#CareerAdvice #TechSupport #Developer #SurvivorshipBias
Hey everyone! Just wanted to share a little story that might spark some discussion. 🌟
So, after struggling to land a developer job for 2 years post-graduation, I ended up taking a cloud tech support position. And let me tell you, it was the best decision I ever made! 💡
Here are some key takeaways from my experience:
– Soft skills and cloud knowledge are invaluable in any tech role.
– Sometimes, taking a non-dev job can lead to unexpected opportunities for growth and advancement.
– Don’t underestimate the power of getting your foot in the door, even if it’s not your ideal role right away.
So, what do you think? Have you had a similar experience? Would love to hear your thoughts! 😊
Basically anything in tech can transition into anything else tech related.
I left a Tech Support job at a F500 company where I was making more than my current developer position. Never sleep on Support roles for pivots.
I started in support and pushed my way to a support engineer position. Still in support and not doing development, but it is a step closer to development and I’m excited.
What? You’re only making 100k and you work in a tech support role? You shouldn’t feel happy since you could be making so much more money at Big Tech!
/sarcasm
That was a really smart move you made there. Unfortunately, even the tech support positions appear to be oversubscribed now.
..at the same time in Canada, can’t get a job stocking shelves
Tech support can pay really good and there’s no deadlines for projects or BS like that. People sleep on those roles because they think is akin to “help desk”.
Protip: it isn’t.
Depending on the company, tech support engineering can be challenging in that to troubleshoot you need a lot of skills. I,e you may have a customer which has started to “get big” and now their prod is breaking when stuff is scaling up and/or more traffic is handled. It takes a skilled engineer to help improve architecture and suggest infra and app level changing a to handle new demand.
Something a normal dev may never see. And these types of skills are in high demand and pay a lot.
I know service providers get a lot of bad rep here, but never in my 6 years I have seen or heard management keeping a motivated person from moving into dev roles when they up-skilled. Probably also related to being able to charger more.
Have seen multiple people do QA -> SDET -> DEV or QA -> DevOps.
I’m having trouble even getting the tech support jobs… Did you have any certs that helped you get the job?
A friend of mine started in tech support (quality) and ended up becoming a data engineer
As long as I could continue earning 6 figures, id bathe goldfish.
As long as my familys needs are met, I couldnt give a shit less at this point.
Now granted. I enjoy what I do as a dev. But make no mistakes. Id do whatever. Primary goal is gettin them money checks.
Recently migrated from a general developer position (which involved some data science) to a dedicated SRE position. Absolutely keep your options open for things “tech, but not dev”. They aren’t dead ends or anything.
Thank you for this! I needed the encouragement. Good luck with the job hunt everyone.
Yep, I worked sys admin type jobs due shot three years after the recession in 09 saw me laid off from my first engineering gig. The jobs paid well for my needs at the time and kept me close to the industry. I got back into software engineering full time in early 2012, and while the first 3-5 years were rough, I managed to make it work.
I graduated last year with a BS in CS. Took a Support Engineer role. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been making changes to some of our code base because bugs have been reported. It’s not a full on engineering role, but it does make me feel like an engineer and I feel like I’ve learned a good bit. It beats being unemployed and it’s the highest paid job I’ve ever had as a 30 year old. Haha.
Good advice. I’m thinking about pursuing tech sales now instead of a dev role!
The other problem is 80% of graduates not knowing there is more than just “software developer” in this industry haha
I disagree. You are maybe setting yourself up for dev ops but any experience tech support won’t count for a software engineering role imo
OP maybe won the gold mine and found a company willing to upskill them but you probably won’t