#ITProfessionals #JobSatisfaction #CareerGoals #ITSecurity #NetworkArchitect #SystemAdmin
Hi all.
I am relatively early in IT my career, and am researching and planning on where I’d like to go next with it. I think I’d like my next role to be working as a system admin, but after that, I’m curious about the field of IT Security, or possibly going the network architect route. I’ve considered a leadership path as well- I truly enjoy working with people, but I don’t know if I’m quite cut out for managerial.
I’m very interested in hearing from those further in their careers to know what their days are like. Are there things you like about what you do? What about things that you don’t like?
Thank you for your time. 🙂
## The Typical Day of an IT Professional
### Daily Duties and Responsibilities 🖥️
– Troubleshooting technical issues
– Installing and maintaining hardware and software
– Monitoring system performance and security
– Collaborating with team members on projects
### Challenges Faced in the Industry 💻
– Constantly evolving technology
– High-pressure environments
– Tight deadlines
– Balancing workload and priorities
## Advantages and Disadvantages of Different IT Roles
### System Administrator 🛠️
– Pros: Hands-on technical work, problem-solving opportunities
– Cons: Long hours, high stress levels
### IT Security Specialist 🔒
– Pros: Protecting sensitive data, high demand for skills
– Cons: Constantly fighting cyber threats, staying updated on security measures
### Network Architect 🌐
– Pros: Designing complex networks, implementing new technologies
– Cons: Requires extensive knowledge and experience, high level of responsibility
## Seeking Job Satisfaction in the IT Industry
### Finding Fulfillment in IT Careers
– Pursue roles that align with your interests and strengths
– Continuously learn and adapt to new technologies
– Seek mentorship and networking opportunities
### Overcoming Challenges in the Field
– Develop strong problem-solving skills
– Prioritize work-life balance to avoid burnout
– Build a supportive professional network for guidance and advice
With dedication and a passion for technology, IT professionals can overcome challenges and find fulfillment in their careers. Remember to focus on personal growth, continuous learning, and maintaining a positive mindset to thrive in the dynamic world of IT.
What does your day look like on the job? Do you like what you do? Share your insights and experiences to inspire others in the IT industry. Your journey could help shape the future of aspiring IT professionals. 🌟
Every day is different. Generally scripting, automating, project work.
Today was slow so I was able to spend most of the day just fucking with windows updates. Seeing why devices aren’t patching, how we can automatically fix it, updating our policies to not include patches that will never install, etc. There’s a certain level of finesse to getting 14000 devices to all behave, especially when it comes to something as fucking nebulous as windows updates. Oh this update failed, here’s an error. What does it mean? Fuck you, I’m not telling.
Then after I had left for the day people were running around with their hair on fire because nobody knows how to operate the central firewall management system. Slightly my fault, did some quick scrambling to get some answers for them.
I love my job. The pay is mid but every other aspect is a unicorn job in the IT world.
Currently trying to plan out how to migrate Group policy based Firewall rules over to Intune cloud based Firewall rules on 200,000 Windows workstations.
One day I redid all the patch cables on one of our network cabinets to replace overly long cables with shorter ones then I update ups firmware then today I spent my day testing and adjusting our mdm server for managing our Mac products. It is wildly variable. Mostly I deal with network issues.
Like this- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c)
Could be updating or creating documentation. Fixing escalated tickets. Going to a client’s site.
Wake up, check our alerts / monitoring tools, check tickets. Usually do some VoIP crap like update phones or voicemails. Work on projects (we have a lot right now). My main thing is trying to streamline and document all of our processes. There’s a lot of fluff and bullshit because the old guard thought they were creating job security by doing stuff the most difficult way possible and not letting anyone else touch it. Also creating vendor proposals for hardware upgrades.
I very much enjoy networking. I do wish I joined a more organized team but theres been a lot of changes and we’ll get there eventually.
Helping Karen download adobe pro.
Setting up VPNs, sharepoint issues, deploying new work stations, more sharepoint issues, configuring firewalls, more sharepoint issues
Post in the company chat with proof what i did/worked on so anyone can search/see and for historical record in case i need to look it up from the future. I guess you could say I document my existence as well as outages related to power, weather, 3rd party ISP’s, backbone providers..blah, blah, blah
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What I REALLY REALLY DONT LIKE? It doesnt stop anyone at all from asking cause they are too lazy to search/read what was already documented
I worked on reports, worked on a script to email reports to everyone, updated some wording on our website, had a lot of short meetings to go over projects people need me to do, and troubleshoot Vonage issues.
Overall, my job is pretty chill; no one knows anything about technology, so they expect everything to be a challenging problem that will take forever. I take my time but try to get as much done as possible.
Now? Nothing. But then again they tried to let me go and freeze me out because I was a US based employee…
Previously I’d do sweeps of the user workstations and check in with folks directly since most places I worked due to their niche uses of systems couldn’t have ticket systems officially.
During the evenings I’d focus on organizing, upgrading, or expanding current hosting infrastructure if time allowed and we had spares that needed to be deployed.
I would always try to talk to the users at least twice a week. Precovid it was four times a week, post was maybe twice a month.
Now, I talk to nobody, have no tasks, and am permanently benched until I find a new role.
Purgatory can cause people to go nuts.
My official title is technical consultant.
My role involves being assigned to customers for a variety of engagements across microsoft security and modern work.
The company I work for deals almost exclusively in Microsoft solutions.
The current engagement is a minimum 6 month one where I sit in the clients architecture team and design the roll out of a complete defender solution across 20k users, so my day to day is make a coffee at home, log into client systems through their hosted vdi environment, check on teams messages, confirm progress, inform clients leadership of progress and milestones, look into issue registers and decide either to fix or teach someone the solution.
Work on pitch decks and internal colateral (more documents) about solution offering and capabilities inside the team of consultants, this can often result in demo’s or labs which we run our sales team through at a high level and the technical consultants learn something.
Got to this point after a decade, mostly through MSP’s gathering a fairly deep but broad set of skills and could see a shift in the overal market and decided that focusing on Microsoft solutions like Azure and intune etc because it made sense for many businesses to move into that hybrid cloud environment.
Now the goals to get even closer to the sales process, then decide finally once I have the connections if I want to do my own thing.
1st line, typically get booked out 6 hours per day, scarce downtime after admin in between. A typical day I’ll check a couple of backups, reset some passwords, look into a faulty drive mapping GPO, do a task that needs a bit of server admin, analyse a couple of phishing attempts, then like 4 sessions supporting random applications. Maybe quote or set up a laptop for a new user every other day. All remote sessions, never been on prem for a client. It’s absolute chaos but I learn a crazy amount every day, 95% of the clients are really chill, good times.
Started on Desktop support, did it for 5 years. Now I’m on the Cloud/Infrastructure team as a Systems Engineer. We handle the Azure tenant, ancillary systems (security cameras and access controls), networking, infrastructure projects (upgrades and fixes), and any issue the other IT teams can’t figure out. I would love to be focused on one of those things. But, I can say my job is never boring, and management doesn’t come down on us. As long as we do our job, keep our SVP informed, we are good to go.
Today I have to go to a site and troubleshoot door controllers. Monday, who knows what I’ll be doing. I love waking up, logging on, and seeing where the day takes me. I have meetings everyday for various reasons.
My day can go from enjoying my coffee, to HOLY SHIT! In a moment’s notice. For example yesterday, I had a meeting in the AM. Nothing else but learning for the last 4 hours of the day. Then a desktop analyst was having issues with the VPN on the firewall, while helping them I noticed they weren’t doing there job right. I explained what they should have been doing and fixes their error in 3 minutes. Then I was thrown into another meeting at the end of the day, and pulled into a follow-up meeting for 20 minutes after that. Then contacted about access controls not working during that follow-up. Today I expect to be busy, but I could very well power cycle the access controls, clean up the permissions and be back to watching courses for the remainder of the day.
No 2 days are ever the same.
I have downtime to learn new things, we have Pluralsight for courses. We have a minimum of 40 hours we have to complete. My manager is very down to earth and stresses work-life balance leaning more on life balance. He believes you are a better employee when your home life is taken care of.
The pay is good, I get a yearly bonus, which I max every year, and puts me above the median pay. To be honest, the only thing I could do in IT from here I would want to do is management.
I took coding courses in college, and hated it. I was good at it, but it bored me to death. I guess what I’m getting at, find that thing that interests you and go for it.
I love my job and company. Yes there are issues, but nothing that has ever made me think about leaving.
Meetings. Lots of meetings + airplanes and hotels.
I wake up, check my e-mail, check my siem tool, and my ticket queue to see what things I can do , some audits and sometimes play my xbox or go to the gym lol
My job is pretty odd. It’s a three-way hybridized role, part IT and part business.
One aspect is systems integration and remote support. I help set up systems with clients to ensure that everything is working, organizing and controlling the workflow of IT projects and networking. troubleshooting, and training end users deploying drivers or servers. The occasional cloud software integration, etc., of course remote support is like the typical ” Is it plugged in?
My bread and butter are Enterprise accounts with lots of moving parts. I thrive in environments where there’s a big puzzle I need to figure out, and it’s rewarding to see the client pleased with the result.
The second aspect is Solutions/Sales Engineering; I go on-site to prospective clients and audit their preexisting infrastructure and environment, gathering data. Then, I combine all the data, analyze it, and transform it using various formulas and whatnot. Then, calculate all of the soft and hard costs related to their environment in all the cost centers. Then I analyze the potential network risks, security risks, and number of ports that can be vulnerable and, depending on the environment, how much of a loss they could incur due to fines if a formal audit by Hippa or something like that were to happen After that, I compile all the data into a readable format for a PowerPoint and break down the potential amount they can save and how much more secure their environment could be. Usually, offering up a few different options. I pass it off to Sales, then wipe my hands off it, I don’t have to make the pitch, just make the story. If it sells, I get a cut.
Lastly, I do automation for the company. I use RPA to create automated workflows to do processes, eliminating downtime for repetitive processes that we don’t need to waste time on, thus freeing up staff for bigger projects. I also do some Python scripting, and I am currently working on an app to streamline a few different processes. Usually, I go and interview various departments and create Visio flow charts of all the different functions, then create sub-functions of them and determine the things they do and what can be automated. I also reconstruct the current processes and find their fault points to present them as to why the process needs changing and how it should be done. From there, I used the new flowcharts for how the process should be done as a kind of pseudocode blueprint for how the Python or RPA will be handled on the backend. I document the whole process, making truth tables for each decision so nontechnical stakeholders can follow exactly how each choice operates. That way, if they want to add something or want to know why something was done in a certain way, I can explain whether it possible and or why it’s not.
Honestly, where I’m at right now, it consist of studying and applying to jobs I’d rather be at than working this POS SP network with the most unhelpful team of engineers I’ve ever had to work with. When I’m not applying to other jobs, studying or in meetings, I’m working projects that will never go anywhere. Sometimes they make me travel to go onsite (which I didn’t agree to when I took this pos job) to our DCs or HQ. Probably the most un-fun networking gig I’ve ever had, but in this market, I’m lucky to have anything right now.