I'm just thinking things over because I do infrastructure audits upwards of 60-80 pages long including RAG lists of issues with recommendations, I do meeting new clients, I do project planning and design solutions (stuff with clustering, offsite backup etc.), I do R&D on new technology, I deputy the chief, and I do the odd support ticket. I'm up to my neck in qualifications and am working on two more big ones this ear.
I'm a '3rd Line Engineer' apparently.
This isn't a whine - I'm not saying oh, they don't appreciate me blah blah. All I'm thinking is I can't be that far off being able to call myself an IT Consultant surely?
Which leads on to the question, could I go it alone as an independent? The thing I don't quite get is WTF does an independent IT Consultant actually do day to day? I'm guessing it's a mix of technical auditing, making recommendations, helping with design and planning? aka what I'm doing now but without all the fixing stuff parts of my current job.
i think you need to choose something to specialise in - if you're doing some project planning, then maybe look at that route.
Otherwise you could easily be called a system architect or infrastructure engineer, etc.
What you have mentioned to me is 3rd Line - if you needed to escalate anything, is there another tier above you, or do you go externally
Look/Apply to a few contracts & see what title they give the role for the vacancy...
I wouldn't worry too much about job titles:
(http://i.imgur.com/oCUZRie.png?1)
Having said that - are your clients paying a general maintenance/support fee to the company for the work you do or are you having to log billable hours/revenue that is directly attributed to you?
Where I work a consultant falls under the professional services arm of the company and would usually be billed directly to the client and would have to log hours spent on particular projects for billing purposes - at the end of the year they can point at the amount of revenue they've personally brought in and it should be reflected in their bonus.
On the other hand client services/support guys will generally be doing most work as part of a team under an agreed annual maintenance contract, sometimes they will undertake additional billable project work but the majority of the hours they normally work are logged for reporting rather than direct billable purposes (with the reporting used to raise/lower the maintenance fee for that client for the next year) - the senior experienced guys will do various tasks that aren't necessarily support but extend into project work, training clients etc.. in addition to the more complicated support tickets.
I'd say you're a jack of all trades. In my company those jobs you do are separate people. Move companies so you're not being beasted.
My official title is client side developer, but actually I've been working full stack for so long they are probably going to change my title soon. As long as the right people are seeing what you are doing and taking notice it will move you up the ladder.
Thing is if I was doing all those things I'd say I'd already want to be moving up the ladder. If I was sat there doing these things and remained a level 3 engineer I'd be moving companies.
You're doing security auditor, project manager and research mixed in with generic support tech. Which makes no sense to me.
In fact it indicates that your company just doesn't have the capability to recognise your talents. I'd move. Granted you may like being a "little bit woah, a little bit whey!" Dabbling with all sorts of things but then your original post sort of over embellishes your input if that's the case.
If you dabble with these things, I'd stay and keep the status quo.
If you do these things as a person responsible for doing these things... I'd be asking to specialise and a pay rise.
Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on May 10, 2015, 05:41:31 AM
Thing is if I was doing all those things I'd say I'd already want to be moving up the ladder. If I was sat there doing these things and remained a level 3 engineer I'd be moving companies.
You're doing security auditor, project manager and research mixed in with generic support tech. Which makes no sense to me.
In fact it indicates that your company just doesn't have the capability to recognise your talents. I'd move. Granted you may like being a "little bit woah, a little bit whey!" Dabbling with all sorts of things but then your original post sort of over embellishes your input if that's the case.
If you dabble with these things, I'd stay and keep the status quo.
If you do these things as a person responsible for doing these things... I'd be asking to specialise and a pay rise.
If he is doing all them jobs, then I doubt there is a ladder to climb where he works. Probably only a small IT department where everything is done by 1st line, 2nd line or 3rd line support.
Personally for me, as long as I am happy with the wage, then I am quite happy to do a lot of different roles in a job just to keep varied & not do the same things day in & day out.
I think Pete has passed his server 2012 stuff, so now would be a good time to move & specialise if he can find somewhere that matches his salary expectations.
Aye that's pretty much my conclusion too.
Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on May 10, 2015, 17:40:04 PM
Aye that's pretty much my conclusion too.
are you still at logica /cgi?
Yups! Been there a while now :)
Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on May 13, 2015, 14:41:23 PM
Yups! Been there a while now :)
they always recruiting in my area.. do you get any financial incentives for leads?
If I decide to quit contracting sometime, its probably one of the places I'd look at.
Quote from: Eggtastico on May 13, 2015, 14:52:21 PM
Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on May 13, 2015, 14:41:23 PM
Yups! Been there a while now :)
they always recruiting in my area.. do you get any financial incentives for leads?
If I decide to quit contracting sometime, its probably one of the places I'd look at.
Er if it's cyber security related then I believe so. If its general IT I think its something like £500.
it would be 3rd line infastructure.
Im happy where I am TBH, but banks are making it difficult for contractors to get decent mortgage rates.
So may have to move into employment.
You can easily get a contractors mortgage, can give you some contacts if you need. Got my house on a contract so did my mate.
Quote from: Eggtastico on May 10, 2015, 17:16:45 PM
Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on May 10, 2015, 05:41:31 AM
Thing is if I was doing all those things I'd say I'd already want to be moving up the ladder. If I was sat there doing these things and remained a level 3 engineer I'd be moving companies.
You're doing security auditor, project manager and research mixed in with generic support tech. Which makes no sense to me.
In fact it indicates that your company just doesn't have the capability to recognise your talents. I'd move. Granted you may like being a "little bit woah, a little bit whey!" Dabbling with all sorts of things but then your original post sort of over embellishes your input if that's the case.
If you dabble with these things, I'd stay and keep the status quo.
If you do these things as a person responsible for doing these things... I'd be asking to specialise and a pay rise.
If he is doing all them jobs, then I doubt there is a ladder to climb where he works. Probably only a small IT department where everything is done by 1st line, 2nd line or 3rd line support.
Personally for me, as long as I am happy with the wage, then I am quite happy to do a lot of different roles in a job just to keep varied & not do the same things day in & day out.
I think Pete has passed his server 2012 stuff, so now would be a good time to move & specialise if he can find somewhere that matches his salary expectations.
I'm thinking the same. My manager is awesome, my team is awesome but I reckon I've hit the ceiling in terms of moving up because they can get someone to sit between the manager and me and do team lead for way less than the pay me - if they let me go up the ladder they'd have to pay me more
and find some other fool to do all the crap I do. To be fair if I was them I would do the same.
I really like security stuff but I don't know much about it and can barely work Linux.
I'm going to speak to the chief when he's back from holiday next week cos I genuinely do loads here. This past couple of weeks I've come up with a workaround for a major infrastructure challenge, I've written easily 100 pages worth of technical documentation, I'm finishing two huge projects off in the next few days, and assisting a couple of others, I'm coaching staff, and I'm doing support tickets. Maybe I'm institutionalised here :dunno:
Quote from: Sam on July 27, 2015, 23:46:16 PM
You can easily get a contractors mortgage, can give you some contacts if you need. Got my house on a contract so did my mate.
Yes, I can get one easily. Not at good rates. Anyway, gone perm now. financially Im a little better off because of the amount of paid holidays & a generous monthly expenditure allowance.
Quote from: Eggtastico on August 10, 2015, 13:18:41 PM
Quote from: Sam on July 27, 2015, 23:46:16 PM
You can easily get a contractors mortgage, can give you some contacts if you need. Got my house on a contract so did my mate.
Yes, I can get one easily. Not at good rates. Anyway, gone perm now. financially Im a little better off because of the amount of paid holidays & a generous monthly expenditure allowance.
What's a paid holiday lol
A paid holiday is where they keep back some of the money they would have paid you and give it to you when you aren't working.
Then again I haven't had a holiday in over 10 years, perhaps I should ask the government for some? :muttley: :heehaw: :rofl: