Help Career advice

[old.user4556]

I'm hoping the Freddies who are IT minded, work in IT or worked in IT can help me with a bit of advice on career progression.

I've been a senior dev for three years out of six years total IT experience and I'm not sure what to do now. I'm doing less development than ever since most development is done by off-shore teams with most of the support and break / fix being done on-shore, so I am in real danger of becoming a stagnant front line help desk dude. I get nervous when I feel like my career is running out of steam, and I've been feeling that a lot recently (I'm not even 30).

In my organisation's area, there isn't really a technical role to get promoted to past senior dev, i've pretty much hit a career glass ceiling - your only real option is to become non-technical and pursue something like project leadership / project management or some other management position. The only problem is that to get into that role, you obviously need management experience of some sort, or qualifications to move into project management.

So, what are my options? How do I further my career? Move to another company that will provide more development opportunity? (could be out the frying pan into the fire), do I pursue additional qualifications? Should I consider contracting to stay purely technical but increase the salary significantly? Do I stay put?

Any advice from those who moved fom technical to more than that would be much appreciated.

 

[Chilly]

architecture?

 

[Moriath]

i moved out of dev work and techie work now .. like you seemed to me as a techie you cant get above a certain place.

Im in operations and training now .. so i can still use my techie skills training ppl but can get my hand in running with projects and non techie things to go into the non techie side.

Techie shit can pay well but there is def a glass ceiling unless you like start the company or something

i had many sleepless nights thinking what the fuck do i do now hehe

btw the only way to get experience managing is to find someone who thinks you can do it and gives you a chance... maybe ask to manage a project or something to start with ...

But i dont really wanna go into management so a bit stuck there

but all our development got taken away to romania ... so i was a bit forced to jump to a new role or do something i didnt want to

 

[old.user4556]

architecture?

It's good, but it's not right.

 

[Malecheon]

It's good, but it's not right.

Why not ?

All of our development work has been off-shored to China, so I'm currently in a solutions design role, where I decide how things should be done in my area of expertise, and then produce a specifiction for the development team to code.

The next logical progression for me is in to an overall systems architecture role, with other people doing the detailed design specs instead, and that sounds similar to where you may be finding yourself ?

 

[old.user4556]

Why not ?

All of our development work has been off-shored to China, so I'm currently in a solutions design role, where I decide how things should be done in my area of expertise, and then produce a specifiction for the development team to code.

The next logical progression for me is in to an overall systems architecture role, with other people doing the detailed design specs instead, and that sounds similar to where you may be finding yourself ?

Sorry my brain wasn't working, I thought Chilly was being funny . Yes, it sounds like systems architecture / systems design would be something I could get into, I would need to start off with a secondment into another area in order to do that though.

 

[Chilly]

We have a concept of an embedded architect where I work, they are a hybrid dev/architect. It's a path to a full on architecture role where perhaps the person isnt quite experienced enough yet. They provide the domain specific expertise to the architects upstream to help inform the design, while also contributing themselves. Seems like a pretty good role from where I'm standing and I am currently a straight dev/research dev.

 

[rynnor]

Get out of anything tech related while theres still time - get yourself onto the business side or business liason - its the only knowledge that doesnt get outsourced.

Barring a few niches dev work is pretty doomed - shame really - the government should have banned outsourcing long ago but it seems happy to sit back n watch the knowledge based economy follow british industry into oblivion.

 

[Scouse]

I get nervous when I feel like my career is running out of steam.....How do I further my career?

Firstly G, you've got to realise there's no such thing as a "career".

Secondly, fuck furthering it. Just think "how do I get more money?"

Everything else after that is easy. But I admit, the first bit is hard.

Not trying to be harsh, or flippant. Just honest. Went through the same thing with a mate a while ago - and he's much happier (and less nervous) in the new "reality"

 

[SilverHood]

What scouse said. The only two professions that do careers are the Armed forces and politics.

If you want to sell your soul for money, then join an investment bank.

 

[old.user4556]

Firstly G, you've got to realise there's no such thing as a "career".

Secondly, fuck furthering it. Just think "how do I get more money?"

Everything else after that is easy. But I admit, the first bit is hard.

Not trying to be harsh, or flippant. Just honest. Went through the same thing with a mate a while ago - and he's much happier (and less nervous) in the new "reality"

Interesting Scouse, harsh is good if it's justified truth . So your mate went through an itchy feet "work feels dead end" feeling? So he's much happier now why exactly - he's realised it's all about money and nothing more?

 

[Moriath]

best way to get more money is to change company hehe

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

best way to get more money is to change company hehe

Mostly this. You can treat each step as an isolated place and you don't need to get involved in the internal politicking other than to make sure you're not walking into any minefields. Unless of course a person lives for that kind of thing and more do than would care to admit it.

Regarding my personal experience of dev work, I stopped programming some years ago, other than to script when needed. Fortunately, I'm working at an enterprise level in IT which can't easily be outsourced since we work with a lot of very heavy data center stuff. Geek heaven in many ways. I have friends (ex colleagues) who make good money doing dev work but they work for themselves generally and have found niche work in some market sector or other.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Pornstar?

Seriosuly though; i just left my job(had a nice leaving bonus too) mainly due to "not enjoying the work".

Do either what makes you rich, or happy. Both preferably *crosses fingers for application*

Ytou might end up unemployed for a good while, but it beats hanging yourself from your computer fan.

Diclaimer; hanging yourself from the computer fan is NOT the career advice!