10 Things to Know Before Getting Into IT | Information Technology

 the top 10 things that you

should know before getting into the

information technology business this is

based on my over 30 year career and I've

worked as a programmer a software

development manager a Software Architect

and then finally as an IT executive so

based on my experiences I'll tell you

both the good and the bad about being in

the information technology business so

let's go ahead and get started so to be

fair I've divided this post into two

parts and the first part I'll talk about

the good or the benefits of being in the

IT business and the second part maybe

I'll talk about some of the limitations

or the not-so-good about being in the IT

business so let's go ahead and start and

look at the advantages first the first

benefit that we look at is being in the

IT business affords you a very good

salary programmers architects DevOps

engineers cloud engineers and IT

managers all command very good salaries

programmer salaries average 105 thousand

dollars a year software architects

138,000 and software engineering

managers average over a hundred and

thirty seven thousand dollars

I should note this is for the US and I

got these statistics from indeed.com but

you can get the idea that these are very

good paying jobs so let's go ahead and

look at the next benefit the next

benefit about being in the IT business

is particularly right now there is a

shortage of trained people to work in

the information technology business so

for example if you look at cloud

computing positions there are over

50,000 cloud computing positions

available in the u.s. today and it they

are available from 3,700 run employers

and represent 100 and 1913 open

positions worldwide today so I got this

out of Forbes it doesn't take long to

look around to see how many open jobs

there are in the information technology

business so this is a terrific time to

go into this business because of the

high demand so let's go ahead and look

at another advantage of being in the

information technology business another

terrific benefit about being in

information technology businesses

mobility and that is

you've mastered some core IT skills or

perhaps a programming language or a

cloud computing platform it's fairly

easy to move to another company that

uses the same hardware and software

platform so if you get stuck in a

terrible job if you're well-trained and

you have some experiences it's pretty

easy to move to another company that has

a similar type of technology so that's

another benefit is you won't get stuck

maybe in a dead-end job if you have some

skills you have the ability to move to

another company that perhaps has a

better environment so let's go ahead and

look at yet one more benefit another

advantage is many IT companies now

support remote work and so you can work

from home this is a great advantage and

that you can save a large amount of time

and money and IT jobs are particularly

well suited for working from home so the

only thing you'll probably need is a

high-speed internet connection and some

type of computing equipment so that you

can do your job remotely but this is a

huge advantage it will save you that

long arduous commute every day and trust

me I now work at home and I don't miss

commuting to work it's a fantastic

opportunity and this is another huge

advantage of many IT jobs so let's go

ahead and look at our last advantage the

last advantage I'll talk about is

business knowledge since you're involved

perhaps in programming or maybe support

of a system in terms of DevOps or

operational support you'll be in the

position to really understand how the

business operates many IT departments

support mission critical systems that

are really the core of how the company

does business and this knowledge is very

valuable and it can lead to a promotion

or another opportunity in the company

since you can really acquire that

detailed business knowledge you really

might become the go-to expert on how a

lot of these business processes really

function on a day to day basis so let's

go ahead and move on to the next part ok

so now we got the good out of the way

let's look at maybe they're not so good

it sounds pretty good so far great

salary high demand you can move around

you can work at home all great things

but like all good things there's also

some drawbacks as well so let's go ahead

and take a look at what some of the

potential drawbacks that working

information technology business might be

the first area I'll talk about the limit

or maybe a negative part of the business

our tight deadlines deadlines around IT

projects can be critical to the success

of the company and some projects might

be driven by legislative deadlines that

really can't be changed

your industry might be regulated in some

type of way and they may have a certain

date that you have to implement

something by so fines or penalties might

be involved for missing these types of

deadlines and all of these things can

lead to a very high level of stress some

people are better at dealing this than

others but tight deadlines and that

focus around getting something out the

door on time can lead to a high amount

of stress so let's go ahead and maybe

talk about something else that might be

a limiting factor for you in the IT

business another potentially negative

factor with the information technology

business is the potential for very long

work hours to go along with those tight

deadlines might be a lot of hours to

meet those deadlines particularly when

the project's coming to an end and if

you work in an IT support position

you'll probably have to work long hours

fixing problems if there are any types

of service outages most hardware and

software upgrades also happen on off

hours and many times this is on weekends

or holidays and the very time where you

don't want to be working so if you're

not really up for long hours this is

probably not a good business for you so

particularly at the end of projects I've

worked for startup companies and worked

some ridiculously long hours and have

spent the night at work many times so so

if long hours are not in it for you then

this is probably not the right business

for you let's go ahead and look at some

other things that are typical of a

particular environment in the IT

business another thing that you'll have

to learn in the IT business is how to

deal with change the IT business is

constantly changing and you'll need to

adapt to that change and the pace of

change is continuing to increase you'll

need ongoing training to adapt to all of

this change so certifications languages

are changing people are migrating to the

cloud all of this represents a ton of

new technology and you'll need to

continually update your certifications

throughout your career

remain competitive and this can be a

challenge for a lot of people sometimes

people go into this business and they

master one type of technology like a

mainframe type of technology or they

become a COBOL programmer years ago and

they simply don't want to change to the

new platforms and but this is inevitable

in this business as things are changing

very rapidly so you'll have to keep up

with that so that's something else to

consider whether you're adaptable to

change or not so let's go ahead and look

at the next area the next area I'll talk

about is stress so working with

mission-critical applications is a

stressful job many of these systems deal

with large amounts of customer and a

large amount of money and so when these

types of systems go down you'll be

called in to work on these production

problems and tell their result and most

of the time these systems have a ton of

visibility so don't be surprised if

senior management members the CEO

himself or herself as involved in

whatever happens with these system

problems so if you don't really like

that kind of exposure again this is a

limiting factor but many times when you

work on these systems it really is

working on a tightrope without without a

net so it can be very difficult and very

stressful in peak situations

particularly if something has been

hacked into or a service or a program is

down for an extended period of time so

let's go ahead and look at one more area

all of these limiting factors can lead

to burnout so if you're working lots of

long hours and you have prolonged

periods of high stress it really can

lead to a career burnout and really it

leads somebody to find a secondary

career or something that they want to

move into after twenty ten or twenty or

thirty years and the IT business and so

my advice to you is to develop some

secondary skills along the way that you

can transition to a new career if and

when you need to I've really enjoyed my

career in the information technology

business but after 30 years I've moved

more into the education side of things

and more out of the production side of

supporting mission critical systems and

I'm happy that I did both but I'm glad

that I developed some secondary skills

along the way so I had the option to do

some other things later on Mike

when I was maybe not so fond of being

under constant amount of stress so let's

go ahead and wrap this up thank you.