Member2019
1,000 posts to go for my own user title!
Technology has passed its peak ...
Technology has passed its peak. Most people (other than the elderly) have woken up to what IT largely is. It's just technology, another aspect of business. It's just an acquired set of knowledge and familiarity that anyone without even a college degree can learn with experience (and I say this as someone who has an Electrical Engineering degree myself, no degree is required, much less engineering is not at all).
Also gone are the days of "technology for technology's sake." It had it's hey-day in the .COM boom and it's now over, for good, in the housing bust. Heck, shortly after the web hit, I realized too many people were getting into it, so I focused on mission critical infrastructure and other, rare technology knowledge. And I did that working as a traditional engineer, not an IT worker. I learned not how to just use and support most major platforms, but where various, critical applications were, their purpose, how they were coded, some of those libraries, etc... across engineering, financial and other disciplines.
The .COM bust was the first time I realized I could no longer count on any employer for my work. I also could not count on being in the same location, city-wise, for any period of time, as opportunities migrate. That's when I became a consultant, taking the years of doing technology as a secondary role (to my engineering), and applying it back into fields that were adopting the same technologies. Internet became engineering, engineering became defense, defense became government, etc...
I learned a lot of hard lessons, taking on even $10K of loss in one case where I had to pull out and didn't get paid (and it wouldn't be the last). But I lived and learned how to protect myself. To date, I live on my name. My work comes by first-hand reference. I am the ultimate "go to guy" for dozens upon dozens of, not just corporations, but core hardware and software vendors, around the US in select fields. I actually turn down work every week, and it's been that way since 2004 (about 5 years straight). I kid you not when I say I take "working vacations" with my wife.
You have to strive to differentiate yourself. The opportunities are out there, you just can't sit back and want to be any old sysadmin (SA) department lead, IT manager, etc... Heck, you can't even be a dedicated "architect" these days, as even the brightest are expected to be "hands on" at the upper-tier of support as much as the design/architect aspect.
When someone knows me, they know three things about me ...
1. I do not know vendors and their narrow-focused interfaces individually, I know how every vendor has ripped from others, standards, etc... and how things interoperate
2. I know implementations often better than the vendor's leading engineers and consultants, because I've tinkered, frame/packet analyzed and disassembled their pieces, network and software
3. I will explain everything, freely share knowledge, and document myself out of a job -- good enough that anyone can pick it up, and I'm no longer needed
I show no allegiance to any vendor, and only evaluate solutions on not only their application for the client, but -- most importantly -- the risk to the client, especially long-term. That last part is crucial. I've been involved with several clients more recently that dismissed me 4-5 years ago because they went with one vendors solution, only to be called back and said, "you know, you were right, and now we're paying for it and we need to get out of it."
I don't have any dislike for Microsoft personally, but they've pissed on so many enterprise and government customers (including the US government) that they are in a very poor spot in many areas of infrastructure (they hold on to the desktop platform right now, but Firefox and OpenOffice.org are getting deployed more and more on Windows with full management objects/profiles as a result). No one with any sanity runs Windows in any critical defense or financial infrastructure (and that's always been the case, despite the few one-offs, they aren't at the core, and never have been). I'm continuing to make a major killing on that (while being fully Microsoft certified all the way back to NT through the latest 2008, which really doesn't mean shit technically), knowing the protocols and internals better than every single MS Partner engineer I've ever dealt with, and can utterly obliterate their arguments.
It takes years. I don't know what to tell you being so young and inexperienced, but sometimes you just have to take a "crap job" and make yourself known. Even I worked nearly minimum wage in technology until age 22, building up almost 5 years of 24-30 hours/week experience while in late high school and throughout college (try doing that, continuously, while taking 18 semester hours of engineering at the same time
). And when I did graduate, I worked as a traditional engineer, although all that technology experience did help tremendously (as most IT departments have trouble serving engineering IT needs, especially platforms they've never heard of, and it was a secondary role).
Other than that, you do have a college degree, so that helps with the HR departments that use them as filters. Sadly, they are using IT certifications much the same. Exam fees on their own can get expensive. I know I spend about $3-5K/year just sitting a dozen or so computer-based and 1-2 hands-on lab-based exams to "stay current" on IT certifications. I can't stand them, and most of the technical leads and other people can't either, but the HR departments and vendors make them mandatory for even looking at you. Sadly, they miss some of the most experienced, qualified candidates as a result.
Again, anything to differentiate yourself is good.
Technology has passed its peak. Most people (other than the elderly) have woken up to what IT largely is. It's just technology, another aspect of business. It's just an acquired set of knowledge and familiarity that anyone without even a college degree can learn with experience (and I say this as someone who has an Electrical Engineering degree myself, no degree is required, much less engineering is not at all).
Also gone are the days of "technology for technology's sake." It had it's hey-day in the .COM boom and it's now over, for good, in the housing bust. Heck, shortly after the web hit, I realized too many people were getting into it, so I focused on mission critical infrastructure and other, rare technology knowledge. And I did that working as a traditional engineer, not an IT worker. I learned not how to just use and support most major platforms, but where various, critical applications were, their purpose, how they were coded, some of those libraries, etc... across engineering, financial and other disciplines.
The .COM bust was the first time I realized I could no longer count on any employer for my work. I also could not count on being in the same location, city-wise, for any period of time, as opportunities migrate. That's when I became a consultant, taking the years of doing technology as a secondary role (to my engineering), and applying it back into fields that were adopting the same technologies. Internet became engineering, engineering became defense, defense became government, etc...
I learned a lot of hard lessons, taking on even $10K of loss in one case where I had to pull out and didn't get paid (and it wouldn't be the last). But I lived and learned how to protect myself. To date, I live on my name. My work comes by first-hand reference. I am the ultimate "go to guy" for dozens upon dozens of, not just corporations, but core hardware and software vendors, around the US in select fields. I actually turn down work every week, and it's been that way since 2004 (about 5 years straight). I kid you not when I say I take "working vacations" with my wife.
You have to strive to differentiate yourself. The opportunities are out there, you just can't sit back and want to be any old sysadmin (SA) department lead, IT manager, etc... Heck, you can't even be a dedicated "architect" these days, as even the brightest are expected to be "hands on" at the upper-tier of support as much as the design/architect aspect.
When someone knows me, they know three things about me ...
1. I do not know vendors and their narrow-focused interfaces individually, I know how every vendor has ripped from others, standards, etc... and how things interoperate
2. I know implementations often better than the vendor's leading engineers and consultants, because I've tinkered, frame/packet analyzed and disassembled their pieces, network and software
3. I will explain everything, freely share knowledge, and document myself out of a job -- good enough that anyone can pick it up, and I'm no longer needed
I show no allegiance to any vendor, and only evaluate solutions on not only their application for the client, but -- most importantly -- the risk to the client, especially long-term. That last part is crucial. I've been involved with several clients more recently that dismissed me 4-5 years ago because they went with one vendors solution, only to be called back and said, "you know, you were right, and now we're paying for it and we need to get out of it."
I don't have any dislike for Microsoft personally, but they've pissed on so many enterprise and government customers (including the US government) that they are in a very poor spot in many areas of infrastructure (they hold on to the desktop platform right now, but Firefox and OpenOffice.org are getting deployed more and more on Windows with full management objects/profiles as a result). No one with any sanity runs Windows in any critical defense or financial infrastructure (and that's always been the case, despite the few one-offs, they aren't at the core, and never have been). I'm continuing to make a major killing on that (while being fully Microsoft certified all the way back to NT through the latest 2008, which really doesn't mean shit technically), knowing the protocols and internals better than every single MS Partner engineer I've ever dealt with, and can utterly obliterate their arguments.
It takes years. I don't know what to tell you being so young and inexperienced, but sometimes you just have to take a "crap job" and make yourself known. Even I worked nearly minimum wage in technology until age 22, building up almost 5 years of 24-30 hours/week experience while in late high school and throughout college (try doing that, continuously, while taking 18 semester hours of engineering at the same time
). And when I did graduate, I worked as a traditional engineer, although all that technology experience did help tremendously (as most IT departments have trouble serving engineering IT needs, especially platforms they've never heard of, and it was a secondary role).Other than that, you do have a college degree, so that helps with the HR departments that use them as filters. Sadly, they are using IT certifications much the same. Exam fees on their own can get expensive. I know I spend about $3-5K/year just sitting a dozen or so computer-based and 1-2 hands-on lab-based exams to "stay current" on IT certifications. I can't stand them, and most of the technical leads and other people can't either, but the HR departments and vendors make them mandatory for even looking at you. Sadly, they miss some of the most experienced, qualified candidates as a result.
Again, anything to differentiate yourself is good.
