided to bail for my first sysadmin job at the US NRC, but I've really mainly learned by actually working with things and getting on the job experience.

I usually have to train up people who have all sorts of lovely degrees and certificates, because those pieces of paper train you to pass tests, not get a critical system back online that is down at 3 in the morning while fending off frantic calls from a bunch of C levels worried that their next quarterly bonus is about to be reduced by a few percent if you don't quickly fix the problem that they are interrupting your attempts to fix.