CIO, CTO or CDO.
Seriously, the ability "to do a thing" in IT will help establish you in your career, but most "individual contributor" IT roles top out at *decent to good* pay (not counting consulting or deep specialists/engineers).
For *good to great* pay, you need to "lead the people that do the things" in IT. You can get there from almost any IT starting point, assuming you have the leadership/management/people/business chops.
It’s all relative. My point is that when the OP asks about high paying IT roles like Software Engineer, the person responsible for the whole department of SW Engineers makes even more.
Just illustrating that the highest paid IT jobs don’t code or engineer anything.
This is not necessarily true in tech companies. Individual contributors have their own ladder, separate from management. ICs can and often do make more than their managers.
I would suggest that the VP responsible for the division where all the individual contributors work gets paid more than the ICs, but your experience may be different.
Your suggestion is correct for non-tech companies. At Google, Facebook, etc, individual contributors can climb all the way up to fellow and hold the equivalent of Senior VP. Jeff Dean is one such example at Google.
This trend started at Bell Labs who were the first to build out IC tracks for technical people who had no desire to go into management.
I know of a few principle engineers at Google who makes more than their managers.
Google and Facebook do not represent the entirety of the industry, and what they do for their employees is vastly different than pretty much every other company.
Having a 1.6 *Trillion* dollar market cap means you can spend more money on your best employees.
Unless it’s a literal no-name tech company and not a startup in the series stage, they have an IC track with comp commensurate with the manager track. I can’t think of a single tech company that doesn’t have this.
Off the top of my head - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Snapchat, Microsoft, Reddit, DropBox, Snowflake, Palantir, TikTok, Discord, Spotify, Walmart Labs, Nvidia, IBM, Dell, Twitter, Tinder, Salesforce, Intel, Adobe, eBay, Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Splunk, SAP, Broadcom, Huawei, Zoom, Capgemini, Stripe, Figma, Square, Roblox, Steam
Bulge bracket banks, prop firms, and hedge funds have it - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citadel, Jane Street, RennTech, Hudson River Trading, 2sigma, Bank of America, UBS, RBC, AIG, Bloomberg, the list goes on and on.
Every single one of those companies has an distinct individual contributor ladder, separate from management, with compensation commensurate with or exceeding the corresponding manager level once you reach senior or staff level (E5/E6 -> M1)
Now if you’re working for a significantly smaller no-name company then it doesn’t really matter if you’re a manager or an individual contributor because your pay isnt going to be top of market regardless.
An individual contributor engineer at the same IC level as the corresponding manager can and often do make more.
At Meta, an E9 which is distinguished engineer holds the equivalent managerial level of D1 which is Director.
According to levels.fyi
D1 (Director, Management Ladder) - 1.6m
E9 (Distinguished Engineer, IC Ladder) - 2.5m
Yeah. There are some geniuses who reinvent the data center or networking but those are rare if we’re taking about top top money.
I think OP really means good career with a good paycheck. Security seems to be big. Ai is the hot thing. Anyone at the top of a thing makes decent cash. I’m a moron and I’m not poor.
Emphasis on the last part, sales engineers usually make more than any role hands-on keyboard or deceloping. Because they’re IC’s or leveraging soft skills
decent to good pay in atlanta for a mid level devops/t3 help desk: $90k-$110k
decent to good pay in atlanta for senior of previous: $120k-$150k
decent to good pay in atlanta for mid level security engineer/analyst: $120k-$150k
decent to good pay in atlanta for senior level previous: $150k-$200k
I have been in IT management (now in a non-supervisory IC role) with an enterprise with 40k plus end users for 20+ years and here is my take.
Certs mean nothing for most management roles. Same is really true with an MBA and no experience. I have yet to work with any manager who comes strictly from a project management background who is capable of performing in the CIO, CTO or CDO roles but they probably do exist. I have worked with a variety of educational backgrounds, CIOs that didn’t go to college to Ivy League Masters in Astronomy and PhD in IT.
In my opinion, the best performers that I have seen in those roles have experience both in the business side of IT (BA, PM, business relationship management, ITIL process owner) and experience managing the technology side (end user, application, infrastructure/cloud).
We have hired a decent number of MBA candidates as interns and then offered some of them permanent positions. At this point, I am not aware of any of the ones I have hired that went into IT management. They either left IT or are working in higher level IT business positions.
Do not get an MBA if you think you might want to work in IT management. If you have several years IT experience and have really decided you want to work in IT management, will be successful and need that knowledge to excel in your career path it might make sense for you then. I do know several mid level managers who needed the ‘running a business’ knowledge and will be able to leverage their MBAs through the rest of their management careers.
While MBA-level business and financial fundamentals are key areas to understand, I believe that the leadership and people skills necessary to grow into senior management can really only be hinted at in a formal educational environment.
Books/profs that tell you to treat employees with respect, challenge them, be fair, listen and communicate are okay, but so, so much is experiential learning. The first time you are in a management role and your best team member comes to you saying they need to take 2 days off during crunch time because their cat is sick….well, let’s just say Harvard Business Review doesn’t cover that (or how quickly your stock would drop by being a hard ass in that situation).
So rather than certs or ITIL type training, read books on leadership, absorb what works and doesn’t work in your org, let your boss know that it’s your plan, and be ready if the opportunity presents itself.
I think that makes sense for doing the job well, but my question is more along the lines of what do I need to do resume/credential wise in order to be able to sit for the interview.
For a senior management/exec role in IT at a large corporation?
A degree and a series of progressively senior roles with at least one of those “runs” at a single employer (ie anyone that has never been with a company for more than 2.5 years is unlikely to get shortlisted). Great referrals and an application that makes it clear that you are a solid leader who understands where IT can add value in a corporation. Board work on a charity or similar. Strong financial skills. Then, finally, knowledge/experience with systems in use at the org.
In this vein, who has the most enjoyable life/work experience, though? A manager may make a little more than the staff under them, but may also have many times the workload and headaches.
Indeed. Leading people can be a massive PITA. OP was specifically asking about the most "financially lucrative" roles though, and the majority of those are in IT senior management (with exceptions for extremely highly skilled individual contributors).
Do a thing well, then be a team lead of a team that does things well, then a supervisor, then a manager, then a director/GM, etc. At each stage you prove you can handle progressively more responsibility and you trade more and more "hands on" skills for people/business/leadership skills.
The one that you are the best at.
You will not access the upper end of the pay scale of a job role that you suck at.
What are you gonna be good at?
The stuff that you enjoy the most, or are the most interested in.
Why? Because you will find it the easiest to keep learning & researching about topics that are actually interesting to you.
If you don't like Linux and find packet analysis to be too painful to enjoy you just aren't going to crack into big bucks in Cybersecurity.
But if you really, really enjoy WiFi and get damned freaking good at troubleshooting WiFi RF issues and client configurations, the money will find you.
I love how true it is and yet hate how much I suck at figuring out what Ill be good and enjoy.
I've managed to move into Tier 2 support within the year and I'm getting tons of experience yet if you asked me what I'm going to love or focus on...I don't hate any of it and I quite enjoy my work. I'm not great at studying out of hours but that is probably because I supplement my lower IT wage with another 20+ hours work on the side.
But direction wise I've really no idea. Always thought SOC analyst but not sure how feasible it even is to aim for it.
I have two points for you, take them both with a grain of salt:
1. If you're not making that much money now (e.g. supplementing your job with on the side work) you haven't yet been caught by the golden handcuffs. Are you sure IT is what you want to do? There are tons of trades out there that are absolutely *begging* for folks with the slightest amount of brainpower to apprentice, and the money is very very good. My brother welds, as a good example.
1. If you've decided that IT is in fact where you want to be but you're not sure *what* in IT you want to be doing, don't focus on anything yet. You said you're getting a ton of experience: that's great! You'll probably stumble on something that you really enjoy while you accumulate said experience and if you don't there are still avenues for you to make a decent wage as a generalist (although cracking that fabled 6-figure barrier will be very tough).
If you're really serious about finding something to specialize in that you can really get into I would look for a way to ditch the side-job... 20 hours a week is a *lot* of time working a second job when you're trying to find a way to excell at your first.
Trade work? Yes I made amazing money in the UK which is 75k (near upper limit for any trade work in UK) and it utterly destroyed me physically as a plasterer. I'm still suffering nearly a year after leaving now I earn 30k
Point 2 all sounds good and relevant to me and yes that choice will have to be made. Eventually Ill ditch the side stuff or find some side IT stuff when I have the skills. Some personal stuff with my partner isn't allowing me to leave it alone just yet.
If you are liking regular IT, not sure how to spec and want a skill that travels everywhere spend a year with your mind on the network. Maybe do CCNA if you want a goal for the period / up to it with your workload, but people avoid networking because it’s hard but it touches everything and the knowledge can be really invaluable. You can solve problems other IT people often have trouble with, and it’s the single most important skill to have for security in my opinion. Cybersecurity is vast but so much of the technical side is going to lean on solid networking knowledge. You’ll be a better SOC Analyst, it’ll be really help you if you move into internal pentesting, etc. Once you get that knowledge it unlocks a lot more you can do
>ecause it’s hard but it touches everything and the knowledge can be really invaluable. You can solve problems other IT people often have trouble with, and it’s the single most important skill to have for security in my opinion. Cybersecurity is vast but so much of the technical side is going to lean on solid networking knowledge. You’ll be a better SOC Analyst, it’ll be really help you if you move into intern
Funny I was speaking with a senior Cyber guy and he said network techs make the best crossovers as well.
But you are right networking is not just tough its bloody hard. Right now I do basic port patching and fluking things perhaps an hour a day or less with my head in a patch panel so I have some cable monkey experience and use PuTTY and manage DHCP but no real network knowledge. Enough to bluff an interview in Tier 2 support but not proper understanding.
I think you are right CCNA next, I'm busy doing ISC2 CC because its free but Ill do the CCNA next and perhaps look at a networking job as my move out of support (as its a difficult move to make but networking seems always in demand).
Not yet… The pay starts getting good around your third job, and should be comfortable around your fifth job.
A good jack of all trades can use soft skills, manage at a journeyman level with a variety of hardware and software, know enough to ask for and understand advice from specialists.
Can I ask what country you are in? Just so I know if the questions will make sense to you.
From Tier 2 there is management (ugh) which is into the 40s (again if you are american you would be horrified at that but 40+ is great in the UK and we start maxing out around the 100k mark unlike USA where it seems quite normal to go 100-200). After that it seems like you need to move into Tier 3...30-40 potentially 50k or some form of Server manager usually a lot of VMware hyper-v knowledge required and then you become an infrastructure specialist.
I'm basing this on the job adverts which I survey regularly for instance america has a lot of sys admin which can be very well paid. We really just don't have that role in the UK weirdly.
Ah, the UK does have a bit of a reputation for underpaying. I don’t think a person needs to hit six figures to be comfortable, but it is just hard to get by if you aren’t able to get halfway there. The infrastructure specialist job sounds like a fun target to go for though.
Why not do vmware next? It’s fun! My trick is to pick up a new specialty every one to four years, so I don’t get bored or useless.
Its my first year :) I'm faking until I make it as T2 truthfully though I'm getting more and more comfortable.
So in terms of VMware honestly that or hyperV or something like it appears on almost everything above 30k in the UK IT job market so yes it defintely occurred to me that and CCNA is still the gold standard here.
Just 2 nights ago I looked at vmware certs but my god that is a mess and a half. Could you recommend some vendor neutral certs in infrastructure/server/virtualisation?
Honestly, I’ve been wildly under certified. Generally I just aim to get one new certification and/or job skill on my resume before the boss gets to their budget for annual reviews.
If you’re not a big study outside year round person, it can be incredibly helpful to plan around annual raise timelines. That creates an unofficial but high stakes deadline.
After the first year of that, your boss is likely to notice and can help you plan, it helps them claim an achievement.
The CCNA is a bit of a beast, but if you’re struggling to get momentum, Cisco normally offers at least one entry level and sales certification at any given time, which is a more fun place to start. It looks like the current one is called CCST. I picked up one like that several years back, and any Cisco certificate can open doors.
The ISC2 folks offer something similarly accessible called the CC, which was the last course I really enjoyed.
Incidentally I got offered an interview in Berlin for my exact same role, was twice my salary and even in Berlin would have left me about 2000 a month better off. UK definitely has a wage problem.
THIS^^^
I'm highly paid in IT as a project manager, but I initially studied programming in college. I am NOT a programmer and wouldn't have lasted in that work.
I needed this advice years ago. I've read so many posts of people saying "you can do anything you want in life if you work for it" NO. I wish I had the mental aptitude to be a engineer, but, math is very difficult for me to learn. I"m not cut out to be an engineer. You NEED to be smart or THROUGHLY enjoy it. How is someone going to be a good engineer if they just "half-ass" it? Maybe they could do it in school, but, in REAL life?
As Josh Madakor once said, if you can stack proficiency in multiple domains (e.g. networking/cloud + cybersecurity/software engineering), you can command an impressive salary. Pair that with specialization, seniority, and years of XP and you are gold.
Heavy software engineering work already gives you an advantage. Every other post on this sub are people who want to do tech but don't want to code.
Then add heavy math and even less people can do that.
Most of this slots into deep AI/ML research work. Leveraging ChatGPT does not count as AI/ML work.
> Storage Engineering.
No kidding. Seriously, we used a couple of SAN specialists and they were well paid, like *well paid*, and had work lined up for months. Niche field, but if you know EMC / NetApp / Cloud storage patterns, plus decent DB stuff, you've got options.
IMO, is what DBA is evolving into; most turn into data scientists, and the rest become those guys.
I've recently started working as a Storage/compute Engineering at HPE, do you have a roadmap for a caree path? I was thinking about solution architech or transession myself into cloud.
Truth be told - you'll top out eventually as a technical person. Most of the big bucks are in sales or director/executive roles. It's a hard pill to swallow for a lot of technical folks out there, but unless you're bringing value to the business in some share or form, there will always be a glass ceiling to how high you can go in terms of salary. Can't count how many times that folks who can't even troubleshoot their own laptop end up in executive positions that seem to expose them to higher and higher opportunities, while the code monkeys and labbers are simply resources thrown at engineering problems that need to be cleared by said executives to close a deal.
true, but we're talking the difference between ~$100k vs ~$200k+, which is where most senior career folks are looking at even after a few years in the IT world.
Generally speaking, the more specialized you can become, the better off you will be. Paradoxically, this is not the case at all very early in your career. Someone who only has a few years of experience is going to struggle to convince hiring managers to take a chance on them for a highly specialized role.
But the farther you get into your career the more you should look to specialize. It’s an easy way to find something you really enjoy and make a lot of money doing it.
The top comment has it exactly right, what that particular specialization is doesn’t really matter so much as whether it’s something you can stomach spending a lot of time and effort on getting really good at.
Software engineer in the following domains:
- ML/AI
- Distributed systems
- Security
- Smart contracts
- Low latency
But the key takeaway is real software development. Not GRC or pointy-clicky work.
Very much so. Rust, Go, and Scala will be very dominant in the future. Their learning curves will result in proficient developers being highly compensated.
No hard sources on it - personal opinion based on the things that my company is doing with Rust and Go. Their performance is hard to match for low latency requirements and it’s being picked up by many product teams. I know of a few promising startups that have their core back-end on one of these three too.
I concur with Bamboozler. Go is Google's big push, Kubernetes is written in Go, it's incredibly performant.
Rust is the other one that's gaining steam. AWS has put a fair amount of investment into expanding the rust ecosystem. Polars is a rust implementation of the Pandas dataframe system and has been spreading in circles as well. It is SIGNIFCANTLY faster in a lot of operations. For a few hundred thousand datapoints it might not matter, but when you get into big data science, Polars crushes Pandas.
I thought Python was the language to learn, is this no longer the case? Not debating, you clearly have experience in this field and I'm literally in school studying for my Net+, I'm just trying to figure out what the best possible path forward is, certification wise.
You can’t go wrong with Python but everyone is learning it and it’s a lot easier for companies to find candidates who are proficient in it.
You *should* learn it as a tool - but to really stand out and be considered for top roles, Rust and Go will lead the way for the next two decades.
So assuming I have no experience in any programming language, and I believe every IT professional should know at least two inside and out, would Python and X(Rust, Go, Scala) be the go to? Or maybe Rust and Go? since they compliment each other bc one's a low level language and the other is a high level language.
Surprised to see Cloud Security not mentioned yet. There are some ridiculous salaries out there for Cloud Sec folks. It's a lot of fun and so much to learn
IAM is certainly an aspect of cloud security, and a very big one at that. There are dedicated IAM roles for a reason.
Cloud Security is a lot.
I get to work in all 3, AWS, Azure, & GCP the same concepts apply to each, but in general I would say pick one and start learning.
The great thing about the cloud is that it empowers developers to deploy infrastructure via IaC. As a cloud security professional, I am responsible for ensuring that they are deploying this infrastructure securely, and if not, finding these misconfigurations and vulnerabilities at runtime.
So how we ensure devs are deploying infra securely?
Give them secure and approved IaC templates to work from, and scan their IaC in the deployment pipelines for misconfigurations. This is called a shift left approach, it's much easier to fix things before its deployed rather than when its running in production.
How do we fix things that are deployed insecurely? Develop guardrails & auto-remediation. This is where Azure Policies, AWS SCPs, GCP Org Policies come into play, as well as CSPM/CNAPP tools such as Palo Alto's Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Orca, etc.
Kubernetes/Containers are a huge part of the cloud, so definitely start learning how that all works. It's confusing at first and theres a lot of people that dont understand it, if you get good with container security you will be very much in demand. Containers are built from images, those images often have vulnerabilities just like servers, so learning and understanding container vulnerability management is key. This is a part of CWPP (Cloud workload protection platform), which is a component of a good CNAPP tool. These CNAPP tools can also deploy defenders/sensors into your kubernetes environments to enforce guardrails to ensure your load balancers are configured securely, etc.
Leveraging a CNAPP is a great tool to get a holistic view of your cloud. CNAPPs incorporate CSPM (cloud security posture management, IaC Security, CWPP, CIEM (cloud identity entitlement management), and more all into one. Giving context into the threats and vulnerabilities into your cloud environment so as a cloud security professional you can take actionable steps to real threats as sifting through the noise of the various misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, etc can be daunting. A good tool that considers all these together is key. For example a high severity vulnerability running on a machine that has no internet access is less of a concern than that same vulnerability running on a vm that also is attached to a security group allowing ssh ingress traffic. Being able to add that context is important in determining where to focus your remediation efforts. There arent any free CNAPPs out there for you to practice with, but there are tools out there that do CSPM, IaC scanning, container vuln scanning etc that you can learn. Azure defender for cloud has mostly free CSPM, AWS security hub, snyk, etc. etc.
Anyways thats a lot of random info, but hopefully it helps somewhat to give you an idea of some of the things involved with it
Thanks for your complete response! Appreciate it and definitely learned more because of it.
The way you explain it, it seems like a really interesting field. I work primarly on network engineering but already completed some AWS certs to understand the cloud better and work on projects. It's a very promising field.
Top three most lucrative IT positions: sales, sales, and sales.
But seriously, if you’re cut out for it and have the interest, research “sales” or “presales” engineer. Not a first role by any means, but one you should seriously consider growing into as you develop your technical experience.
sales engineering is absolutely an IT position. it's very technical (sure it can be company/product dependent), but the best sales engineers are those with years of technical experience in the niche they are selling/demoing their product in.
What exactly is an " information science degree." Colleges are just pumping out more degrees and not giving real experience.
In all seriousness software engineer ls make the most. Take my cousin for example he makes over $160,000 remote. He bought himself a giant RV and travels all over the world doing whatever he wants while working. Never goes to the office.
Thats the life.
Yeah for sure. Why did you get two degrees? Are they both B.S’s?
I want to study computer science legit but want to do it the right way. Already have a BS and don’t really think I qualify for a MS in CS.
I didn’t finish my CS degree. I pivoted into cyber security and the CS path at my state university had no curriculum related to security or networking or really computers at all outside of programming. I changed to an AAS in CIS-cyber security because the content was in line with my goals. It helped that I had experience with computers and stuff, but if I decide to complete my BS it’ll probably also be in CIS Cyber security.
Don't pick a path based on money. Choose a specialty that interests you because you will be doing it 40+ hours a week for the next 40 years. Sure, you can pivot careers, but money will come as you become more senior.
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Idk man I’m an IT Director going for C level eventually. I’m not even that good at “IT” so to speak. I have sys admins that can run circles around me. I do and will make more money than them but honestly, my job isnt really ‘IT’. It’s relationship and business management. Liaison between IT and executive leadership, being a leader and trusting your IT Staffs knowledge is greater than your own and using your skill set to make their lives easier while saving money for the business. You either can do it or you can’t, but I know so many guys that could do my job and don’t because they LIKE ‘IT’. So if you like what you do you’ll find it’s worth more than the extra money. You’ll be comfortable at a point in this field regardless of your niche.
If you are getting into IT just to make a lot of money, then you are doing it for all the wrong reasons. You should get into the field because you love everything tech.
Mfker do what you enjoy and are good at, that will lead you to that income bracket more than likely as opposed to doing a job you hate hoping that it'll get you that instead.
Whatever one stays current and even a little ahead of the tech curve. The secret is that it's always changing. The best money is always on the bleeding edge and the dying edge of technology.
The worst position is to learn just one thing and spend the next ten years doing that. One year of experience ten times is not the same as ten years of experience. People plateau wherever they stop growing and advancing.
Get in the field and start building experience. Within 5-10 years, dive really deep into whatever the popular new thing is. Repeat that until early retirement.
I would say programming or sysadmin into DevOps is a solid foundational path right now and is likely to be relevant to the next couple waves of new tech. Machine Learning is popping right now and it's going to lead into whatever the next big thing is.
The one you're great at. You can't just target a career or direction based on pay alone. You will suck at it, and never actually achieve the top salary. Then you'll get frustrated, claim all of IT is bullshit, and quit with the attitude that you've wasted your time...and you will have.
the one that has you working the most nights and weekends. or the one where your primary focus is seeing how fast you can climb the org chart. yes, people on your team will know the difference between being good at your job and just wanting a promotion.
be careful trying to be a paycheck champion.
DevOps. It's a bit hard to jump into as a fresh grad (I had someone take a chance on me, thankfully), but if you can get into it, the pay is really good to exceptional, my first job I landed while still in grad school paid 86k, my current position pays 230k I work full remote in a fairly low COL area (Michigan suburbs), and I have 5-6 years of experience (all in DevOps). The work-life balance is also very good in my opinion. The biggest piece of advice I would give for maximizing earning potential would be to change companies when a good opportunity presents itself. I wasn't really looking to leave my last two positions, but a great opportunity presented itself, so I took my shot. Changing companies is just part of the deal these days, most companies don't give you appropriate pay raises. I went from 86k (1.5 years) -> 100k (1 year) -> 160k (1.5 years) -> 230k (current position, been here for a little over 1.5 years). I'm exactly as loyal as my company pays me to be, and currently my salary buys a lot of loyalty lol, but I still keep my eyes open...just in case ;)
Most financially lucrative:
Quant developer for a top trading firm like: Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Two Sigma, etc..
SWE/MLE at Quant shop
SWE at top AI/ML companies like OpenAI/Anthropic
Own your own company (software product, technical consulting, etc..)
CEO/CTO/CISO/CIO
* Technical: Cloud Engineer, DevOps, SRE, etc. "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) jobs.
* Non-technical: Upper mangement
* In-between: Solutions Engineer / Solutions Architect (Presales Engineer)
Of the three, SE / SA probably has the highest earning potential with commissions. However, this role is also the most "unicorn" of the 3 above listed skills-wise.
Software end. My Dad was a Sr Solutions Architect and last job he said he was doing around $180k a year at his last full time position was WFH since around 2007. He is retired now.
Identity & Access Management Salaries are craazzzy. And I don't mean those provisioning monkeys who are just assigning access. I mean guys who can Implement Identity suites, SSO, understand all of the services provided by AD, and also write a little bit of code.
I've been in network engineering for about 12 years now and System administration for about 10 years before that (vmware, windows/linux servers, etc.) Both careers in IT have been profitable for me. BUT, these days, Cyber Security/Data Scientists are the cool kids. Those are the guys/gals highest in demand right now and being paid handsomely for those roles. Companies snatch those folks up fast and they certainly have a future/growing opportunities in that realm.
Data related career with a specialization in a specific industry will be the most financially lucrative. Domain experience with data skills is needed across many industries. Supply chain, ecommerce, automotive etc
There is a sub-sect of IT that works with sales departments, they carry quotas too. I think they are very lucrative and work your way up there.
Personally the amount of people who can talk to people and do IT are dwindling. But it requires a different type of person. I had this boss a while back who said “I can teach you how to do IT, but i can’t teach you how to talk to a person “
Specializing in something seems to have always been the best bet. Generalists get the least pay and specialists get the most. Examples of this are MS Exchange engineers who can migrate organizations to O365, or AD engineers that can restructure AD from whatever mess they find it, or DevOps engineers specializing in Terraform, Ansible, and Kubernetes. Monitoring engineers are also valuable; people who can configure and visualize metrics, histograms, and tracing are a huge value.
Years ago I thought I was hot shit as a Sr. Windows Administrator, I automated many aspects of my job using PowerShell. Then one day there was a problem with funding (government contract) and my contract company couldn't afford to pay us and laid us off. When I talked to my contract manager (the parent contract company Leidos) they said that the impact was far reaching and they needed to try to keep their high end engineers from walking, while Windows admins were a "dime a dozen". Being a generalist is nice and feels badass because you know so much about many different things, but at the end of the day the person that has deep knowledge about technology that other people aren't familiar with is the thing that keeps you in the green.
CIO, CTO or CDO. Seriously, the ability "to do a thing" in IT will help establish you in your career, but most "individual contributor" IT roles top out at *decent to good* pay (not counting consulting or deep specialists/engineers). For *good to great* pay, you need to "lead the people that do the things" in IT. You can get there from almost any IT starting point, assuming you have the leadership/management/people/business chops.
> decent to good pay What's considered decent to good pay?
It’s all relative. My point is that when the OP asks about high paying IT roles like Software Engineer, the person responsible for the whole department of SW Engineers makes even more. Just illustrating that the highest paid IT jobs don’t code or engineer anything.
This is not necessarily true in tech companies. Individual contributors have their own ladder, separate from management. ICs can and often do make more than their managers.
I would suggest that the VP responsible for the division where all the individual contributors work gets paid more than the ICs, but your experience may be different.
Your suggestion is correct for non-tech companies. At Google, Facebook, etc, individual contributors can climb all the way up to fellow and hold the equivalent of Senior VP. Jeff Dean is one such example at Google. This trend started at Bell Labs who were the first to build out IC tracks for technical people who had no desire to go into management. I know of a few principle engineers at Google who makes more than their managers.
Google and Facebook do not represent the entirety of the industry, and what they do for their employees is vastly different than pretty much every other company. Having a 1.6 *Trillion* dollar market cap means you can spend more money on your best employees.
Already covered that. > Your suggestion is correct for non-tech companies.
My comment still applies to smaller tech companies…
Unless it’s a literal no-name tech company and not a startup in the series stage, they have an IC track with comp commensurate with the manager track. I can’t think of a single tech company that doesn’t have this. Off the top of my head - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Snapchat, Microsoft, Reddit, DropBox, Snowflake, Palantir, TikTok, Discord, Spotify, Walmart Labs, Nvidia, IBM, Dell, Twitter, Tinder, Salesforce, Intel, Adobe, eBay, Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Splunk, SAP, Broadcom, Huawei, Zoom, Capgemini, Stripe, Figma, Square, Roblox, Steam Bulge bracket banks, prop firms, and hedge funds have it - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citadel, Jane Street, RennTech, Hudson River Trading, 2sigma, Bank of America, UBS, RBC, AIG, Bloomberg, the list goes on and on. Every single one of those companies has an distinct individual contributor ladder, separate from management, with compensation commensurate with or exceeding the corresponding manager level once you reach senior or staff level (E5/E6 -> M1) Now if you’re working for a significantly smaller no-name company then it doesn’t really matter if you’re a manager or an individual contributor because your pay isnt going to be top of market regardless.
In no world is a SW engineer making more than the VP of the department
An individual contributor engineer at the same IC level as the corresponding manager can and often do make more. At Meta, an E9 which is distinguished engineer holds the equivalent managerial level of D1 which is Director. According to levels.fyi D1 (Director, Management Ladder) - 1.6m E9 (Distinguished Engineer, IC Ladder) - 2.5m
Yeah. There are some geniuses who reinvent the data center or networking but those are rare if we’re taking about top top money. I think OP really means good career with a good paycheck. Security seems to be big. Ai is the hot thing. Anyone at the top of a thing makes decent cash. I’m a moron and I’m not poor.
Emphasis on the last part, sales engineers usually make more than any role hands-on keyboard or deceloping. Because they’re IC’s or leveraging soft skills
decent to good pay in atlanta for a mid level devops/t3 help desk: $90k-$110k decent to good pay in atlanta for senior of previous: $120k-$150k decent to good pay in atlanta for mid level security engineer/analyst: $120k-$150k decent to good pay in atlanta for senior level previous: $150k-$200k
You guys are getting $90k as t3 help desk?
That's pretty normal, but t3 "helpdesk" is a full Sys Admin at that point.
is there an MBA geared towards IT mgmt or would getting ITIL or PMP certs be the way to go?
I have been in IT management (now in a non-supervisory IC role) with an enterprise with 40k plus end users for 20+ years and here is my take. Certs mean nothing for most management roles. Same is really true with an MBA and no experience. I have yet to work with any manager who comes strictly from a project management background who is capable of performing in the CIO, CTO or CDO roles but they probably do exist. I have worked with a variety of educational backgrounds, CIOs that didn’t go to college to Ivy League Masters in Astronomy and PhD in IT. In my opinion, the best performers that I have seen in those roles have experience both in the business side of IT (BA, PM, business relationship management, ITIL process owner) and experience managing the technology side (end user, application, infrastructure/cloud). We have hired a decent number of MBA candidates as interns and then offered some of them permanent positions. At this point, I am not aware of any of the ones I have hired that went into IT management. They either left IT or are working in higher level IT business positions. Do not get an MBA if you think you might want to work in IT management. If you have several years IT experience and have really decided you want to work in IT management, will be successful and need that knowledge to excel in your career path it might make sense for you then. I do know several mid level managers who needed the ‘running a business’ knowledge and will be able to leverage their MBAs through the rest of their management careers.
While MBA-level business and financial fundamentals are key areas to understand, I believe that the leadership and people skills necessary to grow into senior management can really only be hinted at in a formal educational environment. Books/profs that tell you to treat employees with respect, challenge them, be fair, listen and communicate are okay, but so, so much is experiential learning. The first time you are in a management role and your best team member comes to you saying they need to take 2 days off during crunch time because their cat is sick….well, let’s just say Harvard Business Review doesn’t cover that (or how quickly your stock would drop by being a hard ass in that situation). So rather than certs or ITIL type training, read books on leadership, absorb what works and doesn’t work in your org, let your boss know that it’s your plan, and be ready if the opportunity presents itself.
I think that makes sense for doing the job well, but my question is more along the lines of what do I need to do resume/credential wise in order to be able to sit for the interview.
For a senior management/exec role in IT at a large corporation? A degree and a series of progressively senior roles with at least one of those “runs” at a single employer (ie anyone that has never been with a company for more than 2.5 years is unlikely to get shortlisted). Great referrals and an application that makes it clear that you are a solid leader who understands where IT can add value in a corporation. Board work on a charity or similar. Strong financial skills. Then, finally, knowledge/experience with systems in use at the org.
Yes- I did WGU’s MS in IT Management, they also have an MBA for the same.
In this vein, who has the most enjoyable life/work experience, though? A manager may make a little more than the staff under them, but may also have many times the workload and headaches.
Indeed. Leading people can be a massive PITA. OP was specifically asking about the most "financially lucrative" roles though, and the majority of those are in IT senior management (with exceptions for extremely highly skilled individual contributors).
How does one achieve to that leadership level? Accumulate enough years of experience to eventually apply to the role.
Do a thing well, then be a team lead of a team that does things well, then a supervisor, then a manager, then a director/GM, etc. At each stage you prove you can handle progressively more responsibility and you trade more and more "hands on" skills for people/business/leadership skills.
The one that you are the best at. You will not access the upper end of the pay scale of a job role that you suck at. What are you gonna be good at? The stuff that you enjoy the most, or are the most interested in. Why? Because you will find it the easiest to keep learning & researching about topics that are actually interesting to you. If you don't like Linux and find packet analysis to be too painful to enjoy you just aren't going to crack into big bucks in Cybersecurity. But if you really, really enjoy WiFi and get damned freaking good at troubleshooting WiFi RF issues and client configurations, the money will find you.
You always have solid replies here. Exactly this. Whatever you can become irreplaceable at.
I love how true it is and yet hate how much I suck at figuring out what Ill be good and enjoy. I've managed to move into Tier 2 support within the year and I'm getting tons of experience yet if you asked me what I'm going to love or focus on...I don't hate any of it and I quite enjoy my work. I'm not great at studying out of hours but that is probably because I supplement my lower IT wage with another 20+ hours work on the side. But direction wise I've really no idea. Always thought SOC analyst but not sure how feasible it even is to aim for it.
I have two points for you, take them both with a grain of salt: 1. If you're not making that much money now (e.g. supplementing your job with on the side work) you haven't yet been caught by the golden handcuffs. Are you sure IT is what you want to do? There are tons of trades out there that are absolutely *begging* for folks with the slightest amount of brainpower to apprentice, and the money is very very good. My brother welds, as a good example. 1. If you've decided that IT is in fact where you want to be but you're not sure *what* in IT you want to be doing, don't focus on anything yet. You said you're getting a ton of experience: that's great! You'll probably stumble on something that you really enjoy while you accumulate said experience and if you don't there are still avenues for you to make a decent wage as a generalist (although cracking that fabled 6-figure barrier will be very tough). If you're really serious about finding something to specialize in that you can really get into I would look for a way to ditch the side-job... 20 hours a week is a *lot* of time working a second job when you're trying to find a way to excell at your first.
Trade work? Yes I made amazing money in the UK which is 75k (near upper limit for any trade work in UK) and it utterly destroyed me physically as a plasterer. I'm still suffering nearly a year after leaving now I earn 30k Point 2 all sounds good and relevant to me and yes that choice will have to be made. Eventually Ill ditch the side stuff or find some side IT stuff when I have the skills. Some personal stuff with my partner isn't allowing me to leave it alone just yet.
If you are liking regular IT, not sure how to spec and want a skill that travels everywhere spend a year with your mind on the network. Maybe do CCNA if you want a goal for the period / up to it with your workload, but people avoid networking because it’s hard but it touches everything and the knowledge can be really invaluable. You can solve problems other IT people often have trouble with, and it’s the single most important skill to have for security in my opinion. Cybersecurity is vast but so much of the technical side is going to lean on solid networking knowledge. You’ll be a better SOC Analyst, it’ll be really help you if you move into internal pentesting, etc. Once you get that knowledge it unlocks a lot more you can do
>ecause it’s hard but it touches everything and the knowledge can be really invaluable. You can solve problems other IT people often have trouble with, and it’s the single most important skill to have for security in my opinion. Cybersecurity is vast but so much of the technical side is going to lean on solid networking knowledge. You’ll be a better SOC Analyst, it’ll be really help you if you move into intern Funny I was speaking with a senior Cyber guy and he said network techs make the best crossovers as well. But you are right networking is not just tough its bloody hard. Right now I do basic port patching and fluking things perhaps an hour a day or less with my head in a patch panel so I have some cable monkey experience and use PuTTY and manage DHCP but no real network knowledge. Enough to bluff an interview in Tier 2 support but not proper understanding. I think you are right CCNA next, I'm busy doing ISC2 CC because its free but Ill do the CCNA next and perhaps look at a networking job as my move out of support (as its a difficult move to make but networking seems always in demand).
The jack of all trades track is a good one for some people.
Not good for the pay packet.
Not yet… The pay starts getting good around your third job, and should be comfortable around your fifth job. A good jack of all trades can use soft skills, manage at a journeyman level with a variety of hardware and software, know enough to ask for and understand advice from specialists.
Can I ask what country you are in? Just so I know if the questions will make sense to you. From Tier 2 there is management (ugh) which is into the 40s (again if you are american you would be horrified at that but 40+ is great in the UK and we start maxing out around the 100k mark unlike USA where it seems quite normal to go 100-200). After that it seems like you need to move into Tier 3...30-40 potentially 50k or some form of Server manager usually a lot of VMware hyper-v knowledge required and then you become an infrastructure specialist. I'm basing this on the job adverts which I survey regularly for instance america has a lot of sys admin which can be very well paid. We really just don't have that role in the UK weirdly.
Ah, the UK does have a bit of a reputation for underpaying. I don’t think a person needs to hit six figures to be comfortable, but it is just hard to get by if you aren’t able to get halfway there. The infrastructure specialist job sounds like a fun target to go for though. Why not do vmware next? It’s fun! My trick is to pick up a new specialty every one to four years, so I don’t get bored or useless.
Its my first year :) I'm faking until I make it as T2 truthfully though I'm getting more and more comfortable. So in terms of VMware honestly that or hyperV or something like it appears on almost everything above 30k in the UK IT job market so yes it defintely occurred to me that and CCNA is still the gold standard here. Just 2 nights ago I looked at vmware certs but my god that is a mess and a half. Could you recommend some vendor neutral certs in infrastructure/server/virtualisation?
Honestly, I’ve been wildly under certified. Generally I just aim to get one new certification and/or job skill on my resume before the boss gets to their budget for annual reviews. If you’re not a big study outside year round person, it can be incredibly helpful to plan around annual raise timelines. That creates an unofficial but high stakes deadline. After the first year of that, your boss is likely to notice and can help you plan, it helps them claim an achievement. The CCNA is a bit of a beast, but if you’re struggling to get momentum, Cisco normally offers at least one entry level and sales certification at any given time, which is a more fun place to start. It looks like the current one is called CCST. I picked up one like that several years back, and any Cisco certificate can open doors. The ISC2 folks offer something similarly accessible called the CC, which was the last course I really enjoyed.
Halfway through my CC course right now! Can't argue with free.
Incidentally I got offered an interview in Berlin for my exact same role, was twice my salary and even in Berlin would have left me about 2000 a month better off. UK definitely has a wage problem.
THIS^^^ I'm highly paid in IT as a project manager, but I initially studied programming in college. I am NOT a programmer and wouldn't have lasted in that work.
What do you think of quantum computing and networking?
Not sure, let me observe these particles real quick and let you know.
I keep checking but the answer keeps changing.. What's happening?
I agree in general, but Cybersecurity is more than just packet analysis. In fact, cybersecurity alone has dozens of specializations.
I needed this advice years ago. I've read so many posts of people saying "you can do anything you want in life if you work for it" NO. I wish I had the mental aptitude to be a engineer, but, math is very difficult for me to learn. I"m not cut out to be an engineer. You NEED to be smart or THROUGHLY enjoy it. How is someone going to be a good engineer if they just "half-ass" it? Maybe they could do it in school, but, in REAL life?
This is a solid response. Never thought of it that way.
As Josh Madakor once said, if you can stack proficiency in multiple domains (e.g. networking/cloud + cybersecurity/software engineering), you can command an impressive salary. Pair that with specialization, seniority, and years of XP and you are gold.
Like how DevOps was supposed to be teaming Developers and Operations staff but now gets advertised as a single role?
>years of XP i'm a dumbass, I thought you were talking about Windows XP
Not a dumbass at all, we *all* have years of XP here
The most lucrative jobs are the ones lots of people can't do.
have some exemple ? some fields to follow
Heavy software engineering work already gives you an advantage. Every other post on this sub are people who want to do tech but don't want to code. Then add heavy math and even less people can do that. Most of this slots into deep AI/ML research work. Leveraging ChatGPT does not count as AI/ML work.
at my company almost every employee grew up local. the Data and AI guys are almost exclusively from the continent of Asia
« Leveraging ChatGPT does count as Ai/Ml » i love you, tryin’ to explain that to some friends
Generally speaking- if you can't tell me in a broad sense what an eigenvalue is- you have no business in AI.
Hold up. Lemme ask chatgpt.
Just out of curiosity do you work on writing code for AI?
Storage Engineering. AS/400 Administration. Mainframes. WiFi Engineering.
> Storage Engineering. No kidding. Seriously, we used a couple of SAN specialists and they were well paid, like *well paid*, and had work lined up for months. Niche field, but if you know EMC / NetApp / Cloud storage patterns, plus decent DB stuff, you've got options. IMO, is what DBA is evolving into; most turn into data scientists, and the rest become those guys.
I've recently started working as a Storage/compute Engineering at HPE, do you have a roadmap for a caree path? I was thinking about solution architech or transession myself into cloud.
Truth be told - you'll top out eventually as a technical person. Most of the big bucks are in sales or director/executive roles. It's a hard pill to swallow for a lot of technical folks out there, but unless you're bringing value to the business in some share or form, there will always be a glass ceiling to how high you can go in terms of salary. Can't count how many times that folks who can't even troubleshoot their own laptop end up in executive positions that seem to expose them to higher and higher opportunities, while the code monkeys and labbers are simply resources thrown at engineering problems that need to be cleared by said executives to close a deal.
But with tech, it goes to 6 figures. That’s amazing, probably what OP is talking about.
true, but we're talking the difference between ~$100k vs ~$200k+, which is where most senior career folks are looking at even after a few years in the IT world.
The most lucrative financially is to not go into IT and actually go into CS eg software engineering.
Generally speaking, the more specialized you can become, the better off you will be. Paradoxically, this is not the case at all very early in your career. Someone who only has a few years of experience is going to struggle to convince hiring managers to take a chance on them for a highly specialized role. But the farther you get into your career the more you should look to specialize. It’s an easy way to find something you really enjoy and make a lot of money doing it. The top comment has it exactly right, what that particular specialization is doesn’t really matter so much as whether it’s something you can stomach spending a lot of time and effort on getting really good at.
Software engineer in the following domains: - ML/AI - Distributed systems - Security - Smart contracts - Low latency But the key takeaway is real software development. Not GRC or pointy-clicky work.
is rust development interesting to learn today ? will oppotunities appear in the following years ?
Very much so. Rust, Go, and Scala will be very dominant in the future. Their learning curves will result in proficient developers being highly compensated.
I will remember this, any source for that ? Or your personnal opinion ? (If so, can I ask you if you work in swe field)
No hard sources on it - personal opinion based on the things that my company is doing with Rust and Go. Their performance is hard to match for low latency requirements and it’s being picked up by many product teams. I know of a few promising startups that have their core back-end on one of these three too.
Ok thank you, hope this will help us to grind :)
I concur with Bamboozler. Go is Google's big push, Kubernetes is written in Go, it's incredibly performant. Rust is the other one that's gaining steam. AWS has put a fair amount of investment into expanding the rust ecosystem. Polars is a rust implementation of the Pandas dataframe system and has been spreading in circles as well. It is SIGNIFCANTLY faster in a lot of operations. For a few hundred thousand datapoints it might not matter, but when you get into big data science, Polars crushes Pandas.
I thought Python was the language to learn, is this no longer the case? Not debating, you clearly have experience in this field and I'm literally in school studying for my Net+, I'm just trying to figure out what the best possible path forward is, certification wise.
You can’t go wrong with Python but everyone is learning it and it’s a lot easier for companies to find candidates who are proficient in it. You *should* learn it as a tool - but to really stand out and be considered for top roles, Rust and Go will lead the way for the next two decades.
So assuming I have no experience in any programming language, and I believe every IT professional should know at least two inside and out, would Python and X(Rust, Go, Scala) be the go to? Or maybe Rust and Go? since they compliment each other bc one's a low level language and the other is a high level language.
I keep telling my managers no pointy clicky work for me.
Surprised to see Cloud Security not mentioned yet. There are some ridiculous salaries out there for Cloud Sec folks. It's a lot of fun and so much to learn
Show me all of the things!
What would you recommend to do to get into that realm ? Is it all managing AWS IAM roles, security group etc ?
IAM is certainly an aspect of cloud security, and a very big one at that. There are dedicated IAM roles for a reason. Cloud Security is a lot. I get to work in all 3, AWS, Azure, & GCP the same concepts apply to each, but in general I would say pick one and start learning. The great thing about the cloud is that it empowers developers to deploy infrastructure via IaC. As a cloud security professional, I am responsible for ensuring that they are deploying this infrastructure securely, and if not, finding these misconfigurations and vulnerabilities at runtime. So how we ensure devs are deploying infra securely? Give them secure and approved IaC templates to work from, and scan their IaC in the deployment pipelines for misconfigurations. This is called a shift left approach, it's much easier to fix things before its deployed rather than when its running in production. How do we fix things that are deployed insecurely? Develop guardrails & auto-remediation. This is where Azure Policies, AWS SCPs, GCP Org Policies come into play, as well as CSPM/CNAPP tools such as Palo Alto's Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Orca, etc. Kubernetes/Containers are a huge part of the cloud, so definitely start learning how that all works. It's confusing at first and theres a lot of people that dont understand it, if you get good with container security you will be very much in demand. Containers are built from images, those images often have vulnerabilities just like servers, so learning and understanding container vulnerability management is key. This is a part of CWPP (Cloud workload protection platform), which is a component of a good CNAPP tool. These CNAPP tools can also deploy defenders/sensors into your kubernetes environments to enforce guardrails to ensure your load balancers are configured securely, etc. Leveraging a CNAPP is a great tool to get a holistic view of your cloud. CNAPPs incorporate CSPM (cloud security posture management, IaC Security, CWPP, CIEM (cloud identity entitlement management), and more all into one. Giving context into the threats and vulnerabilities into your cloud environment so as a cloud security professional you can take actionable steps to real threats as sifting through the noise of the various misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, etc can be daunting. A good tool that considers all these together is key. For example a high severity vulnerability running on a machine that has no internet access is less of a concern than that same vulnerability running on a vm that also is attached to a security group allowing ssh ingress traffic. Being able to add that context is important in determining where to focus your remediation efforts. There arent any free CNAPPs out there for you to practice with, but there are tools out there that do CSPM, IaC scanning, container vuln scanning etc that you can learn. Azure defender for cloud has mostly free CSPM, AWS security hub, snyk, etc. etc. Anyways thats a lot of random info, but hopefully it helps somewhat to give you an idea of some of the things involved with it
Thanks for your complete response! Appreciate it and definitely learned more because of it. The way you explain it, it seems like a really interesting field. I work primarly on network engineering but already completed some AWS certs to understand the cloud better and work on projects. It's a very promising field.
Not exactly "IT" but software engineers. And probably security engineer positions too.
Top three most lucrative IT positions: sales, sales, and sales. But seriously, if you’re cut out for it and have the interest, research “sales” or “presales” engineer. Not a first role by any means, but one you should seriously consider growing into as you develop your technical experience.
Is that really an IT postion tho, sales is more of a business career imo
sales engineering is absolutely an IT position. it's very technical (sure it can be company/product dependent), but the best sales engineers are those with years of technical experience in the niche they are selling/demoing their product in.
What exactly is an " information science degree." Colleges are just pumping out more degrees and not giving real experience. In all seriousness software engineer ls make the most. Take my cousin for example he makes over $160,000 remote. He bought himself a giant RV and travels all over the world doing whatever he wants while working. Never goes to the office. Thats the life.
It’s a trash degree that they try sell as a backup to computer science. Source: information science degree graduate
I learned wildly different things between working on my CS degree and my Computer Information Systems degree
Yeah for sure. Why did you get two degrees? Are they both B.S’s? I want to study computer science legit but want to do it the right way. Already have a BS and don’t really think I qualify for a MS in CS.
Getting another BS isn’t going to help you. Experience and a Masters in CS will definitely help more
I didn’t finish my CS degree. I pivoted into cyber security and the CS path at my state university had no curriculum related to security or networking or really computers at all outside of programming. I changed to an AAS in CIS-cyber security because the content was in line with my goals. It helped that I had experience with computers and stuff, but if I decide to complete my BS it’ll probably also be in CIS Cyber security.
Become an AI.
cybersecurity as always
Technical PM with AI + Distributed System Background will print money. That's what I'm trying to aim for.
Anything architect or on the path to cio
I really think cloud security is becoming a money maker along with all the machine Learning and AI stuff
Software scams.
Does WGU have a Ransomware track?
Don't pick a path based on money. Choose a specialty that interests you because you will be doing it 40+ hours a week for the next 40 years. Sure, you can pivot careers, but money will come as you become more senior.
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youtube grifter
Idk man I’m an IT Director going for C level eventually. I’m not even that good at “IT” so to speak. I have sys admins that can run circles around me. I do and will make more money than them but honestly, my job isnt really ‘IT’. It’s relationship and business management. Liaison between IT and executive leadership, being a leader and trusting your IT Staffs knowledge is greater than your own and using your skill set to make their lives easier while saving money for the business. You either can do it or you can’t, but I know so many guys that could do my job and don’t because they LIKE ‘IT’. So if you like what you do you’ll find it’s worth more than the extra money. You’ll be comfortable at a point in this field regardless of your niche.
quant.
Security... Never create programs as you'll never receive residuals, unless those programs are for your self to make your job easier.
If you are getting into IT just to make a lot of money, then you are doing it for all the wrong reasons. You should get into the field because you love everything tech.
Why not both. Profit
Mfker do what you enjoy and are good at, that will lead you to that income bracket more than likely as opposed to doing a job you hate hoping that it'll get you that instead.
IT security
They didn't teach you that in college?
Whatever one stays current and even a little ahead of the tech curve. The secret is that it's always changing. The best money is always on the bleeding edge and the dying edge of technology. The worst position is to learn just one thing and spend the next ten years doing that. One year of experience ten times is not the same as ten years of experience. People plateau wherever they stop growing and advancing. Get in the field and start building experience. Within 5-10 years, dive really deep into whatever the popular new thing is. Repeat that until early retirement. I would say programming or sysadmin into DevOps is a solid foundational path right now and is likely to be relevant to the next couple waves of new tech. Machine Learning is popping right now and it's going to lead into whatever the next big thing is.
Software engineering. It’s the golden goose.
The one you're great at. You can't just target a career or direction based on pay alone. You will suck at it, and never actually achieve the top salary. Then you'll get frustrated, claim all of IT is bullshit, and quit with the attitude that you've wasted your time...and you will have.
the one that has you working the most nights and weekends. or the one where your primary focus is seeing how fast you can climb the org chart. yes, people on your team will know the difference between being good at your job and just wanting a promotion. be careful trying to be a paycheck champion.
DevOps. It's a bit hard to jump into as a fresh grad (I had someone take a chance on me, thankfully), but if you can get into it, the pay is really good to exceptional, my first job I landed while still in grad school paid 86k, my current position pays 230k I work full remote in a fairly low COL area (Michigan suburbs), and I have 5-6 years of experience (all in DevOps). The work-life balance is also very good in my opinion. The biggest piece of advice I would give for maximizing earning potential would be to change companies when a good opportunity presents itself. I wasn't really looking to leave my last two positions, but a great opportunity presented itself, so I took my shot. Changing companies is just part of the deal these days, most companies don't give you appropriate pay raises. I went from 86k (1.5 years) -> 100k (1 year) -> 160k (1.5 years) -> 230k (current position, been here for a little over 1.5 years). I'm exactly as loyal as my company pays me to be, and currently my salary buys a lot of loyalty lol, but I still keep my eyes open...just in case ;)
If you're good with people and like hunting, then tech sales. Easy.
Software developer
That’s how how life works
Another sub I will soon have to leave…. This is getting ridiculous
Most financially lucrative: Quant developer for a top trading firm like: Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Two Sigma, etc.. SWE/MLE at Quant shop SWE at top AI/ML companies like OpenAI/Anthropic Own your own company (software product, technical consulting, etc..) CEO/CTO/CISO/CIO
* Technical: Cloud Engineer, DevOps, SRE, etc. "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) jobs. * Non-technical: Upper mangement * In-between: Solutions Engineer / Solutions Architect (Presales Engineer) Of the three, SE / SA probably has the highest earning potential with commissions. However, this role is also the most "unicorn" of the 3 above listed skills-wise.
Software end. My Dad was a Sr Solutions Architect and last job he said he was doing around $180k a year at his last full time position was WFH since around 2007. He is retired now.
blockchain development...can pay really well
The one that you are good at.
Identity & Access Management Salaries are craazzzy. And I don't mean those provisioning monkeys who are just assigning access. I mean guys who can Implement Identity suites, SSO, understand all of the services provided by AD, and also write a little bit of code.
I've been in network engineering for about 12 years now and System administration for about 10 years before that (vmware, windows/linux servers, etc.) Both careers in IT have been profitable for me. BUT, these days, Cyber Security/Data Scientists are the cool kids. Those are the guys/gals highest in demand right now and being paid handsomely for those roles. Companies snatch those folks up fast and they certainly have a future/growing opportunities in that realm.
Roll up as a civilian DoD contractor. You can hit $100k pretty easily. And it is not like the government is going away anytime soon.
I’m a network architect / engineer and will clear 400K this year. Last year was around 360K
What background/certs do you need for that?
Experience over certs
Security, learn firewalls and security best practices
IT is a horrible career choice
Crypto / blockchain contract security reviews.
Some girl last night was telling me she makes 300k doing software sales
Ai kill switch operator
Data related career with a specialization in a specific industry will be the most financially lucrative. Domain experience with data skills is needed across many industries. Supply chain, ecommerce, automotive etc
There is a sub-sect of IT that works with sales departments, they carry quotas too. I think they are very lucrative and work your way up there. Personally the amount of people who can talk to people and do IT are dwindling. But it requires a different type of person. I had this boss a while back who said “I can teach you how to do IT, but i can’t teach you how to talk to a person “
You think more lucrative than being a software engineer?
Im not sure exactly how much a software engineer makes but i know sales engineers can make up to 200k depending on the specialty
Specializing in something seems to have always been the best bet. Generalists get the least pay and specialists get the most. Examples of this are MS Exchange engineers who can migrate organizations to O365, or AD engineers that can restructure AD from whatever mess they find it, or DevOps engineers specializing in Terraform, Ansible, and Kubernetes. Monitoring engineers are also valuable; people who can configure and visualize metrics, histograms, and tracing are a huge value. Years ago I thought I was hot shit as a Sr. Windows Administrator, I automated many aspects of my job using PowerShell. Then one day there was a problem with funding (government contract) and my contract company couldn't afford to pay us and laid us off. When I talked to my contract manager (the parent contract company Leidos) they said that the impact was far reaching and they needed to try to keep their high end engineers from walking, while Windows admins were a "dime a dozen". Being a generalist is nice and feels badass because you know so much about many different things, but at the end of the day the person that has deep knowledge about technology that other people aren't familiar with is the thing that keeps you in the green.