IT guys, is the pay very good??

[fbodlovr]

I have been going to purdue for a couple years now for a computer graphics degree, but the wife is pregnant, and it is due in late july, early august. So, those plans got shot down. Now I am thinking about getting a degree for an IT position. My question is, Is it worth getting a degree, or just some certification, is it very hard to get into the field, and does this field pay very well????

Thanks

[sixgun86gn]

I guess you didn't notice several years back how IT guys made 100K a year until thier jobs got sent to India?

Now they make squat,my suggestion is to find something else. Preferrably something that would actually require your presence.

For instance,

I am an elevator mechanic,I make over 100K a yr,and Hadji can't do my job from India.

The blue collar industry has actually outpaced the white collar industry in wages in the last decade or so because ALOT of white collar jobs are being outsourced.

Just some food for thought,you don't wan't to get all comfortable at a job and then be replaced by some guy overseas for $2 a day.

[klrv6]

Originally Posted by sixgun86gn

I guess you didn't notice several years back how IT guys made 100K a year until thier jobs got sent to India?

Now they make squat,my suggestion is to find something else. Preferrably something that would actually require your presence.

For instance,

I am an elevator mechanic,I make over 100K a yr,and Hadji can't do my job from India.

The blue collar industry has actually outpaced the white collar industry in wages in the last decade or so because ALOT of white collar jobs are being outsourced.

Just some food for thought,you don't wan't to get all comfortable at a job and then be replaced by some guy overseas for $2 a day.

I LOVE!!! The IT industry. I keep my certifications up to date and focus on supporting large scale enterprise installations (10000 computers+). Yes, much of the IT jobs can be outsourced, many can't. I build and rack servers on a daily basis, can't do that from India. I saw the writing on the wall with my Lexmark job. I ran a very large enterprise server farm there. They had me box every rack I supported and ship them to India...next, I had to remotely train them on how my system worked. Next they wanted me to instruct them on my daily tasks...no thanks, I was gone before I even showed them how to log into the admin side of the system.

I do work outside of my day job and make some good play money at it. Small businesses can't afford a full time IT guy but, are more than willing to pay me $1200 for two hours work. I suggest to people to learn a little programming and lots of admin stuff.

If you are getting into IT on the Microsoft side of things, let me know, I'd be glad to help. Even if you need a server to remote into and practice on, I can set you up. Their 2008 server was just released so...it's time to get certified on a new OS Just keep up with technology or just ahead of it and you should be OK.


I agree about learning a trade. Find a niche that requires very specialized and needed skills. I moved from busting must hump everyday, sweating in a 137 degree (heat index) paint booth to climbing the IT ladder. Everyday is fun. When things aren't broke, I just surf the net


Congrats on the baby!

[2QUIK6]

I've learned to compete in the IT industry even with everything going overseas..not just to India, but South America is quickly taking off too.
I know I can do things almost 10X faster than any folks overseas is going to do it, and do it right the first time...I've been in IT for 19 years and have NEVER once worked with an Indian that got it right the first time. So that siad, I'm actually a consultant, so I price and scope things with the idea of how long an Indian would take to do it, and price it at a low hourly rate, then work on multiple projects at once and bill all of them as if its a 8 hour a day job...and I still finish some of them early...but I prefer fixed pricing..which is unheard of in IT, be me and my partner have done it very successfully for the last 15 years.
Also another tip, I have yet to meet anyone from these "cheap" IT outsourcing countries that can lead, design, and document!!!!!!!!! Companies still have to have a person from here do that! I know others who simply are the "team leads" of tribes of Indians because they can't design, only program what they are explicitly told...there is a huge market for that type of leadership. Thing is..most of them try to BS the team lead on program technology of what can and can't be done, they can't think outside the box...can't fool me, I've programmed in all kinds of languages on mainframes and System38s, AS/400, Unix, etc, and hold a Computer Science Engineering degree..most of them only have an associates, or Computer Science programming degree and programming in their specific familar language wether it be ASP, Cold Fusion, or .NET...which are all PC based languages..one day Corporations will get smart again and realize business can't be ran on a Personal Computer!... Sorry to get so emotional about this but it really strikes a chord with me..... Got a buddy that works for the Dept of Homeland Security in their IT group in VA....guess what...even they outsource crap to India...how freakin' secure is that for that type of organization...like giving the Taliban the keys to the CIA and FBI offices!!.

[klrv6]

Originally Posted by 2QUIK6

I've learned to compete in the IT industry even with everything going overseas..not just to India, but South America is quickly taking off too.
I know I can do things almost 10X faster than any folks overseas is going to do it, and do it right the first time...I've been in IT for 19 years and have NEVER once worked with an Indian that got it right the first time. So that siad, I'm actually a consultant, so I price and scope things with the idea of how long an Indian would take to do it, and price it at a low hourly rate, then work on multiple projects at once and bill all of them as if its a 8 hour a day job...and I still finish some of them early...but I prefer fixed pricing..which is unheard of in IT, be me and my partner have done it very successfully for the last 15 years.
Also another tip, I have yet to meet anyone from these "cheap" IT outsourcing countries that can lead, design, and document!!!!!!!!! Companies still have to have a person from here do that! I know others who simply are the "team leads" of tribes of Indians because they can't design, only program what they are explicitly told...there is a huge market for that type of leadership. Thing is..most of them try to BS the team lead on program technology of what can and can't be done, they can't think outside the box...can't fool me, I've programmed in all kinds of languages on mainframes and System38s, AS/400, Unix, etc, and hold a Computer Science Engineering degree..most of them only have an associates, or Computer Science programming degree and programming in their specific familar language wether it be ASP, Cold Fusion, or .NET...which are all PC based languages..one day Corporations will get smart again and realize business can't be ran on a Personal Computer!... Sorry to get so emotional about this but it really strikes a chord with me..... Got a buddy that works for the Dept of Homeland Security in their IT group in VA....guess what...even they outsource crap to India...how freakin' secure is that for that type of organization...like giving the Taliban the keys to the CIA and FBI offices!!.

How do you do fixed pricing? I have standard rates for "normal" things like rebuild/installing PCs. The rest is done on a per instance quote.

Oh, the stories about companies that run rather large businesses out of PCs, excel is mainly what I see. It's almost a joke to me. My employer loves the use of excel. I tried for a year or so to get them to think about switching our data programs to web front ends for the as400s here. Nope, they like it just the way it is. That's good for me though, they are dependent on me to keep all the PCs/Servers running and streamline all processes between those and the 400s.

And about sending things overseas... They play by another set of rules. ANY data over there is fair game. US laws don't apply. Just think about all your health information that can walk out the door in India or Africa and no jail time for anyone.

[2QUIK6]

Originally Posted by klrv6

How do you do fixed pricing? I have standard rates for "normal" things like rebuild/installing PCs. The rest is done on a per instance quote.

Oh, the stories about companies that run rather large businesses out of PCs, excel is mainly what I see. It's almost a joke to me. My employer loves the use of excel. I tried for a year or so to get them to think about switching our data programs to web front ends for the as400s here. Nope, they like it just the way it is. That's good for me though, they are dependent on me to keep all the PCs/Servers running and streamline all processes between those and the 400s.

And about sending things overseas... They play by another set of rules. ANY data over there is fair game. US laws don't apply. Just think about all your health information that can walk out the door in India or Africa and no jail time for anyone.

Yeah that is scarey about all the personal info they have on you, and most of the fraud and email phishing scams originate overseas, they probably have an underground crime ring that buys the info from India and sends it to Nigeria.
The fixed pricing is very unique, we specialize in EDI X12 and EDIFACT EDI translation software and interface applications design and have done that since 1989, so there's not much we have not seen. All of our solutions are turnkey, we are responsible for the design, documentation, and development and programming. But if its a large scale project, say one that will be longer than 6 months, we first do a 1-2 day free exploratory fact finding engagement in order to scope it properly. For smaller project we normally just do an over the phone type interview to understand the Customers pain and what will be required. Then the 2 of us scope and price the project separately, then we reveal what price it was we arrived at...usually we are less than 10% different from each other and then compare notes and arrive at a fix price, and in some cases its a fixed "Range price" say $69k-$81k or something, and then in the proposal/agreement, you spell out all of the deliverables and then spell out anything that may make the price above the average of the "range" but still under the max..we always target the middle of the range.
Customers love fixed pricing...because they will pay you the same if it takes you twice as long than anticipated, or half as long..and the client is not always watching over your back to see what you are accomplishing each day...makes it a win win situation for both sides.... I've worked on a ton of large scale projects along side others who were hourly while I was fixed price for the EDI part, and it seems like always the budgets were being exceeded and extensions were having to be signed and more money was always needed...not so with a fixed price...and the payoff is great, ...also allows you to do the work remotely alot easier...if you are hourly, they want you onsite all the time so they know what you are doing.
Being remote allows you to work on multiple projects concurrently, further driving up profit....there can sometimes be days or even weeks go by where you are waiting for someone else to complete something....so with concurrent projects, I free to work on something else thats billable while I'm waiting...and the Client is not paying me to wait on someone.
We've done projects between banks and the Fed Reserve, Gas pipeline flow nominations, retail, manufacturing, telecom invoicing, grocery, rail, government, healthcare, insurance, and I'm sure there's some more I've forgotten, but its quit an impressive list over the past 15-20 years..first few years I supported a mainframe IBM EDI software product. I still attend a yearly IBM conference for that software and still run into old support clients of mine from the early 90's there, so thats how we do alot of our marketing is thru work of mouth and past Customers.

Another interesting thing, we have a couple of clients that have been clients for over 5 years now, doing all of their EDI software setups when they have a new vendor, and we have never met them in person!

[2QUIK6]

And one other quick thought....you have these people writing programs for accounting software and they do even have a clue what a debit and a credit are....this one guy called a debit an "anti-credit". I asked WTF is that and his reply.."It's the opposite of what a credit is".....geez... And on't forget the "status sticks" when trying to say statistics

[klrv6]

Thanks for the info. I give quotes for almost everything that I do, the ret is approved by the customer to not be over $500. Every quote has price not to exceed $$XXXX.XX, they love it because they can slide it in the budget with the hopes of saving a little. Sometimes, I get the job done much sooner than expected and adjust a little off the quote. I also list all the free crap I do for them and note it with No Charge N/C.

I had to recover a failed raid5 array with a failed drive and dead server. OUCH!!! I recovered everything and their production users were unaware of any outage. It went off without a hitch. That was a good day.

[2QUIK6]

Originally Posted by klrv6

I had to recover a failed raid5 array with a failed drive and dead server. OUCH!!! I recovered everything and their production users were unaware of any outage. It went off without a hitch. That was a good day.

Oh man, the raid backup failed along with the master drive? Need backup for the backup now We have a couple of raid servers stacked up at our office running our website and was running our email on one till we found an email service for less than $10 a month for the entire company...can't beat that, Business Email Accounts, Calendaring, Contacts and Collaboration Services for Your Business from BlueTie , we switched in a heartbeat so we wouldn't have to worry about rebooting the dam thing when it would lock up every few weeks and no one be in the office to reset it. The other servers run some test and development websites for one of our Customers. Most of the rest of our work is centered around the other platforms that we don't have to worry about failures on or rebooting

[granatl]

If you want to succeed in IT, you have to be willing to learn the associated business. For example, I'm an Oracle Database Administrator, but since I generally know the ins-and-outs of the electric business, I make a good liason between technical and the business unit, which helps all to see the bigger picture in system design, etc. This is where an off-shore consultant can't replace me; yes they could do the mundane database tasks of creating a table (or whatever), but they can't add the value that I provide beyond the mundane.

[2QUIK6]

Originally Posted by granatl

If you want to succeed in IT, you have to be willing to learn the associated business. For example, I'm an Oracle Database Administrator, but since I generally know the ins-and-outs of the electric business, I make a good liason between technical and the business unit, which helps all to see the bigger picture in system design, etc. This is where an off-shore consultant can't replace me; yes they could do the mundane database tasks of creating a table (or whatever), but they can't add the value that I provide beyond the mundane.

Tadaaa..Very well put! That is also what we do first is understand the business in order to understand if the solution the client thinks they want is the correct one...that IS something offshoring can't replace...I don't know how many times I've seen "I have a solution, what's your problem?" type scenarios

[sixgun86gn]

Originally Posted by klrv6

I LOVE!!! The IT industry. I keep my certifications up to date and focus on supporting large scale enterprise installations (10000 computers+). Yes, much of the IT jobs can be outsourced, many can't. I build and rack servers on a daily basis, can't do that from India. I saw the writing on the wall with my Lexmark job. I ran a very large enterprise server farm there. They had me box every rack I supported and ship them to India...next, I had to remotely train them on how my system worked. Next they wanted me to instruct them on my daily tasks...no thanks, I was gone before I even showed them how to log into the admin side of the system.

I do work outside of my day job and make some good play money at it. Small businesses can't afford a full time IT guy but, are more than willing to pay me $1200 for two hours work. I suggest to people to learn a little programming and lots of admin stuff.

If you are getting into IT on the Microsoft side of things, let me know, I'd be glad to help. Even if you need a server to remote into and practice on, I can set you up. Their 2008 server was just released so...it's time to get certified on a new OS Just keep up with technology or just ahead of it and you should be OK.


I agree about learning a trade. Find a niche that requires very specialized and needed skills. I moved from busting must hump everyday, sweating in a 137 degree (heat index) paint booth to climbing the IT ladder. Everyday is fun. When things aren't broke, I just surf the net


Congrats on the baby!

Good for you on taking action to protect your livelihood.

Too many people these days will not protect thier interests here at home, I.E. jobs,security,family obligations.....and just go along until it's too late.

I don't know anything about IT stuff,just what I have heard from some of the people I know.

Glad to know there are still ways to keep your work here where it belongs even in a time where computer networks can communicate from across the world.

Sounds like you and Rob have some sound advice for this young man.