Getting back into the I.T industry

[Boosted131]

I have worked for 3 IT companies over a 5 year period . The last job was for an oil n gas company for almost 3 years. I got laid off when they were going under.

I have been working in a different industry now , still doing some customer support and working on the computer, but not I.T work.

What's the best option for me to get back into it? I was considered "intermediate" at the time and realize I may need to get an entry level job of some sort

[GQBalla]

IT is broad, what do you specialize in.

[adam c]

Gonna be honest, the IT industry is fairly saturated at the moment, doesn't matter what you're applying for unless it's a Sr. Manager position, every job posting seems to have 150+ applicants

[rx7boi]

Sounds like your qualifications put you in the Service Desk category.

You might be more experienced than a typical call center analyst, but you don't seem to have anything that makes you stand out in particular either.

If you see yourself in an entry level position, that indicates to me a lack of qualifications or certifications in general, even if you've been out of the industry for a number of years.

Were you considered intermediate due to seniority or role?

[Anomaly]

The Calgary IT job market is pretty rough right now. A lot of my friends ranging from Desktop, Network or Management are unemployed or underemployed right now. Tons of applicants for every job and contract rates are pretty low. My advise would be to try reaching out to some of your old IT co workers or contacts and see if they know of any roles. Most roles are going to have tons of applicants, so if you know someone it's going to help!

[revelations]

In your shoes, I would have further specialized in IT security or SAN. They seem to be the positions where people are lacking.

[born2workoncars]

Tech support. It's a nightmare!

[Xtrema]

IT Security is a good field to get into but tough to excel at. Don't bother with infrastructure stuff any more (desktop/server/network). There isn't any $ in it, especially now and cloud (AWS/Azure) will eventually take out 30-40% of existing infrastructure related jobs.

IT in the 90s and 00 is like transforming from horses to combustion cars. Things got complicated and generated a lot of different fields and jobs.

IT now is like combustion cars to EVs. Still pretty much the same thing, need 50% less parts and people to do the same thing.

[timdog]

get AWS certified, and Azure if possible. if are out of work right now and have free time on your hands, you can get AWS certified in 2 weeks if you really go hard.
then try to get in somewhere at a junior/intermediate level doing server/infrastructure support for a company that uses AWS.

[rage2]

Are there even many jobs for server/infrastructure support for companies that use AWS? We're heavily leveraged on AWS here at Replicon (and now Beyond) and the key with AWS is automation with exceptions dealt with by entry level support guys that don't even touch AWS. The bigger focus is on infrastructure design so that shit runs itself.

For anyone that wants to learn AWS here's the game plan that I typically suggest:

- Open up an account and play around. The free tier lets you do pretty much everything for free for the first 12 months. AWS documentation is amazing, there's tons of guides on how to do things step by step and to understand what each setting does.

- Learn security basics. This is a cloud platform that sits on the internet so understanding network security, firewall rules is fucking essential. If you have no concept of networks and security, don't even start.

- Focus on the core first which is EC2 and includes everything from Instances (VM), security groups (FW rules), snapshots, volumes (storage), AMIs (images), Elastic IPs (static IPs) is a good start. Understand all the metrics that are collected under cloudwatch when playing with this stuff.

- After that comes basics of clustering and basic automation. Autoscale groups and rules, load balancers.

- Understand costs. Another big one. AWS is really powerful, and costs can easily run out of fucking control if you're not paying attention. You can leverage cloudwatch metrics to understand what everything is doing, what's spending money for no reason, and alerts to tell you to fix shit.

- Want to learn how others are leveraging AWS? Watch all the re:invent videos on the AWS youtube channel. If you can make it to re:Invent in Vegas, you can talk to a lot of smart people that's designed some pretty cool shit in person, and lots of workshops through the event. Channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/AmazonWebServices

- Go watch all the Netflix ones in the AWS channel. They do some really cool shit and we've leveraged some of their ideas.

- Learn node.js this is absolutely essential for automation.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by rage2
Are there even many jobs for server/infrastructure support for companies that use AWS? We're heavily leveraged on AWS here at Replicon (and now Beyond) and the key with AWS is automation with exceptions dealt with by entry level support guys that don't even touch AWS. The bigger focus is on infrastructure design so that shit runs itself.

The Cloud work is all design and migration. Once done you need may be 1/2 to 1/10 people to operate it depends on size.

This is exactly what happened to Exchange Admins. They used to be top $ and now is a dime a dozen since Office365 was released.

We are all getting replaced by robots. So if you are coming back to IT, make sure it's a soft skill and not tech skill. Only code writers are worth anything nowadays.

[revelations]

Originally posted by Xtrema



We are all getting replaced by robots. So if you are coming back to IT, make sure it's a soft skill and not tech skill. Only code writers are worth anything nowadays.

I would disagree than 100% of IT staff will be automated. There will always be a need for troubleshooters and problem solvers, in addition to new installs, etc.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Xtrema
Only code writers are worth anything nowadays.

The demand is soft here too because coders are cheap overseas, and with the languages being so damn simple these days, supply far outstrips demand. You literally only have to hire 1 intermediate coder to code review shit from 5 guys in India when it comes to building automation.

[rage2]

Originally posted by revelations
I would disagree than 100% of IT staff will be automated. There will always be a need for troubleshooters and problem solvers, in addition to new installs, etc.

Literally everything you mentioned automated in the most basic form. System alarm for resource starvation due to a large burst of users logging onto beyond, automatically provisions a new instance, runs health checks, attaches it to load balancer to fix the problem. All in 34 seconds.

[revelations]

-When Windows updates shit the bed on a workstation, who gets called?
-When printers fuckup themselves or better yet their drivers get fucked, who gets called?
-When a HDD decides to pack it in on a server, who will replace the unit and/or restore from backups? (Raid 1 or otherwise)
-When a ransomware bug knocks out a WS, who gets a call?
-When another company fucks things up, who gets to come in and fix their shit? (eg. after a shaw/telus/IP phone provider visit to the business)

BTW - not everyone will have their data on a cloud, even if they can. Many people want their data in the office and nowhere else (except one one client I know carries a USB backup drive home each week).

There will always be a need for human intervention when dealing with complex systems. Yes the need number of staff has been dramatically reduced by way of process and infrastructure changes but imperfect mechanical and electrical things designed by imperfect humans will always find a away to break down.

I deal with SMB clients, so this is what I see from my biased perspective. Those dealing with Enterprise level systems will undoubtedly see the greatest changes as the savings/automation/outsourcing potential there are quite substantial.

[rage2]

Originally posted by revelations
-When Windows updates shit the bed on a workstation, who gets called?
-When printers fuckup themselves or better yet their drivers get fucked, who gets called?
-When a HDD decides to pack it in on a server, who will replace the unit and/or restore from backups? (Raid 1 or otherwise)
-When a ransomware bug knocks out a WS, who gets a call?
-When another company fucks things up, who gets to come in and fix their shit? (eg. after a shaw/telus/IP phone provider visit to the business)

BTW - not everyone will have their data on a cloud, even if they can. Many people want their data in the office and nowhere else (except one one client I know carries a USB backup drive home each week).

There will always be a need for human intervention when dealing with complex systems. Yes the need number of staff has been dramatically reduced by way of process changes but imperfect mechanical and electrical things designed by imperfect humans will always find a away to break down.

I deal with SMB clients, so this is what I see from my biased perspective. Those dealing with Enterprise level systems will undoubtedly see the greatest changes as the savings/automation/outsourcing potential there are quite substantial.

Sure, desktop support will always be around, but with things being way more reliable than they were 10 years ago, the amount of work is dwindling, and why desktop support is such a saturated field these days.

Calgary is a bit of an outlier in regards to slow adoption of new technologies such as cloud infrastructure primarily because of O&G being stubborn dinosaurs that resist change. Every year we add more and more "dinosaur" companies as customers from SMB all the way up to enterprise who have full on processes to vet out cloud providers, so while O&G isn't moving forward today, they will eventually do so along with the rest of the dinosaurs that are moving forward today.

IMO it's downhill from here, demand will continue to drop, supply goes up, and salaries/contract rates goes down in traditional IT. At some point, a significant amount of traditional IT skills will be automated in Calgary, just like it has everywhere else. Just look at California's average IT salaries, it's tanked hard in the last decade.

Another good example of automation at the enterprise level destroying IT jobs, AWS has a really small # of IT staff with 0 on site. Everything is automated to the point where 2 IT guys visit a data center once a week and has a list of things to swap out due to hardware failure. That's ~30 IT guys world wide handling servers that host a significant portion of the internet today. The servers generate the inventory that needs replacement, and they swap it. It's ridiculous.

[revelations]

My point was simply to refute the claim that 100% of IT will be automated ie. "We are all getting replaced by robots."

As long as there are internet connected devices, there will be support staff needed. IT staffing needs will decrease with time, but will never go away.

[eblend]

I'm in a senior infrastructure position and have moved on from one government agency to another...and none of them have even considered cloud stuff. Now that I work in private industry, we are using some cloud applications, mainly office 365, Cisco Umbrella and Mimecast for infrastructure type things. This whole year and most of the next is dedicated to moving 14 sites over to Hyper-V from VMware which I am doing most of the work on, and then they want to start looking at Azure for most applications, but the core services will remain in place. Either way, I think that there is still a ton of traditional IT work. I have chatted with a friend who is still at the government agency where I was some 5 years ago now, and they are still using Mainframes, and have just their main internet page in the cloud, nothing else. I think it will be a while still. I am Azure certified myself and will be looking at AWS when I am not swamped, so as long as you keep up, and aren't a lazy sob who has no ambition, I think you will be okay.

As for the OP, doesn't sound like you did anything special, so you will end up on the help desk, and work up from there. Everything in IT moves so fast, you better keep up, or end up on help desk forever.

[rage2]

Cant say the same for US gov.

https://www.fedramp.gov
https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/

Being one of the very few vendors with FedRAMP has turned out to be a massive advantage for us. All I'm saying is, be ready for it. Don't get into it when cloud guys are a dime a dozen.

AWS just fired up their Canadian data center 4 months ago, so I expect government agencies to start putting together the framework soon. That was the biggest barrier for Canadian financial companies and government agencies to move to the cloud as data HAS to stay in Canada under Canadian privacy regulations. Prior to that we had to run a legacy Canadian data center to satisfy such customers.

[nzwasp]

So Xtrema what are you doing to stay current and not get automated?