Hello everyone,
First I'll start off with some background... I have been working in IT for about 5.5 years now... Right now my formal title is "Help Desk Analyst." Of course it's more than that, I configure routers, firewalls; spearhead/maintain migration projects, pretty much the whole 9... So they use the job title as a way to pay me less which I believe is a common theme in this field unless you are ultra-competitive. I started out with my Associates degree and am working on finishing my B.S.I.T. as we speak doing a combination of on campus / online courses at a private college nearby. My first IT job was terrible, and supposed to be "Help Desk" as well, but I ended up running the entire show on about 30K per year. It was a network on a Small Business 2003 Server of about 75 employees (I know I know, lol). The company was a construction management / commercial real estate firm and it was a terrible job, but an eye opening learning experience. My second and current job is for a commercial real estate firm with about an 850 employee network and 41 some odd VPN branch offices. About 13 in the IT department, a few helpdesk, an engineer, director, and developers. Salary is about 50K gross (35 hrs paid per week) which includes a small amount of overtime every week. I've been here for 4 years now. I live in the northeast, so the cost of living is pretty high.
My questions are:
I have an interview at a college coming up for an IT position. I remember putting like 60 or 65K on the salary section of the application. The title is still Support Analyst but it seems like they are a growing school which may mean room for advancement to higher level positions. My current company has a shitty tuition reimbursement policy, and I asked for an exception to get reimbursement faster (I’m doing 12 credits per semester, so with a full time job it's a lot of work) as the current tuition policy only reimburses for 6 credits per calendar year. (10 years to finish at that rate) Long story short they are giving me the runaround regarding my case to finish the degree sooner and still be able to get reimbursed. The new place offers full reimbursement for a very large and well known school in the area with a great reputation since it is part of the same network. I am thinking if I do get the job I can just transfer in from my smaller school and finish up there with less debt.
Are college’s bad places to work for as an IT person?
I know from experience that IT people (especially lower ranking) in the Real Estate industry are treated exactly like cost centers and overhead instead of an integral part of the organization which gets quite annoying. We can't even make policy's that people will follow as such even if it benefits network performance and reduces cost and staff time because of their short sightedness and ignorance of anything IT related.
What companies are generally the best to work for in IT? I
Do you think it is a bad move to make a "lateral" career move like I am considering? Yes the title is pretty much the same, but even if the pay is 15% higher with better tuition benefits?
Thanks everyone, sorry for the long post - but didn't want to leave anything out.