Another "Give me a Title" thread
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@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Kelly said:
Scott, something that makes these discussions with you more difficult is that you appear to consider your experience to be normative, and it is anything but. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comments, but in this, and other threads, it comes off that way.
Well, a couple things there...
- What makes it non-normative?
- What makes the viewpoint I'm countering normative?
- How does any one person know? I've been in IT for 27 years and have seen a lot of scenarios. I've worked more than 60 companies directly and tons and tons as a consultant. So my cross section of IT is pretty broad compared to most.
In the example of going from SMB to Enterprise, I know how it is done, and how it happens. People who have failed to get hired in the enterprise but wanted to don't provide useful feedback because all they know is that they failed and then they try to guess why. I've been a hiring manager hiring (and not hiring) those people and have broad insight into why they generally don't make it that they would not have.
Is my person experience "normal". No. But is it useful? i think extremely so.
I am not discounting your perspective. A man I know once said, if you respect me you will challenge me, or words to that effect. In this thread, and other employment threads you have pointed to your own experiences as examples. Perhaps it is your phrasing, but my interpretation of them has been that you think they are normal, or maybe should be normal. In my own experience, and the communicated experience of the majority of others, yours is far outside the norm.
I think EVERY individual's experiences, at least in IT, are outside of the norm. I don't believe that there is any norm, at least not in the SMB. That's one of the things that I keep running up against is that in the non-SMB there are very solidified tracks and clear titles and such and in the SMB it is a free for all. But people in the SMB often think that their own version of the SMB is the only one and that everyone is like them. Even having worked with tons of SMBs, getting to SW taught me that my experience was unlike anyone else's in there and none of them were like each other yet they all thought that everything worked as they saw it.
The difference, I hope, is that I'm pointing out that the perceptions from the SMB trenches that their individual failures mean that things are impossible are incorrect and that things like moving from the SMB to the Enterprise are totally possible. The thing is, when people move from the SMB to the Enterprise, they leave SW, for example, or never join. The people who remain in the SMB are either the people who like it and choose to work there or those that wish that they could work in the enterprise and keep failing. The result is that there is a natural filtering of people repeating that it is impossible to get to the enterprise when, obviously, this can't be true as the enterprise employs most of the industry, hires lots of IT people directly from high school or college with no experience of any type, let alone years of SMB, and people make the transition regularly (I know many.)
It's not that I'm saying that everyone working in the SMB will get awesome, unsolicited enterprise offers magically. I'm saying that the barriers are imagined and that the assumption that the filtered SW general consensus is a fake one created by the natural filtering of what brought the community together.
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@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
That wouldn't be a SMB person. Find me anyone doing network administration even 5% of their time in the SMB. That simply doesn't happen.
System administration CAN happen, but I'm not sure I know of anyone working on server administration half their time or more. Do you know many doing that? Most that I know are doing other tasks, like desktop support, application support, working with the business, etc.
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@quicky2g said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.
So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@quicky2g said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.
So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?
I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.
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@quicky2g said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@quicky2g said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.
So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?
I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.
What networking is he running into with 10 offices? How much internal routing and switching do you have?
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@Nic said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.
The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.
I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.
The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.
I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.
I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.
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@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.
The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.
I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.
I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.
Yeah I'll go along with that too. IT admin as the most general title that isn't just helpdesk monkey.
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@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.
The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.
I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.
I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.
And then, of course, levels like "Senior" and "Lead" can preface that still.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Kelly said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.
The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.
I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.
I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.
And then, of course, levels like "Senior" and "Lead" can preface that still.
Senior Reboot Monkey:
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@scottalanmiller said:
@quicky2g said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@quicky2g said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.
So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?
I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.
What networking is he running into with 10 offices? How much internal routing and switching do you have?
Multiple WAN connections at each site (BGP/MPLS for internal and broadband for internet), Adtran routers, Cisco ASA, Avaya switch stacks, Aerohive wireless, lab environments, multiple data centers, monitoring all of it....plenty of networking for 1 guy. He's working on a point to point long haul gig wireless connection with Ubiquiti lately. Huge chunks of it don't have issues on a day to day basis but then there's other days when he's upgrading equipment, troubleshooting failed gear, new routing, VLAN port assignments, firewall ACL's, wireless authentication, etc. There's enough networking that a few of us have to help him from time to time.
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How many staff does Ronco have these days?
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@scottalanmiller said:
How many staff does Ronco have these days?
I think the whole company is 300 or so. Internal IT is 2 system/network admins and a few desktop people. Then there are specialized groups like mine that usually deal with external customers but we help on internal IT projects too. For example I special in Aerohive wireless so I mainly manage our internal wireless but others have access and do some troubleshooting. Our Microsoft group also works extensively on the voice side but internal IT also has a big hand in it. Definitely doesn't seem like a typical way a company runs but somehow works for us. Have heard a few other consulting companies run in a similar fashion once they get big enough and need dedicated internal IT staff.
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We don't use dedicated internal IT staff either. When you have all those consulting resources, it is hard to justify getting someone to handle their IT for them.
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@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
At my last job, I did. It was roughly split half and half. I'd spend half my time chasing down network issues and tweaking switch configurations and adjusting VLANs as needed on a campus with ~800 students and 200 staff / faculty. The other half of the time was spent working on servers doing upgrades, updates, and checking to make sure backups worked. For my first year or so there, I did a lot of desk-side support, but that tapered off after we got the IT team to have good folks in that role.
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@scottalanmiller said:
We don't use dedicated internal IT staff either. When you have all those consulting resources, it is hard to justify getting someone to handle their IT for them.
I guess it comes down to "who makes the decisions and keeps things consistent between offices?" when all your offices need upgraded equipment or new servers or new printers or troubleshooting. If it was just a few offices and a simple network/server environment it would be so much easier. I think that's why we have dedicated staff.
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@dafyre said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
At my last job, I did. It was roughly split half and half. I'd spend half my time chasing down network issues and tweaking switch configurations and adjusting VLANs as needed on a campus with ~800 students and 200 staff / faculty. The other half of the time was spent working on servers doing upgrades, updates, and checking to make sure backups worked. For my first year or so there, I did a lot of desk-side support, but that tapered off after we got the IT team to have good folks in that role.
At 1K+ staff you are starting to edge away from the SMB. That starts to warrant a networking title. Maybe Networking Tech, but networking. Certainly if you really top 50% of workload.
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@quicky2g said:
@scottalanmiller said:
We don't use dedicated internal IT staff either. When you have all those consulting resources, it is hard to justify getting someone to handle their IT for them.
I guess it comes down to "who makes the decisions and keeps things consistent between offices?" when all your offices need upgraded equipment or new servers or new printers or troubleshooting. If it was just a few offices and a simple network/server environment it would be so much easier. I think that's why we have dedicated staff.
We are global and fully decentralized so makes far less sense here.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
At my last job, I did. It was roughly split half and half. I'd spend half my time chasing down network issues and tweaking switch configurations and adjusting VLANs as needed on a campus with ~800 students and 200 staff / faculty. The other half of the time was spent working on servers doing upgrades, updates, and checking to make sure backups worked. For my first year or so there, I did a lot of desk-side support, but that tapered off after we got the IT team to have good folks in that role.
At 1K+ staff you are starting to edge away from the SMB. That starts to warrant a networking title. Maybe Networking Tech, but networking. Certainly if you really top 50% of workload.
It was ~1k End-users in all. (Just out of curiosity): Does it matter to you that 800 of them were students, and only ~200 of them were Facutly and/or staff -- or do you lump them all together into the "End user" category?
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@dafyre said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
@Kelly said:
@Nic said:
So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?
Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.
At my last job, I did. It was roughly split half and half. I'd spend half my time chasing down network issues and tweaking switch configurations and adjusting VLANs as needed on a campus with ~800 students and 200 staff / faculty. The other half of the time was spent working on servers doing upgrades, updates, and checking to make sure backups worked. For my first year or so there, I did a lot of desk-side support, but that tapered off after we got the IT team to have good folks in that role.
At 1K+ staff you are starting to edge away from the SMB. That starts to warrant a networking title. Maybe Networking Tech, but networking. Certainly if you really top 50% of workload.
It was ~1k End-users in all. (Just out of curiosity): Does it matter to you that 800 of them were students, and only ~200 of them were Facutly and/or staff -- or do you lump them all together into the "End user" category?
From an IT perspective, is there any difference? IT normally refers to uses, not categories of users. Except other IT staff and/or developers as a special group, sometimes.
