IT career progression

[@Spoonie]

Working for one of those places you've mentioned it's definitely a pretty big thing for us.

No idea how best to get into that area though but there's definitely money there

I was at an internal tech conference a couple of weeks ago and a guy gave a talk about big data and some of the things people are currently working on. Some real outside the box thinking. For example having a phone App that gathers data using the accelerometer and gps location. If a driver hits a pothole in their car it will register on the phone and its location uploaded. If say 10 people all register the same bump at the same location they send someone out to investigate. Proactive pothole maintenance

http://gcn.com/articles/2011/05/17/speedbump-app-automates-pothole-reporting.aspx

I am guessing Sony will be employing something similar with the announcement they will automatically download games they think you will want. So 1000 gamers have the same game collection as you, 85% downloaded new game demo 'x' so they make the assumption you will like it to.

Interesting stuff.

 

[ChrisR]

Yup it's definitely an interesting area that as you say requires a certain level of creativity to work out what all this data can be used for.

Wish I was that clever

 

[KDF]

my aim was always to earn my age in thousands, which I accomplished fairly early on.

Had exactly the same goal. It's funny how when you hit it.. then surpass it by a decent margin.. it still isn't enough !!

 

[dk]

Had exactly the same goal. It's funny how when you hit it.. then surpass it by a decent margin.. it still isn't enough !!

indeed, its when you double it that things start to get interesting

im not a massive fan of the term 'big data', its this years cloud buzzword.

People will overuse it so much this year that it'll just get boring, we know data is big, getting bigger and growing exponentially, it always has done....

 

[@Spoonie]

And so the willy waving starts. Boring. As for whether big data is a buzz word or not is irrelevant to the context of this conversation.

 

[ChrisR]

And so the willy waving starts.

What, my data's bigger than your data?

 

[dk]

And so the willy waving starts. Boring. As for whether big data is a buzz word or not is irrelevant to the context of this conversation.

by adding it into the conversation you made it relevant.

i see it as an overused buzzword, its getting boring IMO.

in 6 months there will be something new everyone will be talking about.

 

[@Spoonie]

by adding it into the conversation you made it relevant.

i see it as an overused buzzword, its getting boring IMO.

in 6 months there will be something new everyone will be talking about.

Maybe there will, however this is a thread about careers so I feel discussing current trends to be relevant. I remember back in 2010 when I suggested Ticketmaster could benefit from cloud computing after the Take That ticket overload. You said:

Flol, marketers dream, cloud computing, it's the answer to all issues.....

I believe they went on to sign a cloud solution deal with Cisco for a decent amount. A dream for someone no doubt...

 

[dk]

exactly, first it was virtualisation, then it was cloud, now its big data, its a new one every year.

amazon cloud has suffered some downtime last year, and when they go down, a lot of people are affected.

We have a cloud platform, so i know all about cloud, don't you worry, its not the answer to everything, just like big data is being bounded about by everyone at the moment, they are buzzwords, no different from gangnam being huge, then suddenly its harlem shake, then in a few months it'll be something else.

The ticketmaster thing, its a private cloud, not a public cloud......which is a new name for consolidated datacenters with self provisioning and virtualised environments, its not like they went to amazon and bought a load of vm's with the option to deploy a few more when they are busy, its IAAS, different to the cloud we were talking about.

 

[@Spoonie]

I don't want to argue about something so trivial, I was just throwing business intelligence (have that for a buzzword ) out there for consideration.

 

[@Spoonie]

More on big data for those that are interested.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21535739

 

[Cliotoby]

Well ive Just been offered that 3 month rolling contract finally, took 28 days lol. I was right about it being internal politics. Im replacing a guy thats moving up the ladder so hopefully I wont be out on my arse after 3 months.

£10 an hour FML.

 

[@Spoonie]

Nice one, I wouldn't worry about the money just yet. You are on the ladder and that's what counts. If you work hard to learn the rewards will come.

 

[ChrisR]

Congrats, as said don't worry so much about the cash just yet. It's your first role so it's the experience that counts.

 

[Darren S]

Nice one, I wouldn't worry about the money just yet. You are on the ladder and that's what counts. If you work hard to learn the rewards will come.

The one issue I have above all with I.T. Perhaps one of the worst industries for 'out-of-hours' learning - and you quickly realise that even on a regular diet of speed and caffeine - 24 hours per day simply isn't enough. Unless you're a super-guru in one small aspect of I.T - be prepared to constantly fight that work/life balance. There used to be a time when learning was conducted in works time. That's an uber-luxury these days and highly unlikely. Your learning. Your time.

I'm getting so cynical with age.

D.

 

[Cookie]

Well ive Just been offered that 3 month rolling contract finally, took 28 days lol. I was right about it being internal politics. Im replacing a guy thats moving up the ladder so hopefully I wont be out on my arse after 3 months.

£10 an hour FML.

I started in IT on less money 10 years ago I think

 

[ChrisR]

£10 an hour is still about 19k a year based on a 37 hour week, as above I started on less than that 10 years ago to the month.

 

[Cliotoby]

How do umbrella companies work?

 

[Cliotoby]

Also got another interview tomorrow with different company. Applied for the role of Grad Network Engineer, but the role is actually called managed services infrastructure specialist. 2nd line support covering servers, vmware and sans etc. Not much networking, mention tcp/ip and networks etc.... Don't think there will be much progression. They go on about supporting customers but cant figure out whether or not that's internal offices. They provide logistics software to major brands, yet in one small section of the website they mention providing infrastructure too, but its like one line. As if to say yer we also do that s**t too but we wont advertise it.

Really cant be fucked with it, they have seen my CV and know Im a grad without experience but I just know itll be an issue. Im spending the night with the GF tho and ive got tomorrow and saturday off work (She lives in London so dont often see her) so Ill be getting her drunk and treating her to a meal of steak. Thats before I take her home and absolutely f**king ruin her.

9 Months since I graduated. Tomorrow will be my 10th interview. Up to October last year id had 2 interviews. Worst period of my life so far. Thought id never leave that f**king retail shithole.

 

[ChrisR]

Well managed services implies that you would be supporting customer infrastructure, so people would outsource stuff to that company to run for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_services

As for not much progression, I can't help but feel you're being a little short sighted in what you want out of your first role from uni.

At this stage you need to looking to do one thing, get a job in IT, the foot in the door.

You then use that as the springboard to better roles, you're unlikely to walk into your dream position from the off, and until you have an understanding and experience with corporate IT you probably don't really know what that role would even be yet.

It took me that long to find a job after uni, and had a very turbulent time 2011/2012 with employment but things often happen and work out for the best

How do umbrella companies work?

You sign up with one, your employer pays you through them and they handle all your tax etc effectively making you a PAYE employee of the umbrella co, for a fee.

You'll also likely have to pay employers NI on top of your normal, but you can tax deduct certain things like food and travel costs.

 

[mace¬]

£10 an hour is still about 19k a year based on a 37 hour week, as above I started on less than that 10 years ago to the month.

19k take home?

 

[ChrisR]

No pre tax, as most salary is described

http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/hourly.php

 

[sbridgey]

I thought some of you in here may be interested in this.

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?684837-Any-IT-Developers-wanting-a-new-challenge

I am a student studying computer networking and I am currently doing a placement as a software developer, I am currently trying to decide whether to follow the path of networking or go into software.

One thing i am very interested in doing is contracting, we have some at work and they earn a serious amount of cash, and they get new challenges all the time which is always good.

how easy is it to change fields within IT?

 

[Cliotoby]

Well managed services implies that you would be supporting customer infrastructure, so people would outsource stuff to that company to run for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_services

As for not much progression, I can't help but feel you're being a little short sighted in what you want out of your first role from uni.

At this stage you need to looking to do one thing, get a job in IT, the foot in the door.

You then use that as the springboard to better roles, you're unlikely to walk into your dream position from the off, and until you have an understanding and experience with corporate IT you probably don't really know what that role would even be yet.

It took me that long to find a job after uni, and had a very turbulent time 2011/2012 with employment but things often happen and work out for the best




You sign up with one, your employer pays you through them and they handle all your tax etc effectively making you a PAYE employee of the umbrella co, for a fee.

You'll also likely have to pay employers NI on top of your normal, but you can tax deduct certain things like food and travel costs.

They said I could claim back travel and food. Not sure how much. Will I get raped for doing it?

 

[mace¬]

Shows how much attention I pay to my money. I've just looked at that calculator I'm on alot more an hour than I thought! It makes my hourly call out rate not as nice as it seems I thought I was getting like triple my rate.

 

[Cliotoby]

I thought some of you in here may be interested in this.

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?684837-Any-IT-Developers-wanting-a-new-challenge

I am a student studying computer networking and I am currently doing a placement as a software developer, I am currently trying to decide whether to follow the path of networking or go into software.

One thing i am very interested in doing is contracting, we have some at work and they earn a serious amount of cash, and they get new challenges all the time which is always good.

how easy is it to change fields within IT?

Id say software and Networks (or infrastructure) are two very different ball games. Having finished uni and studied networks ive spent the past 9 months wishing Id done software as frankly there seem to be a LOT more jobs out there than there are with networks.

 

[mace¬]

They said I could claim back travel and food. Not sure how much. Will I get raped for doing it?

Travel is normally a cash cow if you got an economical car. Something like 34p a mile we used to get.

 

[sbridgey]

Id say software and Networks (or infrastructure) are two very different ball games. Having finished uni and studied networks ive spent the past 9 months wishing Id done software as frankly there seem to be a LOT more jobs out there than there are with networks.

This is exactly what i am seeing from browsing job sites, I really want to do networking, but jobs are hard to come by. I dont want to get stuck in a career path but i dont want to be jobless.

 

[mace¬]

I'm also applying for a new job this week.

COBOL kids. Look it up.

 

[ChrisR]

imho software dev opens up more doors than networking, but that's just my opinion others may feel different.

COBOL lol, they also hiring for FORTRAN?

 

[sbridgey]

Kids computer programming?

Is this the drag and drop programming language?

 

[mace¬]

imho software dev opens up more doors than networking, but that's just my opinion others may feel different.

COBOL lol, they also hiring for FORTRAN?

No serious... want to hear something even less cool. I'm doing MUMPS at the moment.

 

[Cliotoby]

f**king christ. How can working through an umbrella company be so bad?

I was expecting to take £1200 a month (or so) looks like ill literally have my pants taken down because of this. Gots to rethink rents. Asda Basics range here I come.

 

[ChrisR]

No serious... want to hear something even less cool. I'm doing MUMPS at the moment.

Well least that's 'newer' than COBOL

 

[mace¬]

Well least that's 'newer' than COBOL

Now you know how bad my career is!

 

[ChrisR]

Never thought about moving on from your place?

 

[mace¬]

13 years service. Same thing all that time. My experience is COBOL and M with a bit of SQL, Access and mainframe stuff. Where can I go? The new job I'm applying for is hot on the mobile stuff so I'm thinking get my foot in the door doing their back end office stuff and try and move into something else.

Wasted career really, I should have done this 8 years ago once they'd finished paying for my NVQ and degree. My own fault but I haven't got much choice now. Legacy and then hope to get the chance to move into something more modern.

Never know, everyone who does what I do will be dead in a few years I could be in demand!

 

[ChrisR]

My experience is COBOL and M with a bit of SQL, Access and mainframe stuff. Where can I go?

IBM?

Tough one then, but pretty niche if you hold out, but good luck for the new job

 

[mace¬]

IBM?

lol. I was thinking McDonalds, at a push Subway.

Also, you know where I work, I think you worked there, most disjointed company in the world. It would be easier getting a placement at Apple than within the company.

 

[Cliotoby]

Awesome. Got offered that other job too down in Guildford I interviewed for on Friday. Starting on £27k. So Ive beat my "earn my age" target already.