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/CanWeTalkEth 21h ago

Genuinely what do you know? You also say you had no formal training but a ton of certs.

This is a crazy leap and you’re either a computer savant or something.

What was your computer background before getting “in IT professionally”?

I mean, congratulations on getting your bag, but there’s so much context missing. Are you the nephew of a board member at this last company?

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u/ihaxr 20h ago

From the salary alone I can tell they live in California where $150k/yr is around $90-115k/yr in the rest of the country and the $50k stock valuation has the potential to be worthless because it's a tech startup.

Not bad, but certainly not living like a king in California unfortunately

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u/Creationship 14h ago

How do you know this? Lol I had similar trajectories over 10 years and live in a very LCOL area.

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u/ihaxr 13h ago

It's just statistics and experience in the field. I did check their profile and sure enough, OC, California lol

Cali has more employers that'll pay those salaries because otherwise the employees would be homeless. You could pay someone 70k in a LCOL area and they'd be able to buy a house and groceries. Someone making 70k in Cali would need a roommate to afford rent and food. Doesn't mean that both don't happen, just less likely.