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Career path help

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by the_blue_goat

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I'm a reasonably successful system administrator - having worked my way up from help desk/admin in a 1 deep IT department to my current position where I'm the Sr. Engineer having designed a distributed architecture using a few SANs, replication, and geographically dispersed clusters.

Although I have some unix background I've been able to come this way, for the most part, just focused on Windows NT/2000/2003 and associated products (Exchange, SQL, SMS, Citrix, and so on). My quandry is this:

There isn't really much room left for growth with my current company - I feel my current position is at about the top of the chain they have available. On top of that - more likely than not when the time comes to move (in a few years) I will be sent to a smaller data center - as there's nothing bigger available.

I have an opportunity to take a job, at a modest pay cut, as a SAN specialist. They would give me some top-rate training on the SAN systems and fibre channel switches, but I wouldn't use my Windows architecture/sysad experience much to begin with. On the other hand - I'd be guaranteed, due to the nature of my specialty,to work in fairly good sized data centers, and maybe have my foot in the door to a pre/post sales architect position later with the vendor.

I don't know anything about system architect career paths and don't have a mentor available - is it worth it to focus on SANs to gain a truly in-depth knowledge and forgo system administration for a few years, or should I continue to specialize in all the Windows product lines and try to pick up some SAN engineering on the side?

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by dc_guy

A whole lot of us hope to see the demise of Windows, or at least to see it lose what we consider its undeserved market leadership to some upstart competitor that knows how to spell "QA" and doesn't regard the entire planet as an alpha test site. Please don't turn this into a flaming war, folks. My point is that many of the people who comprise this market FEEL this way whether you agree with us or not. In fact there are whole nations full of us. Every PC for sale in the Spanish province of Extremadura has Windows stripped off its hard drive and replaced with Linux. It may seem like a foolish hope, but this is IT and rapid, unexpected changes are IT's trademark. The first president of IBM thought the entire human race would never need more than sixty computers. The PC revolution, the internet, Amazon.com, and e-Bay took the world by surprise and made a lot of people scramble for new jobs. You might consider broadening your expertise, and at the same time strengthening your "versatility" muscles, in case the wave you're surfing breaks before you retire.

by wiqedwilly

The Blue Goat, I am a UNIX Sys Admin with 9+ years experience at that and 18+ years in the IT industry with electronics and various technologies. I have been out of regular employment since Aug 2001. I know several IT people who cannot find employment in their field and work at things like car sales and McDonnalds and such menial jobs. The first thing is to be thankful you have a job. If you have an opportunity that you feel could give you advancement then take it even with a moderate pay cut. I thought having a career as broad as UNIX sys admin would prevent me from ever having unemployment problems. If you choose to go into SAN as a specialty remember your employment options may be narrowed significantly. But that is a risk you will have to decide on.

I have a question for you and anyone else who reads this. Why don?t companies that you answer job adds on all the job sites (monster, dice, careerbuilder, etc., etc.) not even have the courtesy of replying back to you? I have applied to literally a few thousand jobs and get nothing in reply ? but they still advertise.

by dc_guy

It's been a couple of years since I used those boards. (Knock on wood.) At that time, I'd say that half of the firms I applied to at least sent automated replies so I knew the system was working. This is further evidence that employment has become a buyer's market. They treat us like commodities before they even know our names!

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