5 ms·

There is a significant difference within different roles in I.T. As someone who's worked in the cost center side of the industry, I can relate with the author.

There is a significant difference within different roles in I.T. As someone who's worked in the cost center side of the industry, I can relate with the author. It's a problem not limited to Oakland or San Jose. Helpdesk, Desktop Support, and related jobs are commonly temp to perm with horrible pay for the amount of stress.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
For sure. As a sysadmin/network admin/IT manager, it's a buyers market. As a DevOps/infrastructure engineer, it's a seller's market. I think training is part of the problem. More importantly, workers need consulting help around how to take existing skills and use them to apply to upmarket jobs with higher pay.
- johansch 10y ago
  Unpopular opinion: Nah, it's an IQ issue. It's really not a (short-term) training issue, at least.
  - neom 10y ago
    For that to be true I suspect you'd also have to believe near zero nuance in the bell.
    - johansch 10y ago
      Now I'm really curious. What bell are you talking about and why is it relevant?
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Since you brought up IQ, I'd guess this was something about the bell curve. It's not obvious what "nuance" could have to do with that, however. Perhaps that was an unhinged spell-correction of "variance"? Sometimes I wonder if people post with imprecision because they think that way...
        johansch 10y ago
        Maybe it's the low-IQ people doing that? /i-will-burn-in-hell
        neom 10y ago
        Richard Herrnstein certainly never suggested that there was a chunky or sharp delineation built into the bell curve, It's probably fair to say the manifestation of capability and capacity of the human throughout the spectrum specifically in the context of the article would likely require to you see no "gradation".
  - bante 10y ago
    It's weird that people who claim unpopular opinions, often at the expense of others, so rarely can find the time to argue their excellent ideas. I have a number of friends that works in "IT" in Europe. The difference between working for a US and European "IT" company is night and day. It simply has very little status as a field in the US. If you had ever seen the things a systems administrators have to deal with from highly educated engineers, you would know that it has less to do with "IQ" and everything to do with domain knowledge.
    - planteen 10y ago
      I've had the pleasure of working with some great a Linux sysadmins. I had a great relationship with them as a developer. Another developer hated them and treated them poorly. Do you think they would help him out after hours if they weren't on call? Same thing for EEs who treat technicians poorly. A tech might tell them a rework is impossible. If they like you and you buy them a beer from time to time, they might say, "That's going to be really tough, but I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens." I think a great piece of advice for life is, "Never assume you are the smartest person in the room." Remember that everyone brings something to the table.
    - johansch 10y ago
      I agree. The sysadmin people I have worked with in Europe in have generally been very clever people that I loved to have on my team. The IT/sysadmin people I experienced in Silicon Valley in my next company though.. meh.
    - psyc 10y ago
      Not that I agree with the specific opinion in question, but when it comes to cause-effect questions with a moral angle, you're going to convince literally nobody by arguing. I never take the time, because it doesn't bother me in the slightest whether others agree with me, or are wrong.
- woah 10y ago
  DevOps/infrastructure engineer is basically a programming position, which sysadmin/IT types may not have strong skills in.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    I wouldn't call Ansible and Terraform programming languages. In two and a half years at a well known startup, I've written less than 1000 lines of code in a senior DevOps/Infra role. DevOps/infrastructure is knowing how to glue together off the shelf tools and understanding how everything works. Great that as a dev you can probably bolt these tools together with docs, but your lack of context with the underlying fundamentals will eventually bite you.
    - Rapzid 10y ago
      Some of the more junior/limited roles amount to that. Higher-end roles involve a much, much broader skillet including development.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Higher end roles are architecture. If it's development, you're a developer.
        ex_amazon_sde 10y ago
        Google and Amazon have plenty of SRE / System engineers and roles with "developer" in it. All of them write code. And, thankfully, no architects.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        The rest of the world is not Google and Amazon (thankfully).
        Rapzid 10y ago
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Exactly, the role of the 'IT person' as the system administrator and keeper of updates on things like the Novell server, has given way to Google Apps and Microsoft's Office 365. Small businesses who could barely afford to pay someone before can now eliminate that role and still have email, shared files, back end inventory management and accounts management, and the occasional web developer contract to keep the web site up to date. Personal services IT is still alive and well and a number of people I know have made a living out of helping older people manage passwords, upgrade their systems, move their phone plans or transfer their data when they get a new phone etc. But to be successful at that you also need to talk to people and be able to maintain a business relationship with them, not a skill that everyone has in addition to their deep knowledge of IT. As tm2d mentions devops is still a hot job market. But it is not the small business 'tech' role so there are fewer actual slots for that role. There was also a comment in the article about H1-B visas and employers wanting "younger and less expensive" workers. I try to remind my older friends that if someone can spend 6 months learning to do what you do and do it well enough to meet the needs of the job, then you are only "worth" what a company would pay that person they just hired. If you want to have a larger salary and better job security, then you need to be able to do things that can't be trained in 6 months. The days of 'too few programmers to go around' are long past, there is now a surplus and they are coming fast and furious out of college.
- chrisweekly 10y ago
  > "The days of 'too few programmers to go around' are long past, there is now a surplus..." Some of your other points were insightful, but this assertion contradicts my experience and intuition, and -- I believe -- labor market statistics.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    The last time I listed a $120K job opening I had hundreds of resumes thrown at me, over 10[1] of them were completely qualified and So perhaps it would be more accurate to say "$80K/yr programmers are scarce." In 1999 when I was hiring programmers and offering above market starting salaries I wouldn't get any qualified resumes. It is from that experience that would assert it is a 'pricing' issue rather than a 'selection' issue. [1] After 10 qualified I had my first interview round, 3 were brought back for secondary interviews and one hired. I expect there were easily 20 - 30 engineers in there that could have done the job.
danans 10y ago
This was true even 14 years ago, especially after the dot-com bust when many former developers took jobs as help desk techs when the job market fell apart. I was one of them. I eventually figured out there were very limited opportunities for someone with my skills and interests in that role so I studied and worked to build the skills to get a software engineering job. I think that Helpdesk roles in general should be seen as stepping stones toward careers in more advanced roles. I actually think my experience doing that work has made me a better engineer and coworker.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  Helpdesk was my stepping stone as a degree less high school dropout getting into a software development role. They can certainly serve a purpose, but I wouldn't stay there longer than I had too given a choice.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

For sure. As a sysadmin/network admin/IT manager, it's a buyers market. As a DevOps/infrastructure engineer, it's a seller's market. I think training is part of the problem. More importantly, workers need consulting help around how to take existing skills and use them to apply to upmarket jobs with higher pay.

johansch 10y ago
Unpopular opinion: Nah, it's an IQ issue. It's really not a (short-term) training issue, at least.
- neom 10y ago
  For that to be true I suspect you'd also have to believe near zero nuance in the bell.
  - johansch 10y ago
    Now I'm really curious. What bell are you talking about and why is it relevant?
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Since you brought up IQ, I'd guess this was something about the bell curve. It's not obvious what "nuance" could have to do with that, however. Perhaps that was an unhinged spell-correction of "variance"? Sometimes I wonder if people post with imprecision because they think that way...
      - johansch 10y ago
        Maybe it's the low-IQ people doing that? /i-will-burn-in-hell
      - neom 10y ago
        Richard Herrnstein certainly never suggested that there was a chunky or sharp delineation built into the bell curve, It's probably fair to say the manifestation of capability and capacity of the human throughout the spectrum specifically in the context of the article would likely require to you see no "gradation".
- bante 10y ago
  It's weird that people who claim unpopular opinions, often at the expense of others, so rarely can find the time to argue their excellent ideas. I have a number of friends that works in "IT" in Europe. The difference between working for a US and European "IT" company is night and day. It simply has very little status as a field in the US. If you had ever seen the things a systems administrators have to deal with from highly educated engineers, you would know that it has less to do with "IQ" and everything to do with domain knowledge.
  - planteen 10y ago
    I've had the pleasure of working with some great a Linux sysadmins. I had a great relationship with them as a developer. Another developer hated them and treated them poorly. Do you think they would help him out after hours if they weren't on call? Same thing for EEs who treat technicians poorly. A tech might tell them a rework is impossible. If they like you and you buy them a beer from time to time, they might say, "That's going to be really tough, but I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens." I think a great piece of advice for life is, "Never assume you are the smartest person in the room." Remember that everyone brings something to the table.
  - johansch 10y ago
    I agree. The sysadmin people I have worked with in Europe in have generally been very clever people that I loved to have on my team. The IT/sysadmin people I experienced in Silicon Valley in my next company though.. meh.
  - psyc 10y ago
    Not that I agree with the specific opinion in question, but when it comes to cause-effect questions with a moral angle, you're going to convince literally nobody by arguing. I never take the time, because it doesn't bother me in the slightest whether others agree with me, or are wrong.
woah 10y ago
DevOps/infrastructure engineer is basically a programming position, which sysadmin/IT types may not have strong skills in.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  I wouldn't call Ansible and Terraform programming languages. In two and a half years at a well known startup, I've written less than 1000 lines of code in a senior DevOps/Infra role. DevOps/infrastructure is knowing how to glue together off the shelf tools and understanding how everything works. Great that as a dev you can probably bolt these tools together with docs, but your lack of context with the underlying fundamentals will eventually bite you.
  - Rapzid 10y ago
    Some of the more junior/limited roles amount to that. Higher-end roles involve a much, much broader skillet including development.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Higher end roles are architecture. If it's development, you're a developer.
      - ex_amazon_sde 10y ago
        Google and Amazon have plenty of SRE / System engineers and roles with "developer" in it. All of them write code. And, thankfully, no architects.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        The rest of the world is not Google and Amazon (thankfully).
        Rapzid 10y ago

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Exactly, the role of the 'IT person' as the system administrator and keeper of updates on things like the Novell server, has given way to Google Apps and Microsoft's Office 365. Small businesses who could barely afford to pay someone before can now eliminate that role and still have email, shared files, back end inventory management and accounts management, and the occasional web developer contract to keep the web site up to date. Personal services IT is still alive and well and a number of people I know have made a living out of helping older people manage passwords, upgrade their systems, move their phone plans or transfer their data when they get a new phone etc. But to be successful at that you also need to talk to people and be able to maintain a business relationship with them, not a skill that everyone has in addition to their deep knowledge of IT. As tm2d mentions devops is still a hot job market. But it is not the small business 'tech' role so there are fewer actual slots for that role. There was also a comment in the article about H1-B visas and employers wanting "younger and less expensive" workers. I try to remind my older friends that if someone can spend 6 months learning to do what you do and do it well enough to meet the needs of the job, then you are only "worth" what a company would pay that person they just hired. If you want to have a larger salary and better job security, then you need to be able to do things that can't be trained in 6 months. The days of 'too few programmers to go around' are long past, there is now a surplus and they are coming fast and furious out of college.

chrisweekly 10y ago
> "The days of 'too few programmers to go around' are long past, there is now a surplus..." Some of your other points were insightful, but this assertion contradicts my experience and intuition, and -- I believe -- labor market statistics.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  The last time I listed a $120K job opening I had hundreds of resumes thrown at me, over 10[1] of them were completely qualified and So perhaps it would be more accurate to say "$80K/yr programmers are scarce." In 1999 when I was hiring programmers and offering above market starting salaries I wouldn't get any qualified resumes. It is from that experience that would assert it is a 'pricing' issue rather than a 'selection' issue. [1] After 10 qualified I had my first interview round, 3 were brought back for secondary interviews and one hired. I expect there were easily 20 - 30 engineers in there that could have done the job.

danans 10y ago

This was true even 14 years ago, especially after the dot-com bust when many former developers took jobs as help desk techs when the job market fell apart. I was one of them. I eventually figured out there were very limited opportunities for someone with my skills and interests in that role so I studied and worked to build the skills to get a software engineering job. I think that Helpdesk roles in general should be seen as stepping stones toward careers in more advanced roles. I actually think my experience doing that work has made me a better engineer and coworker.

snuxoll 10y ago
Helpdesk was my stepping stone as a degree less high school dropout getting into a software development role. They can certainly serve a purpose, but I wouldn't stay there longer than I had too given a choice.