@khanzaidsalim wrote:
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for this opportunity to get counselled.
I would really appreciate if you could guide me through the maze of career options I can't decide to select from.
I am from Mumbai, India and I have 6.5 years of experience in Routing and Switching domain that's mostly concentrated in the Internet Service Provider industry. I have done CCNA R&S(expired) and JNCIA certifications. My current role does not demands shift work as I am working here in the capacity of a Network Planning Engineer. I strongly dislike working in night and to my good luck I have never worked in night in my entire tenure :). My job gives me a good work/life balance and a lot of free time for myself. But, before any one reading this becomes envious ;), all of these comes with a trade-off with a lower salary.
I get lucrative job offers from other cities, but I am adamant not to shift base from my home town, as I have several personal responsibilities that I can't carry out from other locations.
I have given several interviews for data center jobs in enterprise industry but I never crack the technical round. I find them reluctant to hire me due to my inexperience of a data center job. Even If they offer me a job, they won't give me a hike in pay. I am also considering exploring Network Security as a Career given the great demand for experienced security professionals. But again my inexperience here plays the spoil sport.
I am quite fascinated with the solutions that Artificial Intelligence have to real world problems and even attended an online course on it. But that diminished the enthusiasm I had for AI as a novice due to the technicality involved in AI.
I am also keen to learn python language, as I have seen my colleagues using it to automate Network monitoring jobs and I believe it has many unimagined potential applications. And the best part till now is that I find learning python quite pleasing.
To sum up, please suggest what career should I pursue that's a perfect match for me in terms of:
night shifts
work/life balance
lucrativeness
Thanks again.
Hi Khanzaidsalim!
I will do my best to try and help you figure out what possible choices you can choose between and what might be a good option for you.
I hope cisco might be able to restore my response to the previous question as I was going through some of your topics in that one as well....but in case they can't...you are absolutely right that there is a direct relationship between compensation (salary) and available spare time. Higher salaries means more responsibilities...which in the end leads to less spare time available.
You mention that you lack experience to get into the Datacenter business or the Network Security business. Is this your long-term plan? If that's the case....you have to start somewhere and you cannot really expect a raise in your salary with the skills you have aquired from working with R&S.
Thinking about your career longterm....if you can get more experience within a different field with at least the same salary you have today- I think that's a very good opportunity to take the chance and move into a different field.
You also give some small hints that salary is a key motivator for you - but you also want to have a lot of spare time? If you expect the change to for example Datacenter with the same pay that you have today....but it decreases your spare time....then it comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice to gain the required experience?
Experience is often a key-deciding factor during interviews - especially for high paid jobs that requires a specialist. Are you willing to sacrifice some of your spare time in order to gain experience within this field? At least I think you should consider it.
Now to summarize my answer to your question...
@khanzaidsalim wrote:
To sum up, please suggest what career should I pursue that's a perfect match for me in terms of:
night shifts
work/life balance
lucrativeness
Thanks again.
Not an easy advice to give here but in general this is the relationship between the above.
Night shifts = usually support/NOC (1st-level) & advanced troubleshooting or implementation engineers. (2nd-level in ITIL-terms)
Work/Life balance = usually is a combination of your job-role and your salary. If you demand higher salary your organization will most likely demand that you are more available when they need you. Some job-roles you can never take unless you are willing to give up some of your spare-time. There is always a trade-off between what you want your salary to be and how much time you are willing to invest to reach it! In short....you are paid more to be available more. This is expected of you for 3rd-level jobs!
Lucrativeness = I think the entire IT-Business is very lucrative. Few other businesses can compete with IT. Most roles required very skilled staff and that always comes with a higher price-tag. Even entry-level positions where you just do some basic initial troubleshooting is very lucrative compared to other markets. But in terms of scoring the "big $$$" for You then I would say that Design and Architecture currently stick out to be extra good money and of course the whole Network Security field.
At the end of the day you should always aim to work with something that you think is Fun and that works for you longterm. Taking a job-role only because of the money you are paid is not a very wise decision.
So to make a final advice about what job-roles to look into that will:
-keep you away from night shifts
-give you a good work/life balance
-is lucrative for your career
Any 2nd-line or 3rd-line job-role within your Field (R&S) should be able to provide you with the above. Just remember that there is a direct trade-off between your demand in salary and your work/life balance.
Specifying a couple of individual fields is going to be difficult however since you mentioned enterprises - if you work with enterprises then most of the time you stay away from night-shifts and even evening-jobs with a 2nd-line or 3rd-line role. There is going to be days when you have to work late even in those positions - but at least it's not a mandatory schedule!
To earn more money you have to validate it with experience, skills or certifications. In the networking world having a minimum of CCNP or equivalent is almost required to get into 2nd-level roles. If you are looking into 3rd-level roles you also need to add experience or skills to justify it.
The last thing on your list is the most difficult to match as there is probably no job-role that would give you a higher salary without sacrificing something back.
With all your requirements above in combination with your background and experience, I believe you should focus on getting a 2nd-line job-role working in an enterprise-environment. Datacenter might not be the right field for you since you value your time a lot....and if things crash in the datacenter....you are going to be in the middle of it sooner or later!
Have you considered looking into Network Management positions?
Those positions are a little bit unique, few people show interest in them....but trust me - it's a very important role in any network. This is where you collect all your syslogs, netflows, dhcp-scopes and so on.
More importantly....you will have the chance to work with your Python skills to make system-integrations and import/export data between systems. This is becoming a very nice skill to have now when we see a trend going towards SDN and Automation. Even the best automated networks still need a good management platform to work.
Also a network management position should give you some good experience in the network security field as well since you will be tasked with collecting and sorting information from the network and hopefully you can demonstrate your security skills to other teams when they ask for information!
-HTH
Daniel
button below to ask your questions
