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!

t2cQWCPDBC0

[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.
http://i.imgur.com/HHBKFSe.jpg

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?

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by nzwasp
So Xtrema what are you doing to stay current and not get automated?

As much as I love hands on stuff, I don't see it existing in 10 years. And it won't be our choice. It will be due to Cloud Infrastructure disrupting the industry enough that the traditional supplier will go under and force everyone to move to the cloud.

But for myself, I may want to take it easy in project management. Pay sucks and jobs are few in down time like this, but I probably would welcome a bit of slowing down after 20+ years of non stop working the tech. I'm also done with tech and I see next 5 years will accelerate much faster and even harder to catch than the last 10 years.

Like Revelation say, IT will not 100% go away. But I see most infrastructure will as work process changes and the old guards (Hardware providers, Microsoft Windows) are slowly being phased out.


Originally posted by 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.

Yup. Unless under some special circumstances, cloud is the future. Azure already got TO and Montreal datacenters and AWS is in Montreal. They will be start to attract customers with concerns with Canadian laws.

And if they ever got reason for Western DC, you can also kiss the latency argument goodbye as well.

[cgyITguy]

I agree for the most part with the things previously mentioned in this thread. Things are certainly shifting (aren't they always), although I don't think full automation or the widespread deaths of IT careers are in the immediate future. Just as virtualization became prevalent, so will cloud infrastructures although for the time being there are still plenty of companies with internal servers and on-premise exchange and so forth. IT has many branches and I think its important to be well versed in as many of them as you can and some have heavy expertise in a few. Think of it as diversifying your skills portfolio. If you can adapt with the times you will be just fine.

For myself - I'm mostly a senior infrastructure type guy. Lately I've decided to beef up my security skills and go the CISSP route. With the heavy increase in cyber attacks and ransomware etc. I think this would be a great addition to my career path and keep as many doors and options open for future opportunities.

[Boosted131]

What would be some of the best areas of IT to get into now? Is there any fairly short courses that could get a job? Looking for a course or something I can do in the evening now that I'll have a bit more time.

[SmAcKpOo]

Security.

I'm a infrastructure architect in the financial services industry, there are a few regulation hurdles to get past before sector wide adoption in moving to the public cloud.

Sure, while Azure/AWS are great, they cater to specific business sectors over others. It will be some time before infrastructure jobs are a thing of the past. However, something to remember. Cloud providers only guarantee security on the first 4 layers, anything else is the customer's responsibility. Understanding new technologies regarding securing the cloud is the next trend in IT.

I honestly can't see private cloud moving completely public within the next two hardware lifecycles.

[carson blocks]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
Security.


This. Hardware is disposable now. Windows servers are becoming disposable VMs spun up and down by script. Companies are moving to cloud everything. I wouldn't bother training for hardware or to specialize in OS stuff anymore (you still need the knowledge, but a MCSE alone doesn't keep the lights on anymore). Security is a good industry, but to be a good security guy, be good at other things first. Learn Windows Server, VMs, Powershell, AD, maybe some Linux and Python if you're ambitious, the usual stuff, put in your time as a sysadmin or something, get that solid hands on experience, then go get a CISSP and specialize in security.


Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
I'm a infrastructure architect in the financial services industry, there are a few regulation hurdles to get past before sector wide adoption in moving to the public cloud.


I'm an Infosec analyst working for a financial institution right now. At least one FI is moving to 'cloud everything' while successfully passing regulatory hurdles, thanks in part to yours truly. It's difficult but possible. I'm old school and like my infrastructure to be metal things in my office that I can put my hands on, but I've been dragged kicking and screaming in to the cloud era as you just can't argue with the cost savings, scalability, reliability, etc.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
I honestly can't see private cloud moving completely public within the next two hardware lifecycles.

After all, we still have AIX/HP UX deployments out there. I don't see private cloud going away but expect local hosting to slowly go extinct like AIX/HP UX.

I agree that Security is a good field to get into. But I think audit/compliance/advisory would be the easier to deal with than doing active defense.

[phreezee]

Obligatory IT thread meme

https://i.imgflip.com/1plbya.jpg

[cgyITguy]

Security is definitely the best path at the moment, however it might not be the best quick path to a job. There are no quick courses to an IT security job. You need a strong foundation in networking and several other areas before even being considered for a security job. Just something to consider

[revelations]

Security and network integration is extremely detail oriented. I wouldn't recommend getting into it unless you have good attention to detail.

Also, I dont think its something one could do a as a 9-5 "job" - it has to be a passion.

Just my experience only .... :burnout:

[revelations]

Originally posted by Boosted131
What would be some of the best areas of IT to get into now? Is there any fairly short courses that could get a job? Looking for a course or something I can do in the evening now that I'll have a bit more time.

Look at becoming a SAN specialist.

[SmAcKpOo]

Why a SAN specialist? Vendors work with you on your requirements.

Once a SAN is in place the API hooks to your virtualization stack take care of management.

[rage2]

Originally posted by revelations
Look at becoming a SAN specialist.

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
Why a SAN specialist? Vendors work with you on your requirements.

Once a SAN is in place the API hooks to your virtualization stack take care of management.
That and the storage market has been in decline over the last 5 years, and getting steeper.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by revelations


Look at becoming a SAN specialist.

I hope you mean SANS (Sysadmin, Audit, Network Security).

Not SAN (Storage Area Network).

Storage field is narrowing quickly as many vendors are not providing storage for the big 3 public cloud providers and smaller business are moving to the cloud and remove the need of many storage products.

[revelations]

No, I meant Storage Area Networks - was told a few years back (like 3 maybe) from a guy who ended up specializing in it, that it was a growing field. I know very little about it myself.
Just passing on knowledge.

[rage2]

Originally posted by revelations
No, I meant Storage Area Networks - was told a few years back (like 3 maybe) from a guy who ended up specializing in it, that it was a growing field. I know very little about it myself.
Just passing on knowledge.
Enterprise Storage peaked out around 5 years ago. It's been in decline ever since. Virtualization slowed growth about 10 years ago, and cloud started hitting it hard 5 years ago. It's getting worse now because bandwidth is dirt cheap, and cloud storage (especially cold storage like AWS Glacier) is ridiculously cheap.

When it costs $4/month to store a TB of data, nobody wants to run their own storage anymore.

[revelations]

Yea I gather the idea was to specialize in a data centre role somehow, with the massive growth of cloud storage. I know he worked for Shaw in that capacity.

Nothing to do with local businesses storing their own data onsite.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by revelations
No, I meant Storage Area Networks - was told a few years back (like 3 maybe) from a guy who ended up specializing in it, that it was a growing field. I know very little about it myself.
Just passing on knowledge.

If you specialize in a particular tech, you basically backing a horse along with market shares that it comes with. Netapp just laid off a bunch of their people. HP, most tech jobs are now in India. I don't know what Dell did with EMC but I would assume it's the same.

Storage admin is now all about managing and protecting data workload then deal with hardcore tech, vendors will take care of that. Pick your network, pick you storage vendor, tie it to your hypervisors and watch and manage the workload.

And if you don't want any storage admins wasting your $, you can always bet on VBlock, Flexpod, or upcoming Azure Stack which are vertically integrate compute/storage units. So storage admins, just like server admins will be a profession that peaked a few year ago as well.


Originally posted by revelations
Yea I gather the idea was to specialize in a data centre role somehow, with the massive growth of cloud storage. I know he worked for Shaw in that capacity.

Nothing to do with local businesses storing their own data onsite.

Shaw is a Netapp customer I believe. Their VOD does have some special performance metric that cloud storage is tough to match.

[revelations]

Cool, thanks for the info.

[rage2]

For those that are interested in AWS, they're here next week for a free 1 day program. Registration here:

https://pages.awscloud.com/2017_Calgary_roadshow.html

For those that want to sharpen their IT skills and look into AWS cloud, the essentials track is a great way to see what the fuss is about, and learn some basic concepts before signing up and playing around. For existing IT decision makers that are looking to move into AWS, the business track of the program is for you.

I'll be there, jumping between sessions. Always something new to learn at these things. There's a 1 hour lunch break, and I'd be happy to show off what we've done for Beyond under AWS. Unfortunately, I can't show off any of our even cooler Replicon stuff, but for starters, our Beyond in AWS is still pretty cool, especially our VB4 stuff.