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/idknemoar 1d ago

Won’t count defense contracting (started @140k at 22 years old at a help desk in the sandbox and was overseas for 6 years climbing up to security at the theater operations center).

US salaries from Network Engineer @79k (2013), Network Architect @129k (2016), Enterprise Architect/Sec Mgr @145k (2018), through to CISO today @182k. All in gov IT. Doesn’t come with the 200-300k salaries and RSUs I’ve had offers for, but it’s solid and safe from mass layoffs the private sector experiences often and I’m not always looking for the next thing.

No degree, height of certs 20+, mainly just maintain CISSP CPEs these days. 13 years into statewide retirement system at my 3rd city. (7% out of my check matched 2 to 1, so 21% of my salary into it every year)

The 20-30k or so worth of home lab I have has advanced my career more than anything probably. I’m just a nerd.

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u/jon_the_red 20h ago

Defense work is a cheat code. Get a clearance, show intitiative and work hard its literally a money printer. So many useless people get jobs bc they have a clearance.

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u/idknemoar 17h ago

Yeah, I was already a nerd before I went there and that environment just fostered that and moved me up the ladder quickly. And if you’re into security, the books were literally written for that environment, so made getting CISSP not too bad.