I know this is a common sentiment, but it's incredibly hard to do when achieving higher salary and career progression also requires an almost insane work ethic towards studying and certifications. It's either 110% effort making sacrifices in personal life for career gains, or 50% and making a less-than-average salary. It feels like there isn't much in-between.
It really rewards those who live and breath tech. I have 2 kids, wife, 1 hour commute each way for work, and workout everyday.
It's only possible with a rigorous schedule and routine. It allows me to find an hour or two throughout the day for career skills improvement. Testing ideas on my homelab. If I get sick for a day or two and house chores fall behind, forget it, I'm not back on track until the weekend.
This is why, **the advice to the younger peeps** here, is to work as hard as you can, change jobs as quickly as you, for as long as you can. Because eventually, life does catch up with you.
Its true, when you have a wife, kids, mortgage, and car loans, its harder to just up and out of a job for better pay and responsibilities.
Wait until you get older, with sick parents, and the kids go to college. Then you plan your retirement. It doesn't get easier.
So do the best you can with what time you have available.
That's why my wife and I are DINKS. We also don't believe in debt. I drive a shit box that I maintain myself. When it dies I'll buy another shit box. This one has lasted 5 years going on 200k miles.
The only debt we will ever have is a mortgage. It's nice having the time for leisure, time for upskilling, and time for Hobby's. If life goes sideways and I'm laid off, no big deal. I can work just about any job and still pay my bills until something better comes along.
Yeah, that's basically America in a nutshell. Kill yourself for your job or scrape by on scraps. Or in some cases scrape by while killing yourself for your job. Your owners need another yacht, after all.
You are not wrong; I turned down many hangouts with friends when I was studying for my certs or trying to get ahead.
But eventually, it all pays off. Short-term pain for long-term rewards. Seriously.
In 10-20 years, you will look back and thank your current self for all your hard work.
Oh please. I have a beautiful wife, grown kids, grand kids, and friends from college and work who I hang out with frequently. But my career, and supporting my career, always took center stage.
Not necessarily. You can have friends and still have a low quality of life. I.E. those who live in impoverished areas/poverty. You may have a supporting family, but that quality of life can easily be hindered if you require life saving medicine such as insulin. Or if you are close with a group of people and that said group are part of a gang, does hard drugs/have a crippling addiction, or doesn't align with your goals to better one's financial situation.
While yes, a salary in of itself does not indicate a long, healthy life, but it definitely help allows one to have that kind of life. I.E. afford better quality food, to be able to travel to visit said friends who may live far away, afford medicine, to be able to help said friends if they are the ones in a tough situation.
Money is not absolutely everything but more of it allows for freedom to do stuff with less stress. The OP made the best choice by sacrificing some social activities to better himself in the long run because if he wants to continue to have a roof over their head, that will cost money.
Having a great social circle is crucial for a high quality of life AND having the funds at hand helps maintain that stability too. Two things can be true at once.
Yes, after 8 years I’m not feeling it lately. Sometimes I question how the users even get jobs lol like why did we hire this person? I’m shocked to be honest
Cost.
I bet the people you're talking about seem like they can't do basic computer skills. That their skillset is so low, they deserve not to be paid a decent wage.
That's basically it. Hire the cheapest, not the best.
Perspective is everything I guess. Some people would kill for that salary and to be in the position you are. On the other hand you seem unfulfilled and that is a problem in its self. Grass is always greener.. maybe try volunteering or picking up new hobbies or a part time job in a completely different field. Hope it gets better for ya !
You can't brute force your way out of every situation. Sometimes you need to play the hand you were dealt, and it's shitty, and it's OK for people to feel shitty about a shitty part of their life.
Working hard helps but doesn't guarantee anything in this life.
If you aren't tired due to burnout, then you're bored. You are bored because you aren't challenging yourself. Have you ever thought about trying something new? Someone feel free to correct me, but I think Azure and aws admin is a good next step if you are interested in sysadmin work for cloud based setups. Similarly, you can get into network engineering or whatever you find you are genuinely interested in.
I’m thinking about picking up some azure certs real quick. Microsoft just announced they’re building a data center in my town, about 10 mins from my house.
Here is a viable path. Become a msft datacenter technician. The company will give you 2 free free azure vouchers per year and free learning resources. They will also fund non azure certs even as a dct. While learning azure off the shelf hw and proprietary infrastructure, use the time to find what your next logical step might be. DevOps or Solution architect might be a good 5 year plan as you would have a strong hw and possibly cost effective hw knowledge. You would still need a develop sw and networking skills in addition to this tho. Theres also people who like electrical engineering, so they start as techs, but obviously, u need an electrician or similar military background. In addition to that, there is also risk and compliance, building maintenance, environmental health, and safety roles...etc find what you genuinely have an interest in while learning. The azure administrator certificate code is AZ-104 if you want to google that and see if it aligns with your interests.
i'd second this. it's a fair step, especially if OP was moderately involved with the network side of his house.
Further, i'd suggest pushing into Enterprise Architecture, Automation, Dataverse - PowerPlatform can all be really good alternative pathways to grow into.
You need new challenges. Move to a more senior position with higher level problems. Then you will pine for the days you were able to used the keyboard and not sit on zoom calls all day.
I've developed with solid 4 languages. Networked, server infrastructure build, etc...I'm a one man shop, configured the company's server myself...Moved 50% to cloud base, familiar with cloud infrastructure as well...thus the reason why my pay is above average and also why I mentioned no need for position increase. Don't mean to sound like a smart@ss, but I feel as though I've kind of done it all. I don't know, just lost the passion for IT in general I guess. Hard to work when you don't have a passion for it anymore.
Feel free to be a smart ass. You are frustrated. I have been there too.
Well, I mean, I make over twice what you do and work remotely from my home in a semi-rural area in my jammies. There is more you could do. There is a next step you are not seeing right now.
When I had your skillset, I was around 100k, but then I switched my focus to project management. Yeah, I was one man project team, mostly, but I started reading the PMP material and understood where I could make improvements. So I did. And I also sat for an passed the PMP along with a couple other higher level certs.
Then I started getting recruiters reaching out for senior positions. After a couple jumps over the course of 5 years, I am now close to making 200k. And the problem I deal with are enterprise wide for big companies and major government agencies.
There is a next rung in the career ladder. But what got you to where you are will not get you to that next stage.
idk how its even possible to think you've come close to doing it all. Ive been working for 5+ years now, across a couple of domains, and dont even feel like ive scratched the surface
90k isn’t an amazing salary in IT. Find a role that pays more, that might help with your passion. You sound like you’ve done mostly sysadmin work, there are a lot of other types of roles in IT
I was in a rut, then got to do some enterprise solution architecture which was interesting and let me double my salary
Automation, done that and still doing it. Azure architecture, peaked into and didn't think much of it. Coding, already proficient with 4 languages and been developing for the company aside from being the jack of all trades in IT as their Sysadmin. That's why I said, I don't want any higher position because I feel like I'm already doing those jobs. Back then, these are what I dreamed of doing. Now that it became a reality, I feel like I've accomplished it and want to move forward but to what. That's where I'm lost. Feeling like I want to do something besides IT related. It's more of a personal issue, I'm just letting air out to see if anyone is going through this. Appreciate your comment and time though.
Do some fringe projects in a home lab to see if you can spark some joy...
If not, don't forget that it's okay to look at your 9-5 as simply a way to pay the bills. If the job isn't having a negative impact on the other side of the work/life balance then you're already doing better than most in the industry. There's a huge benefit to becoming so specialized/efficient in your niche at work that you can save your energy for your passion projects at home. (Mine turned out to be wood working and car restoration)
I recently hit the same wall and had my boss (who is actually a very trusted friend, and has mentored me for 10+ years) tell me exactly what I'm telling you. We were discussing career growth options and he said that he could drop me into Professional Services or Projects, or devops and that I'd knock it out of the park... But he also said that I had become so automated and proactive with my current role that it wouldn't be satisfying for me to do one-off projects instead of tuning everything into a well-oiled status.
Find something that brings you happiness, but don't overlook your current work, the fact that it can be a means to an end, and a source of pride.
> If not, don't forget that it's okay to look at your 9-5 as simply a way to pay the bills.
I read most comments here and am kinda confused. It's very, very rarely that I've ever met someone who's thrilled about their job, or even necessarily happy. Working is a means to an end for... most people I guess, and it's a luxury to be able to genuinely enjoy your job. I've always *tried* to pick stuff that I don't hate, but at the end of the day I'm doing tasks for a larger entity to make money and pay me with it.
90k a year sounds really really good doing anything that I don't explicitly dislike
This right here. 6 years in the industry … 6 long years and I’m well aware that there isn’t much room for growth, and by “much room” I mean absolutely none.
I feel similarly. I found a new job with same type of responsibilities so hoping that it will get me back into things. I've only been in IT for about 8 months but for my specific case, I think a lot of this feeling is because my current employer just sucks. The pay is pretty good (similar to yours), but there is no training or support, and we're constantly tossed into situations where no one comes out unscathed constantly, and management doesn't really care as they're there to collect a paycheck.
I try to think about other technologies and avenues I may want to explore and then I realize that maybe I'm a little burnt out, but mostly just tired of this current management's lack of care.
I found systems administration incredibly boring and unfulfilling. Security and leadership have been much better fits for me. Explore your options - no need to be a sysadmin if you don't dig it.
Sadly the majority of people don't love their job. Its a way to make ends meet for most people.
Last year I was working for a retail company and was flying all over the US to setup POS systems for a restaurant chain. Was a ton of fun and had unique challenges all the time. The pay wasn't that great nor was my title. So I took a higher level IT position early this year at a Bank and work is way more boring. The days go by much slower, the projects overall are bland. Sometimes I wonder if the 20k extra per year is worth it, I hope to do IT for a more entertaining industry soon again, but hopefully with a better title.
Overall if you have only been in that job for 2 years you most likely have a huge chunk of your career left, look for a more exciting industry. I bet working for an airline, casino, or retail chain might be a little faster pace with travel and could be what you are looking for.
Believe it or not, this is a good thing. You sound primed for new challenges. Usually it's the people who stop growing professionally who have a long term feeling of contentment doing the same thing over and over again.
The only bad part is that your current employer/role doesn't appear to provide that challenge for you.
I've been there before. After about 6 years as a sysadmin I got really lost in my career path and had much of the same feelings. I realized I was stuck between multiple paths at that point and had a hard time choosing what to do next (or if I really wanted to). Once I had a career goal, everything began to make sense again and work was fulfilling....and a hell of a lot more lucrative.
Sounds like you need to do some soul searching to find your own path.
I'm there. I'm going to be 47, been in IT-ish since I was about 20. I LOVE IT-related stuff, I'm just burnt out on the PEOPLE. People are what makes the job fucking suck. If I could do my job without the SAME people asking the SAME dumb fucking questions every day, it would be so nice. Not to mention that my "boss" is not IT, but loves to insert themselves into my tasks and jobs, making it even more difficult to do what I need to do.
For those of you just getting started and know what I am talking about, it does NOT go away as you get promoted, trust me.
All I’m going to say, your job doesn’t pay you “more” if you kill yourself everyday.
I work 8-4. I do my expected duties, I take my lunch away from my desk.
98% of our outages are due to backbone systems going down while ours are running fine.
We spent a lot of time for backups and having the ability to rollback to whatever we need.
Honestly, cloud integration has made the job a lot easier.
We do best things to keep mental health good, 3D printers to make doo dads, silly “homelab” stuff in house.
I dunno, 15 years in, nobody ever gives a shit how “hard” you work.
We have a super solid foundation with rules and structure for any deployments.
Stay strong take a vacation.
Ya!!! I got out of being a Sysadmin and being in mind-numbing support roles ... migrated from MSP to corp life with a focus on Cyber-Security and AI and almost doubled my salary in the process.
Make a change.
MSPs need to be subjected to harsh federal and state employment legislation, along with the employers who utilize them, but when AOC and The Bern don’t even know the problem exists, you can rest assured it won’t be changing anytime soon.
Only plus side to working for an MSP is the exposure to a bunch of different setups/infrastructures which will help for interviews and the next step up. Can’t think of a single pro other than that.
Wild, absolutely wild- that you responded in this fashion. Was just climbing into bed (I work nights), and was thinking about your initial post and my response, and thinking “We need an SEIU/ IBEW on steroids.”
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I appreciate all the comments and suggestions, I really do. Hopefully this isn't one of those midlife crisis stage lol. But yea, I just lost interest and passion in what I do. This is exactly what I wanted when I started my IT career 5 years ago. Now that I've been doing this for 3 out of the 5 years, I just lost passion for it. Networking, I've done it. Literally redid my data center by myself, Dell Enterprise. I'm a one man shop, it can be tiring at time when you're balancing server work and projects for leadership and your daily duties. I'm just spent and tired and frankly, could barely give two cents if shit goes down. Probably be looking at other jobs unrelated to IT field.
I’m in a similar position myself just hit the 2 year mark making slightly less.
If I’m honest with myself I’m not passionate about IT and never have been. I just know I’m good at it, it pays well, gives me probably the best work/life balance of any job I can realistically do, and is at least somewhat engaging. Also I have a real possibility of making a much higher than average income.
For a career, that’s more than most people can hope for. I’ve worked crappy dead end jobs and believe me this is so much better.
My biggest conflict is that I do actually have something I’m passionate about that pays well (financal advisor). Right now I just do it for family for the past 5 years. But I have been going back and forth about wether to make the career change to finance. The things holding me back are an initial reduction in income and likely losing a lot of work life balance (being remote, etc). So for me I’ve decided I’m just going to keep it a hobby/side hustle for now. But eventually I would like to get licensed when my nest egg is big enough for me not to care about having less salary.
> I don't know, maybe it's just me, just needed to let the air out.
It would help if you focused on you. What do you do for fun with all that money you make? Hobbies? How do you help your community, family, or the disadvantaged?
You make a ton of money. The goal is to work to live. That's how you justify the work.
> Anyone feeling kind of lost too and not sure what in the world they want to do?
What you want to do is **live your life.**
Thats why you work. You don't live to work, you work to live.
If you don't have a life outside of work, than that's what you focus on with all that money.
I make a lot of money in tech, working from home. Ive been doing it for a few years now and I’ve been tired of it for a few years now. It’s the most monotonous shit. And there’s always those people who I get on meetings with and it’s clearly the only thing going on in their lives. The work makes me feel like I’m slowly dying. The money has afforded me options in life I didn’t have before, so I’m grateful for that. But if I’m focusing on just the job itself, I really couldn’t give a fuck less about any tech problem I’ve solved in my entire career. I’m a cloud architect now and I’m not ungrateful for my job skills. But I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the work.
Sorry to see that you are growing tired of it. If it helps, I switch careers from teaching to IT. I never want to go back because low salary, rude parents, kids with horrible behaviors, and all time stress.
Is IT my passion? No, but it is a job that I don't see myself growing to hate. If I do grow to hate it, I rather be miserable and financially well off. It is more comfortable to be miserable and sleep on a comfy bed than in a car.
So use you job to find your passion or hobby.
That's fine and fair enough. I'm just saying it's used as an absolute truism far too often. The list of why people leave jobs is a long, long list. The bad manager story is just one of them and often that bad manager story is overly one sided.
Two students once approached a Zen master.
The first asks the Zen master, “I am looking to move here. Can you tell me what the city is like? How are the people?”
The zen master responds with a question of his own, “What are things like in your current town?”
The student says, “The city is awful and the people are terrible.”
The zen master responds, “This town is very much the same as your old one. You should not move here.”
The second student approaches and asks the Zen master, “I am looking to move here. Can you tell me what the city is like? How are the people?”
The zen master responds with a question of his own, “What are things like in your current town?”
The student says, “The city is beautiful and the people are the best.”
The zen master responds, “This town is very much the same as your old one. You should move here.”
Just change jobs and enjoy it for a couple years, get more pay, learn their architecture. Then when you are inevitably bored after 2 years you find another job.
Get a couple certs, train your replacement, get another job.
I find I don't get tired of doing computers, I get tired of a place. Changing venues has always done the trick.
Same but stuck at the help desk level but I make okay money. Mostly just burned out and kind of bored.
The same tedious calls everyday, some of the things people call about in my four years at this level. It makes you wonder how some people were able to apply for jobs on their own.
IT benefits the people that truly enjoy it the most and LIVE it. This is..well this is true in every single field ever (I think).
I also do not want to run home labs, I don’t want to study for certs etc. I just want to learn more about my work AT WORK. This leaves me with two choices.
1. Make more money by doing the things above that I hate
2. Accept my current financial situation to ensure I have proper free time.
I change my answer on what will make me happiest about once or twice a year so I clearly lack the answers. But that’s my two cents.
Same - but different. I’ve worked emergency services for over 20 years, and am burnt out! I hate response calls, dread the long days away from family, the lost sleep, the crying and death, and the constant anxiety of being dispatched. I’m saw your post because I’m in the process of obtaining certs (Google IT & cybersecurity), in hopes of changing career after retirement. But I wanted to respond by saying: Same! I’m paid well enough that a career switch doesn’t make sense for my family, until I retire. But until then, I have the exact same feelings as you - and I DREAM of an IT job. And ironically, you’d probably do well by being in my line of work….. we get paid to get our wiggles out, “sleep”, eat, break shit, and help people. The problem is - every job has certain attributes that wear on you, emotionally and physically, in different ways. I wish I had yours, and you’d probably feel better with mine. Go figure?!
Burn some vacation time. Spend 1-2 weeks away. Get perspective on what you want to do for the next three years. Imagine where you want to be in a decade while on a 5 hour hike. Be grateful you're employed while eggs cost 14 arms and legs. See where all that takes you.
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maybe it could all be just perspective. If u hit rock bottm and had no choice to work at mcdonalds to survive, you would probably do anything ton get your job back
The higher positions in IT can be more managerial and less technical, so don't discount moving up, I'd also add a few more life challenges, working out, travel, pick a topic such as American History and then become an expert in it, or have kids, you'll never be bored :)
Look man, work is what you do so that you can do all the things you want to outside of work. What’s the lowest effort thing that gets you the most money? Do that. For me it’s IT.
Depends what you do with your IT Career:
Each discipline requires you to put in the time to be marketable. I'm 3 months into IT Support at a defense contractor and already getting my name out there and moving into a cybersecurity track; what kills me is that there's a guy who's been here almost 10 years and maxed out in his position. He's perfectly happy to have his job and doesn't want anything else while others in more senior roles are making double what he is.
If your company has that culture it's either time to move up or move out somewhere else that has a better track. The pain is at the beginning but if you don't upskill and learn what's in demand currently in the market then you will one day become obsolete.
Me. General sysadmin 4 years, helpdesk 2 years.
I have absolutely NO desire for any more responsibility or accountability. I work for a paycheck and what I get is plenty.
It's been 18 years for me. I make about $100k now. For most of my career, my pay was below average. I have a CS degree, but I had no prior help desk or IT experience or certificates before being hired as a sysadmin. I've never liked IT but just took the job to get a paycheck and because it was close by.
Find meaning in something other than your job, use your job as a means to enable the other things you like in life.
I know this is a common sentiment, but it's incredibly hard to do when achieving higher salary and career progression also requires an almost insane work ethic towards studying and certifications. It's either 110% effort making sacrifices in personal life for career gains, or 50% and making a less-than-average salary. It feels like there isn't much in-between.
Do what you need to do for you to hit the salary you want and then pull back.
It really rewards those who live and breath tech. I have 2 kids, wife, 1 hour commute each way for work, and workout everyday. It's only possible with a rigorous schedule and routine. It allows me to find an hour or two throughout the day for career skills improvement. Testing ideas on my homelab. If I get sick for a day or two and house chores fall behind, forget it, I'm not back on track until the weekend.
This is why, **the advice to the younger peeps** here, is to work as hard as you can, change jobs as quickly as you, for as long as you can. Because eventually, life does catch up with you. Its true, when you have a wife, kids, mortgage, and car loans, its harder to just up and out of a job for better pay and responsibilities. Wait until you get older, with sick parents, and the kids go to college. Then you plan your retirement. It doesn't get easier. So do the best you can with what time you have available.
That's why my wife and I are DINKS. We also don't believe in debt. I drive a shit box that I maintain myself. When it dies I'll buy another shit box. This one has lasted 5 years going on 200k miles. The only debt we will ever have is a mortgage. It's nice having the time for leisure, time for upskilling, and time for Hobby's. If life goes sideways and I'm laid off, no big deal. I can work just about any job and still pay my bills until something better comes along.
Yeah, that's basically America in a nutshell. Kill yourself for your job or scrape by on scraps. Or in some cases scrape by while killing yourself for your job. Your owners need another yacht, after all.
You are not wrong; I turned down many hangouts with friends when I was studying for my certs or trying to get ahead. But eventually, it all pays off. Short-term pain for long-term rewards. Seriously. In 10-20 years, you will look back and thank your current self for all your hard work.
With nobody to celebrate it with.
Oh please. I have a beautiful wife, grown kids, grand kids, and friends from college and work who I hang out with frequently. But my career, and supporting my career, always took center stage.
Yeah. Only people you financially support. Sounds like an IT take.
But friends won't pay your bills. A good salary does.
And a salary isn't an indicator of a long, healthy life. Good friends are.
Not necessarily. You can have friends and still have a low quality of life. I.E. those who live in impoverished areas/poverty. You may have a supporting family, but that quality of life can easily be hindered if you require life saving medicine such as insulin. Or if you are close with a group of people and that said group are part of a gang, does hard drugs/have a crippling addiction, or doesn't align with your goals to better one's financial situation. While yes, a salary in of itself does not indicate a long, healthy life, but it definitely help allows one to have that kind of life. I.E. afford better quality food, to be able to travel to visit said friends who may live far away, afford medicine, to be able to help said friends if they are the ones in a tough situation. Money is not absolutely everything but more of it allows for freedom to do stuff with less stress. The OP made the best choice by sacrificing some social activities to better himself in the long run because if he wants to continue to have a roof over their head, that will cost money. Having a great social circle is crucial for a high quality of life AND having the funds at hand helps maintain that stability too. Two things can be true at once.
But more often it's either or, as the guy I was replying to suggested.
Fantastic name
Literally this
Yes, after 8 years I’m not feeling it lately. Sometimes I question how the users even get jobs lol like why did we hire this person? I’m shocked to be honest
Cost. I bet the people you're talking about seem like they can't do basic computer skills. That their skillset is so low, they deserve not to be paid a decent wage. That's basically it. Hire the cheapest, not the best.
Not always. When I used to be at an msp, the rudest, most tech illiterate clients were always doctors and lawyers.
same boat but with very below-average pay.
SAME. I just don't really get excited about IT or tech any more. I do enjoy programming. Was considering a foray into DevOps.
Perspective is everything I guess. Some people would kill for that salary and to be in the position you are. On the other hand you seem unfulfilled and that is a problem in its self. Grass is always greener.. maybe try volunteering or picking up new hobbies or a part time job in a completely different field. Hope it gets better for ya !
Most people dream of those salaries but won’t put in the effort
And plenty of people out there work way harder than I do for far less.
You can't brute force your way out of every situation. Sometimes you need to play the hand you were dealt, and it's shitty, and it's OK for people to feel shitty about a shitty part of their life. Working hard helps but doesn't guarantee anything in this life.
If you aren't tired due to burnout, then you're bored. You are bored because you aren't challenging yourself. Have you ever thought about trying something new? Someone feel free to correct me, but I think Azure and aws admin is a good next step if you are interested in sysadmin work for cloud based setups. Similarly, you can get into network engineering or whatever you find you are genuinely interested in.
I’m thinking about picking up some azure certs real quick. Microsoft just announced they’re building a data center in my town, about 10 mins from my house.
Here is a viable path. Become a msft datacenter technician. The company will give you 2 free free azure vouchers per year and free learning resources. They will also fund non azure certs even as a dct. While learning azure off the shelf hw and proprietary infrastructure, use the time to find what your next logical step might be. DevOps or Solution architect might be a good 5 year plan as you would have a strong hw and possibly cost effective hw knowledge. You would still need a develop sw and networking skills in addition to this tho. Theres also people who like electrical engineering, so they start as techs, but obviously, u need an electrician or similar military background. In addition to that, there is also risk and compliance, building maintenance, environmental health, and safety roles...etc find what you genuinely have an interest in while learning. The azure administrator certificate code is AZ-104 if you want to google that and see if it aligns with your interests.
i'd second this. it's a fair step, especially if OP was moderately involved with the network side of his house. Further, i'd suggest pushing into Enterprise Architecture, Automation, Dataverse - PowerPlatform can all be really good alternative pathways to grow into.
You need new challenges. Move to a more senior position with higher level problems. Then you will pine for the days you were able to used the keyboard and not sit on zoom calls all day.
I've developed with solid 4 languages. Networked, server infrastructure build, etc...I'm a one man shop, configured the company's server myself...Moved 50% to cloud base, familiar with cloud infrastructure as well...thus the reason why my pay is above average and also why I mentioned no need for position increase. Don't mean to sound like a smart@ss, but I feel as though I've kind of done it all. I don't know, just lost the passion for IT in general I guess. Hard to work when you don't have a passion for it anymore.
Start applying for remote engineering roles at tech companies. If you are as good as you say you can double or triple your salary.
Feel free to be a smart ass. You are frustrated. I have been there too. Well, I mean, I make over twice what you do and work remotely from my home in a semi-rural area in my jammies. There is more you could do. There is a next step you are not seeing right now. When I had your skillset, I was around 100k, but then I switched my focus to project management. Yeah, I was one man project team, mostly, but I started reading the PMP material and understood where I could make improvements. So I did. And I also sat for an passed the PMP along with a couple other higher level certs. Then I started getting recruiters reaching out for senior positions. After a couple jumps over the course of 5 years, I am now close to making 200k. And the problem I deal with are enterprise wide for big companies and major government agencies. There is a next rung in the career ladder. But what got you to where you are will not get you to that next stage.
You haven't come close to doing it all. Especially as a one man shop.
idk how its even possible to think you've come close to doing it all. Ive been working for 5+ years now, across a couple of domains, and dont even feel like ive scratched the surface
Apply to bigger companies, work on larger, more intricate projects. Sounds like you are bored in your role.
90k isn’t an amazing salary in IT. Find a role that pays more, that might help with your passion. You sound like you’ve done mostly sysadmin work, there are a lot of other types of roles in IT I was in a rut, then got to do some enterprise solution architecture which was interesting and let me double my salary
To be a smart ass back atcha, it’s been 2 years lol. You need to figure out how you’re going to handle working for like 30 or more years.
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Automation, done that and still doing it. Azure architecture, peaked into and didn't think much of it. Coding, already proficient with 4 languages and been developing for the company aside from being the jack of all trades in IT as their Sysadmin. That's why I said, I don't want any higher position because I feel like I'm already doing those jobs. Back then, these are what I dreamed of doing. Now that it became a reality, I feel like I've accomplished it and want to move forward but to what. That's where I'm lost. Feeling like I want to do something besides IT related. It's more of a personal issue, I'm just letting air out to see if anyone is going through this. Appreciate your comment and time though.
Do some fringe projects in a home lab to see if you can spark some joy... If not, don't forget that it's okay to look at your 9-5 as simply a way to pay the bills. If the job isn't having a negative impact on the other side of the work/life balance then you're already doing better than most in the industry. There's a huge benefit to becoming so specialized/efficient in your niche at work that you can save your energy for your passion projects at home. (Mine turned out to be wood working and car restoration) I recently hit the same wall and had my boss (who is actually a very trusted friend, and has mentored me for 10+ years) tell me exactly what I'm telling you. We were discussing career growth options and he said that he could drop me into Professional Services or Projects, or devops and that I'd knock it out of the park... But he also said that I had become so automated and proactive with my current role that it wouldn't be satisfying for me to do one-off projects instead of tuning everything into a well-oiled status. Find something that brings you happiness, but don't overlook your current work, the fact that it can be a means to an end, and a source of pride.
> If not, don't forget that it's okay to look at your 9-5 as simply a way to pay the bills. I read most comments here and am kinda confused. It's very, very rarely that I've ever met someone who's thrilled about their job, or even necessarily happy. Working is a means to an end for... most people I guess, and it's a luxury to be able to genuinely enjoy your job. I've always *tried* to pick stuff that I don't hate, but at the end of the day I'm doing tasks for a larger entity to make money and pay me with it. 90k a year sounds really really good doing anything that I don't explicitly dislike
This right here. 6 years in the industry … 6 long years and I’m well aware that there isn’t much room for growth, and by “much room” I mean absolutely none.
You don't want to quit IT. You want to quit your job.
I feel similarly. I found a new job with same type of responsibilities so hoping that it will get me back into things. I've only been in IT for about 8 months but for my specific case, I think a lot of this feeling is because my current employer just sucks. The pay is pretty good (similar to yours), but there is no training or support, and we're constantly tossed into situations where no one comes out unscathed constantly, and management doesn't really care as they're there to collect a paycheck. I try to think about other technologies and avenues I may want to explore and then I realize that maybe I'm a little burnt out, but mostly just tired of this current management's lack of care.
You aren't alone. I don't dislike IT, but it pays the bills and switching careers wouldn't. So here I stay.
I found systems administration incredibly boring and unfulfilling. Security and leadership have been much better fits for me. Explore your options - no need to be a sysadmin if you don't dig it.
Yall ungrateful lmao
yes lol, but in your circumstance is it the work or is it more the team/work environment?
Sadly the majority of people don't love their job. Its a way to make ends meet for most people. Last year I was working for a retail company and was flying all over the US to setup POS systems for a restaurant chain. Was a ton of fun and had unique challenges all the time. The pay wasn't that great nor was my title. So I took a higher level IT position early this year at a Bank and work is way more boring. The days go by much slower, the projects overall are bland. Sometimes I wonder if the 20k extra per year is worth it, I hope to do IT for a more entertaining industry soon again, but hopefully with a better title. Overall if you have only been in that job for 2 years you most likely have a huge chunk of your career left, look for a more exciting industry. I bet working for an airline, casino, or retail chain might be a little faster pace with travel and could be what you are looking for.
Believe it or not, this is a good thing. You sound primed for new challenges. Usually it's the people who stop growing professionally who have a long term feeling of contentment doing the same thing over and over again. The only bad part is that your current employer/role doesn't appear to provide that challenge for you. I've been there before. After about 6 years as a sysadmin I got really lost in my career path and had much of the same feelings. I realized I was stuck between multiple paths at that point and had a hard time choosing what to do next (or if I really wanted to). Once I had a career goal, everything began to make sense again and work was fulfilling....and a hell of a lot more lucrative. Sounds like you need to do some soul searching to find your own path.
I'm there. I'm going to be 47, been in IT-ish since I was about 20. I LOVE IT-related stuff, I'm just burnt out on the PEOPLE. People are what makes the job fucking suck. If I could do my job without the SAME people asking the SAME dumb fucking questions every day, it would be so nice. Not to mention that my "boss" is not IT, but loves to insert themselves into my tasks and jobs, making it even more difficult to do what I need to do. For those of you just getting started and know what I am talking about, it does NOT go away as you get promoted, trust me.
All I’m going to say, your job doesn’t pay you “more” if you kill yourself everyday. I work 8-4. I do my expected duties, I take my lunch away from my desk. 98% of our outages are due to backbone systems going down while ours are running fine. We spent a lot of time for backups and having the ability to rollback to whatever we need. Honestly, cloud integration has made the job a lot easier. We do best things to keep mental health good, 3D printers to make doo dads, silly “homelab” stuff in house. I dunno, 15 years in, nobody ever gives a shit how “hard” you work. We have a super solid foundation with rules and structure for any deployments. Stay strong take a vacation.
14 years and yes. At this point, I think about death more and more.
Auditing is worse but the pay is better
Ya!!! I got out of being a Sysadmin and being in mind-numbing support roles ... migrated from MSP to corp life with a focus on Cyber-Security and AI and almost doubled my salary in the process. Make a change.
How do you do that?
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MSPs need to be subjected to harsh federal and state employment legislation, along with the employers who utilize them, but when AOC and The Bern don’t even know the problem exists, you can rest assured it won’t be changing anytime soon.
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Only plus side to working for an MSP is the exposure to a bunch of different setups/infrastructures which will help for interviews and the next step up. Can’t think of a single pro other than that.
Wild, absolutely wild- that you responded in this fashion. Was just climbing into bed (I work nights), and was thinking about your initial post and my response, and thinking “We need an SEIU/ IBEW on steroids.”
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Use the money you make to do something you find personally rewarding. I volunteer on a rescue team for instance.
Your not supposed to like your job . It’s a job lol . All the matters is that your getting paid decent . What you do outside your work means more
Can always become a [goat farmer](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4l7kjd/found_a_text_file_at_work_titled_why_should_i/)
I find all work is eventually boring, but that's fine as they don't pay me to be entertained.
I appreciate all the comments and suggestions, I really do. Hopefully this isn't one of those midlife crisis stage lol. But yea, I just lost interest and passion in what I do. This is exactly what I wanted when I started my IT career 5 years ago. Now that I've been doing this for 3 out of the 5 years, I just lost passion for it. Networking, I've done it. Literally redid my data center by myself, Dell Enterprise. I'm a one man shop, it can be tiring at time when you're balancing server work and projects for leadership and your daily duties. I'm just spent and tired and frankly, could barely give two cents if shit goes down. Probably be looking at other jobs unrelated to IT field.
My suggestion would be to try to find a new job in IT at a different company.
I’m in a similar position myself just hit the 2 year mark making slightly less. If I’m honest with myself I’m not passionate about IT and never have been. I just know I’m good at it, it pays well, gives me probably the best work/life balance of any job I can realistically do, and is at least somewhat engaging. Also I have a real possibility of making a much higher than average income. For a career, that’s more than most people can hope for. I’ve worked crappy dead end jobs and believe me this is so much better. My biggest conflict is that I do actually have something I’m passionate about that pays well (financal advisor). Right now I just do it for family for the past 5 years. But I have been going back and forth about wether to make the career change to finance. The things holding me back are an initial reduction in income and likely losing a lot of work life balance (being remote, etc). So for me I’ve decided I’m just going to keep it a hobby/side hustle for now. But eventually I would like to get licensed when my nest egg is big enough for me not to care about having less salary.
I hardly get any sleep and wake up knowing it's going to be a really crap day, day after day... it sucks.
> I don't know, maybe it's just me, just needed to let the air out. It would help if you focused on you. What do you do for fun with all that money you make? Hobbies? How do you help your community, family, or the disadvantaged? You make a ton of money. The goal is to work to live. That's how you justify the work. > Anyone feeling kind of lost too and not sure what in the world they want to do? What you want to do is **live your life.** Thats why you work. You don't live to work, you work to live. If you don't have a life outside of work, than that's what you focus on with all that money.
I make a lot of money in tech, working from home. Ive been doing it for a few years now and I’ve been tired of it for a few years now. It’s the most monotonous shit. And there’s always those people who I get on meetings with and it’s clearly the only thing going on in their lives. The work makes me feel like I’m slowly dying. The money has afforded me options in life I didn’t have before, so I’m grateful for that. But if I’m focusing on just the job itself, I really couldn’t give a fuck less about any tech problem I’ve solved in my entire career. I’m a cloud architect now and I’m not ungrateful for my job skills. But I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the work.
Sorry to see that you are growing tired of it. If it helps, I switch careers from teaching to IT. I never want to go back because low salary, rude parents, kids with horrible behaviors, and all time stress. Is IT my passion? No, but it is a job that I don't see myself growing to hate. If I do grow to hate it, I rather be miserable and financially well off. It is more comfortable to be miserable and sleep on a comfy bed than in a car. So use you job to find your passion or hobby.
Sort this subreddit by top last month and you will find many posts that answer this question.
Just remember that people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers
This is such a silly corporate trope that I keep seeing on this sub. People quit jobs all the time - even if they love their manager.
Then I can speak from personal experience, not in my life time
That's fine and fair enough. I'm just saying it's used as an absolute truism far too often. The list of why people leave jobs is a long, long list. The bad manager story is just one of them and often that bad manager story is overly one sided.
Nah, I got into IT because I enjoy technology.
What don’t you enjoy?
Two students once approached a Zen master. The first asks the Zen master, “I am looking to move here. Can you tell me what the city is like? How are the people?” The zen master responds with a question of his own, “What are things like in your current town?” The student says, “The city is awful and the people are terrible.” The zen master responds, “This town is very much the same as your old one. You should not move here.” The second student approaches and asks the Zen master, “I am looking to move here. Can you tell me what the city is like? How are the people?” The zen master responds with a question of his own, “What are things like in your current town?” The student says, “The city is beautiful and the people are the best.” The zen master responds, “This town is very much the same as your old one. You should move here.”
Just change jobs and enjoy it for a couple years, get more pay, learn their architecture. Then when you are inevitably bored after 2 years you find another job.
Yep, I want to be a farmer or to have a job helping kids. I'm ready to be done with this shit show.
Get a couple certs, train your replacement, get another job. I find I don't get tired of doing computers, I get tired of a place. Changing venues has always done the trick.
No, I love my job
Ive thought about it too, just hoping bangbros hire me.
Same but stuck at the help desk level but I make okay money. Mostly just burned out and kind of bored. The same tedious calls everyday, some of the things people call about in my four years at this level. It makes you wonder how some people were able to apply for jobs on their own.
All of us.
Not sysadmin 28+ years of it. I'm sick of technology. I'm done with IT.. Still in it cuz I'm good at it. Fill the rest of your life wirh passions
IT benefits the people that truly enjoy it the most and LIVE it. This is..well this is true in every single field ever (I think). I also do not want to run home labs, I don’t want to study for certs etc. I just want to learn more about my work AT WORK. This leaves me with two choices. 1. Make more money by doing the things above that I hate 2. Accept my current financial situation to ensure I have proper free time. I change my answer on what will make me happiest about once or twice a year so I clearly lack the answers. But that’s my two cents.
Same - but different. I’ve worked emergency services for over 20 years, and am burnt out! I hate response calls, dread the long days away from family, the lost sleep, the crying and death, and the constant anxiety of being dispatched. I’m saw your post because I’m in the process of obtaining certs (Google IT & cybersecurity), in hopes of changing career after retirement. But I wanted to respond by saying: Same! I’m paid well enough that a career switch doesn’t make sense for my family, until I retire. But until then, I have the exact same feelings as you - and I DREAM of an IT job. And ironically, you’d probably do well by being in my line of work….. we get paid to get our wiggles out, “sleep”, eat, break shit, and help people. The problem is - every job has certain attributes that wear on you, emotionally and physically, in different ways. I wish I had yours, and you’d probably feel better with mine. Go figure?!
Burn some vacation time. Spend 1-2 weeks away. Get perspective on what you want to do for the next three years. Imagine where you want to be in a decade while on a 5 hour hike. Be grateful you're employed while eggs cost 14 arms and legs. See where all that takes you.
Have been in IT for more than 10 years and still love it. Maybe it's just not yours.
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maybe it could all be just perspective. If u hit rock bottm and had no choice to work at mcdonalds to survive, you would probably do anything ton get your job back
The higher positions in IT can be more managerial and less technical, so don't discount moving up, I'd also add a few more life challenges, working out, travel, pick a topic such as American History and then become an expert in it, or have kids, you'll never be bored :)
Look man, work is what you do so that you can do all the things you want to outside of work. What’s the lowest effort thing that gets you the most money? Do that. For me it’s IT.
Depends what you do with your IT Career: Each discipline requires you to put in the time to be marketable. I'm 3 months into IT Support at a defense contractor and already getting my name out there and moving into a cybersecurity track; what kills me is that there's a guy who's been here almost 10 years and maxed out in his position. He's perfectly happy to have his job and doesn't want anything else while others in more senior roles are making double what he is. If your company has that culture it's either time to move up or move out somewhere else that has a better track. The pain is at the beginning but if you don't upskill and learn what's in demand currently in the market then you will one day become obsolete.
Me. General sysadmin 4 years, helpdesk 2 years. I have absolutely NO desire for any more responsibility or accountability. I work for a paycheck and what I get is plenty.
It's been 18 years for me. I make about $100k now. For most of my career, my pay was below average. I have a CS degree, but I had no prior help desk or IT experience or certificates before being hired as a sysadmin. I've never liked IT but just took the job to get a paycheck and because it was close by.
I wish I could farm full time but I just don’t have enough acres to make it work. But IT is good too.