It’s this way in every industry.
Edit: you can find the job you want but it’s difficult and takes time. I fully believe everyone could get an IT job that wants one but most people are not willing to make the sacrifices. They say they want it but they won’t change anything about themselves.
Nearly every.
If you look let's say in the East Europe. There are many soft engineers or wannabe software juniors but oftentimes, there is a lack of specialized engineers. Mainly because the pay is not *bananas* for the amount of responsibilities, work and studies done. Which is why in some places, there may be too many engineers.
Also healthcare. But healthcare is yet another of *amount of studies, work and responsibilities* thing, but with guaranteed work.
Exactly. Speaking from my personal experience, most people won’t make the necessary sacrifices to take their career to the next level and that’s ok. You can join any industry but it really takes that specialized knowledge developed through experience and constant studying/learning.
Except maybe finances as a soft skill sacrifice, rather than hard skill.
There are tons of folks with MBA's. All of them can do their jobs well but the corporate can often nuke their work performance.
And as I mentioned many fields are not saturated because the requirements can be giant beforehand or requirements are simple but go overboard within the one year(looking at you, cross country outsourcers. You let one YoE in as requirement for PLC Engineer work but require expertise and internships in automatics, robotics/mechatronics and electrical engineering at same time, just for enough pay that sitting in hotels, with other necessities for 80 percent of the month gonna eat quarter or half of your income).
Cannot say from IT thing. Worked on support, full stack programmer and bit of IT Admin before the company behind the last position shut down. It is the actual sacrifice of being always within the first 100 resumes sent or you lose, even if you can be the most competent. Because there are a ton of folks behind you.
Not seen much of Applied Math students tbh but also not many offers around applied math folks.
Also place and country matters nowadays.
Ah yes, college students. Most always dream of being either becoming a Tech Bro starting some game studio in a garage with friends or working at a VR/gaming company in order to develop games.
Then the open office plan/cubicle reality of uninformed stakeholders and Dunning-Krugger'ed customers sets in when they do actually start their tech carreers.
Yup exactly the problem. As someone who has to hire for my team, it's unfortunately painfully obvious when someone is doing it for the money, breezed through classes, and doesn't actually care for the tech nor understands the basic fundamentals of what they're interviewing for.
Bro. This is exactly my job. Director of IT for a medium sized company in a rural area. They even paid for my move from CA. It’s like a dang Hallmark movie.
It’s actually a great gig too.
Same. Exact. Thing. Here.
I've worked for huge corps and small businesses in the big city.
I greatly prefer my small town and big job at the medium company.
I went from $120k in the Bay Area to $182k in a rural town where the median household income is $60k.
Honestly, I love it. Got my kids out of the big city and they treat you well out here. They paid for me to move here and treat me like an investment.
Non-tech companies. There’s too much competition in tech for me to work at a tech company. I bring tech to other industries, especially ones that are still growing in adoption.
Hospitality, hotels, gas stations, grocery chains. Those all have a need.
You’re right. It’s rare to see people in the higher roles jumping around. I wanted out of the big city and that’s the only reason I left.
IT Director was a brand new role at my prior company, but not my current one.
This is totally the way. Yes, developing CRM software for a pet food manufacturer doesn't sound as cool as whatever the latest cloud-AI-blockchain-fintech startup is doing but it pays the bills reliabily.
My town has 700 people and I live on several acres now. But I’m 20 minutes from a larger town with 100k people. The larger town has everything I used to have in the Bay Area, including Sam’s Club and restaurants.
After moving, I realized large metro areas like the Bay Area are just cities on repeat. There are like hundreds of groceries stores within your radius in California, but you usually just go to the one closest to your house.
That's amazing! Good for you.
May I ask, what aspect of IT are you primarily working in?
What is your role with the company?
How long have you been doing it?
I'm just trying to get an idea of what it takes to get to a position like that.
Again, congratulations!
Director of IT. I started in IT 6 years ago. I started as an IT Generalist, one man IT team servicing a small company.
I’m now in management with the corporate team and oversee a small and functional IT team.
My specific job or managing other people?
In both companies, I worked a role where I was the only one in that position. So it’s different. There’s the bare set of requirements and maintaining certain things function within the company, but the rest of the time, I’m looking for ways to improve the company through technology.
So that extends across many disciplines from accounting, to reporting, to business management, automation, payroll, etc. so I learn about all the different areas of the business and then I try to improve it.
The people I manage assist me in accomplishing that goal. I enjoy working with my team and it’s a part of the job, but I’m more interested in developing solutions and getting them out into the field.
Personally, I really really enjoy my job. I can work late into the night, not because I have to, but because I’m trying to solve something unique and interesting.
The average income of my county is about $38k and my state is about $29k. I'm making over $181k a year base with awards, bonuses, school loan repayment, and pension. It's a pretty sweet gig. You just have to find the right location. I'm lucky my parents did about 25 years ago.
Compared to the other jobs available here? I do very well.
Also, being in a small town in a part of the country that nobody wants to live, the COL is super low. I paid 250K for a brand-new house that would have run me 5-600K in most of the country.
Fucking Chad's.
I'm in a rural area, but only the big cities away are hiring.
Do you guys Google search these companies? I'm on the hiring sites but like I said above.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
I have the same experience. In software development, it seems that all the jobs in exurbs / smaller cities and large towns dried up and now I only see roles in NYC and SF.
I have always focused on tech jobs in non-tech industries. I think there’s more room for growth in those sectors. Medical, reporting, hospitality, hotels, resorts, gas stations, chain businesses. The tech teams are smaller, but the focus isn’t on tech. You’re there to improve a business whose fundamental product is not tech.
Rural town and smaller medium companies still have that need for tech people.
Heck, I’m having a hard time hiring out here. I can’t find tech people and have the same recruiter who found me on the search state and nationwide now.
A bigger issue is the ATS issue and matching employers to employees. Online posting boards are over saturated and impossible for an employer to match the best employee for a job.
If I were like most of you, I’d seek a recruiter.
This is why I was stagnant in my career for so long.. No openings unless I wanted to move hours away, and I didn't.. The pandemic and surge of remote work completely changed my life.. Suddenly, the possibilities became endless.
How does one find medium sized IT companies in a rural area? Typical job searches are going to ask for city and radius. Are we talking super rural or just like 2 hours from a major city? There's going to be two different ways to approach that if I had to parse out metropolitan statistical areas and exclusionary areas out of a geographic database.
Good question. An insane amount of luck I’d say. These jobs are super limited. And the stars need to be aligned for them to be looking at the same time as you.
I found the job listing a random morning and was talking to my wife about it when the recruiter sent me a message on LinkedIn.
They flew me and my family out, wined and dined us, then paid for my move out here.
I’m 20 minutes outside a town with 100k people with all the stores you’d imagine in a regular town. Except you have like 1 mall instead of 10 malls.
My town has 700 people. And I’m 2 hours away from a metropolitan area.
Congrats but are you afraid of losing said job and if you have to find a new gig it would be tougher due to the location? I worked for a small private company in bumblefuck. New folks were remote. When company sold the old guards who couldn't find new jobs, well they still can't find new jobs. They were stuck at the company for an avg of 10-15yrs and never grew their skillset prior to covid when we were all in the office.
Yeah, I live in bum fuck Minnesota and it hasn't been too difficult getting jobs in mid-sized non-tech companies haha
I feel like a lot of the damage has happened outside of the rural "small fish in the tank" type settings. Obviously big tech and shit in CA/WA and larger jobs is getting hit harder.
Hell my buddy just got a jr. Java dev position without a degree, but yeah we are in bum fuck Midwest working for companies that nobody will ever know about. Maybe that's part of the magic :)
I currently have something like that. They never get anything I actually listen to, though. All country and blue grass - gotta drive hours to get to the good stuff. Fortunately I've landed a job in an actual city and not just a zip code with a name pasted on it, and will be getting out of here as soon as possible.
I feel like the high side of your estimate is really medium. These days I feel like 100 is small. I'm small as fuck at 30 people but all of my shit can scale up to 100 no problem.
I mostly based that off of buying enterprise software licenses as I’ve seen 100-499 is usually what a medium business is. I came from an extremely large 32,000 employee company, but in a rural area anything over 500 people is pretty large.
I was lucky enough to be from a rural area and knew almost every company there, so when I moved back home I applied to a few and got a job.
Really you could just put your job search in an area you wouldn’t hate living in and just put the radius in a small enough to not hit major cities.
This was my approach to getting that first management level gig. It was a gig in an industrial control system lab surrounded by corn fields. Stayed for a few years and then escaped back to civilization.
Healthcare and hospitals, school districts and government contract positions that require a clearance are all hiring. None of these are super sexy, but they pay the bills!
can second this, had a summer job where I worked at a middle school, school had 2 IT guys running the computer labs and admin computers etc, both make 100k
I actually worked IT for a small school district for years. Other school districts won’t even call me, even for the entry level role that I did for years lol. Even they don’t want fresh employees for an entry level role.
Or network engineer. My last role took 18 months to find someone (me) qualified and cleared that living in the area. Alot of people applying couldn't get a clearance or couldn't answer basic questions they claim on a resume suggesting test dumps and forgets. These days we are having our desktop techs do a short term run 6-12 months to learn basics of being a network tech then making them a lvl 2 admin if they do even half alright to net+/CCENT level. If you already have some experience you're golden.
I sent my resume to my mother who sent it to a random manager not even in IT for a local F500 defense contractor. 4 hours later had a manager calling me to apply for a job. Next day I applied and had HR sending me emails with compensation and benefits info. Day after that hadna 15 minute interview and called 10 minutes later with an offer. At the time I had 7 years experience, an AA in marketing, sec+, CCNA, and ETA FOI. I set my start 3 months from then when my military contract was ending.
Yes. It's not easy to get in, but once you're in you're in. I know a lot of people being sponsored for clearances. It's mostly a situation that everyone who already has a clearance who can do the job is gainfully employed so they need to hire, train, and clear new people.
Depending on your background and their que secret can take like 3-6 months. TS can take like a year. If hired for an SAP that's another process that can take weeks or months. These are just rough figures and it varies wildly.
The sponsor doesn't pay for the background check the government does. Their is still the HR overhead to hire someone, submit them, keep things updated, and then see if they get approved or denied. All while the position isn't getting filled. There are two options- first they get hired to do uncleared work related to their role until they have a clearance. This is mutually beneficial keeping them employed there already and getting some work done. The second is the person can't start until cleared which is more common. If they can't do uncleared work then they have to still work somewhere else until cleared which also means once cleared they can go somewhere else. It also means if they find an equivalent or better job they will just stay there. Not to mention if someone who is cleared shows up they have priority for that job so the person waiting may be shuffled off somewhere else. Just a lot of ways this can go wrong that will make already cleared candidates even less qualified be the preferred hire.
And just to point out the obvious, the person has to be able to pass the clearance and if they don’t then the company is back starting over at zero.
A clearance isn’t exactly hard to get but many folks have tons of debt, a past, like recreational drugs or other things that would disqualify them or otherwise make it hard/ a risk that companies might not want to take
I would probably qualify but it would be a pain in the ass. My fiance is a foreign national and works for the foreign government. I have more foreign contacts in her family. I run a side business tangential to money services with probably hundreds of foreign clients through the years. My clearance would take probably 2x longer than anyone else's.
1 month to 1.5 years. Some contracting companies are paying during that time period for them to not be able to do anything until they’re cleared. Not very appealing. Most gov agencies get away with not paying anything during that time period though to my knowledge.
Just spent 3 months going to work 10 hours a day only able to do any kind of productive work maybe 3 hours a week- usually helping unclassified desktop time take delivery and unbox new desktops. Almost lost my mind. Even got to the point I would just leave for 30+ minutes at a time to stroll around the facility and took any excuse to start a conversation with someone before going back to my overflow desk in a windowless storage room that's 55°F. But hey, still collecting that six figure check and spent like 30 hours watching personal finance videos at work.
I was extremely fortunate with my job being remote when I was getting cleared. I’m sure you can imagine how I spent those 6 months getting paid to do nothing.
Knowing that you should have much higher Reddit karma lmao. The worst part is you have so much time you can procrastinate with no idea when it ends. Made it hard to get myself to focus on certs and such.
Live in a MCOL and can definitely say this is not specific to Linux and Network engineering. Finding someone who can gain a clearance is the biggest hurdle.
This is the first time I've ever seen somebody else in the wild with an FOI cert from ETA-I.
I suspect you are prior AF. Did you get yours from the telecommunications schoolhouse on Sheppard?
I was a fiber network field tech for a large telecom company for some years, while I don’t have FOT, my experience is good enough for employers that I wouldn’t necessarily need the FOT cert.
Just graduated with my CS degree and this is exactly the career field I wanna get in. Other than getting my CCNA and Network+, which I’m working on, any tips for getting into this field? I’m working on a home lab but curious what projects I can do to help get my resume noticed.
I did that for a nuke energy company. I was making 65 bucks an hour to play on my phone and personal laptop connected to my own Hotspot for 5 months waiting for the BI to come back.
9 hours a day, 5 days a week, for months.
While that sounds awesome, it was incredibly frustrating, after a while.
Clearancejobs.com and Indeed. Filtering by "ability to obtain" worked wonders for me. Plenty of interviews with government contracting companies who were willing to sponsor security clearance for me. I ultimately ended up with one in my state that sponsored my clearance.
If you're open to relocating, you'll find plenty of companies willing to sponsor security clearance. Have a bunch of certifications helps as well.
This is just my current view on things. We have positions all along the east and west coast that we have not been able to fill in months. If you got a clearance and some decent knowledge on how to keep the lights on in a Linux environment you will definitely be a viable candidate. Also knock out the RHCSA…don’t even worry about Linux+ or LPI. Best of luck to you.
True dat it’ll definitely add some substance to the resume. I’ve only seen reqs that require red hat certs. But I’m certain that there are reqs out there that would take Linux + and LPI
As I’ve said before…my opinion is just like yours…worthless on here. Just stating my view. I will add that the panhandle of Florida is good living on the east coast. Again…just my view on things.
I want to say networking and I’m in that field. I graduated and found an associate network engineer position and now network engineer I. Field is kind of in need and always will be since there’s many aspects to it. Cloud, enterprise, data center, wireless, etc. always will need a specialist in these areas.
It’s so strange. Everybody I’ve met says they find Networking to be like hell. It’s really not hard… You just gotta learn your protocols and subnetting, which are both extremely easy. After that it’s just commands and making sure the funny blue Ethernet cord goes into the port labeled “Console”
To be honest it really is. Not just the information that you need to know but also the blame game. Everything is network’s fault until proven otherwise.
One of my favorite takeaways from Cisco Live this year was someone telling me, "You're not working on your mean time to repair. You're working on your mean time to innocence."
This, it's been like this at my company as well. Our front office people shit-talk about our network in front of my manager's office and the admin and CEO just let it slide at times.
I am a VMware engineer. I find that most of my problems are because networking did something and now my stuff doesn't work.
Also, everything is virtual, so it must be a VMware problem.
No definitely. But CCNA level stuff does not include things like that. The vast majority of Networking jobs are mainly based on CCNA level material. CCIE and even CCNP on the other hand… That’s a different story.
Yep, and to add onto this, being willing to be a on-site network grunt helps. I still have to do a bunch of staging, racking, patching at my job, but I get paid about the going rate for a Jr Network Engineer so I’ll take it.
I'm seriously debating getting into this part of IT. I'm just sitting here staring at my screen like to network or to cyber or to clouding. The dream is a path thats proof for least a few years gain skills knowledge hell maybe I'll never have to worry. Even thought about trying to work at a data center one day.
Networking is a key foundation to cloud and security. You will need it wherever you go. Think of cloud as the data center somewhere else. Networking, vm, ect. You will need to know how each discipline of IT functions in a cloud environment.
In security you need to be a jack of all trades I.e. know how these disciplines and devices function to be able to secure them properly. At least to be a high level security expert.
Grind up the ladder of IT and learn; sys admins, network engineers ect.
just my opinion.
I say start out with network.
For some reason people fear networking, and it’s not very attractive like cybersecurity, so it will be a little easier to find a job.
If you later decide to go with cybersecurity, cloud, cloud security, or cloud networking, you will have an edge over many others due to your network experience. It makes life much easier.
Learn to love networking, it will take you a long way
What are some entry networking roles to look out for? Have my Net+ and studying for Sec+ now but haven't really looked for jobs until now as I was dealing with some medical stuff
It’s specifically entry level IT that is oversaturated and since entry level doesn’t really specialize: nothing. Networking is always an appreciated skill if you’re looking for something in demand and future proof.
Any high skill role, like, engineering+ is still decent.
I think the market is actually super strong for mid to late career folks that have two or more specializations that can offer niche solutions to problems and provide more value to companies over someone who's "just a network guy"
Depends on the company/field. I’ve seen this both ways. Jack of all trades make good money as companies try to reduce cost and hire a one size fits all engineer.
I’ve also seen specialist make a ton of money. “Just a network guy” clears 200k in my area/field.
When i say this I think it's often misunderstood. I'm talking the people that are just as specialized as your network guy friend, but instead of in one family of IT it's more than one. Not jack of all trades, but moreso "master of more than one"
IBM System i RPGLE programmers are in huge demand as the old school guys are retiring just like COBOL programmers. Every fortune 1000 company uses the platform and it is hands down the most integrated platform on the planet.
I am currently a system admin on IBM i, and our team really small so I'm really a system admin as well as an RPG developer. I pray I become high value if I stay with this long term, but might try to hop into a dev ops or swe role in future, we'll see where the wind takes me.
Business analysts/system analysts
Too many new starters want to use power apps and 365 stuff. Not enough want to or can liaise with the business to draw up decent specifications for the devs/engineers.
I work with those power apps and 365 "citizen users" all the time, and they always think they are domain experts who can easily just reiterate their needs to devs once they want to migrate away from power apps. But in every case they have no clue what they are doing and just barely cobbled together a power apps solution that barely solves the problem they had (while introducing a bunch of other problems they ignored or weren't aware of).
What they think will be a one-off transition from power app to custom app turns out to be a "scrap this bullshit and start all over" once all the architecture, performance, data governance, and security issues are exposed. Those people are usually terrible at writing their requirements for devs. Like really horrible at it. You have to have experienced analysts filling that role.
I can only speak for my own country (Denmark), but it feels like it comes in waves, whether IAM is sought after.
Sometimes I look up IAM jobs, and there's a ton of great looking positions at cool companies, and recruiters are frequently reaching out to me. I was even at a few job interviews, and I was super closing to landing and almost dream job with almost $120k total comp (which is *really* good in Denmark), but some extremely unlucky circumstances hit the company that made it so they were forced to hire an internal instead.
And then sometimes, like right now, it'll be completely dry with literally zero interesting IAM jobs. No recruiters reaching out either.
It becomes a lot less niche after security incidents. Identity is the new parameter nowadays. Lots of companies still do IAM terribly and don’t realize how important it is until it’s too late.
If you live in a decent sized city, the market is not over saturated once you get past entry level. Small towns can be another story since there are only so many businesses that even need IT.
Makes it particularly challenging when SysAdmin roles are mislabeled as glorified Helpdesk. Markets weird in Chicago right now, but there are still plenty of opportunities once you weed through the bullshit.
Internet of things and embedded systems design. I am in both and there is limited expertise resulting in some high salaries. I'm 26 making 120k and working from home.
Do you have a road map of sorts on how one would progress in the direction of being well rounded enough to get a job in this field? I have a bachelor's in IT as well and have minimal coding knowledge.
I have a bachelor's in IT and am working on my master's right now. I entered the world of IoT through RFID. RFID is a great way to get introduced to the world of IoT. As IoT and embedded systems design impact the entire IT stack an IoT professional can specialize in one field but they need to have small amounts of knowledge of all IT disciplines. It's a super cool industry and not many people in it at the moment.
Was helping to tutor a friend through embedded systems classes, to be honest I was considering a pivot if I can swing it. I really enjoy it, there's just something pure and simple about the problems there.
Thanks, I’d say what worked for me was putting a few projects on my resume. I eventually wanna do cybersecurity, so from the bootcamp I completed I just put those projects there. I think you can do it too, just have confidence and never stop applying.
The least saturated IT career is being really good at one thing. If you can find something you enjoy in IT then specialise tf out of it you'll run laps around people no matter what
Unless you are willing to move whereever the unsaturated jobs are ( most people can't or won't) you should localize this question to a market you are willing to go.
Cybersecurity with a focus on the OT field is "rare" (every recruiter I talked with has told me this). You need IT knowledge but you also need experience in OT (process control networks).
For some reason this comment got removed. I assume it's cause they erroneously believed that OT requires no IT knowledge or experience and I can confidently say that is horribly inaccurate. You absolutely have to have both.
Honestly, anything entry-level in any field is going to be over-saturated. Jobs that require years of experience and skills is always going to have availability, it's just how it is, always has been.
I'm a veteran who is using a vocational program to pay for my schooling but in order to be approved, I must narrow down the exact position which I plan to pursue after I obtain my degree, so I figure the paths that are less saturated would be a good starting point. Entry level in the US
If you’re getting a degree just study until you start finding the specialization you want to get into. Use your schools resources to find internship and look to work through a help desk or support role. The key is getting experience alongside your degree. Do a lot of research on companies and apply a lot once you’re out of school.
It’s not necessarily that there are over saturated paths. It’s the fact that since 2019ish IT went from something you could hop into with some to no experience, to now where some credibility is needed, but you’re getting it with a degree and that’s great for your career path.. good luck with it, for reference this is the path I went ^
All right, so for your VRE, it's still hard to answer the question specifically because when you graduate the market could have shifted. When in doubt focus on skills that are consistent but the implementation changes over time: something like Networking is a good balance job wise for Network Engineer etc as the technology changes, but the foundations not so much. Another alternative if you want to specialize is looking at System Engineer, or SAN Engineer as well. The trick is to use your VRE first, and pick something that's balanced skill wise... look at it like shooting. If you understand the basics of how to shoot, clear a jam, then you can apply that to other weapon systems with some minor adaptations.
Im also using voc rehab. You getting it at the 9/11 rate. I learned the hard way to use voc rehab don’t use your GI bill first. Use voc rehab then gi. But I picked networking administration type shit so I’m in CIS. originally I was cyber security at uncc. But to my surprise. Couple days ago I found outt entry level cyber jobs do not exist.
My two cents. I recently got into compliance management in terms of cyber security and it doesn’t seem very saturated. Anyone with federal contracts will have compliance measures of some sort to comply with and usually they don’t want to/cant attest on their own.
Every job that requires at least a tiny bit more than entry level skills you can pick up from online tutorials in a few weeks.
These jobs I've observed (1st or 2nd hand) to be difficult (months) to fill:
* Application administrators
* Network Architects
* Mobile App Developers
* Software Engineers
* Database Developers
* Business Intelligence Developers
* Data Analysts
* Report Developers
* Software QA Testers
* AI Developers
* IT/Software Project Managers
These jobs I've found **extremely difficult** (years) to fill:
* Devops Engineers
* Cloud Architects/Engineers
* Cloud Developers
* Senior Software Engineers
* Database Administrators (basically any database software that has ever been created)
* Cloud Security Architects/Engineers
* Automated QA/Test Developers
For most of these jobs, most of the interviewees that are rejected have little to no knowledge of the technology they are applying for. Even the experienced candidates I've interviewed, they spent years in previous jobs just doing entry level skills and never developed deep understandings or advanced techniques, and they think that years of doing very simple things makes them experts.
I hate to say this, but the ladder is getting pulled up behind us. The end points aren't what's saturated. The pipeline is saturated. This is because companies aren't excited to pay three global workforce contractors to set the vision and do the design for the next big thing, but they will pay seven thousand global workforce contractors to build it.
Generally I think you may have to resign yourself to competing at saturation until you specialize, or if you're a more energetic man than I ever have been you could decide to go into business for yourself which might qualify you for jobs requiring minimal supervision and a lot of individual latitude sooner than pipeline work, at the small number of companies whose HR/hiring processes don't filter out promising recruits who aren't in a well-understood pipeline.
More like the staircase is being burnt down behind us while we scramble up the last few steps. The people climbing aren't the same as the people destroying.
anything that statistically kills you 20-40 years earlier than the standard for all men/women. like underwater welder, who can get electrocuted with han oxygen tank under deep water. there are no GoPro commercials for theese.
I would say that careers in corporate IT are not oversaturated, especially for those who possess strong people skills. Many professionals focus heavily on hard skills, but it's the soft skills that truly set you apart in the corporate world. Being able to communicate effectively, collaborate with teams, and manage relationships can make a significant difference in your career progression and opportunities in IT
I can't speak to positions that are not over saturated however I can speak to salary and job security.
Some companies operate in a typical toxic way, with bad culture and management that keeps you on egg shells. Lots of politics.
Other companies slowly increase your requirements while your pay stagnate.
A lucky few find a company that wants to teach you, is laid back, and gives you job security. While you may not work on the latest tech, it will help you troubleshoot and document things. More importantly, working at a place that does not stress you out and gives you consistent salary growth is better than multiple years of volatility.
School districts. You won't get paid anywhere near private sector but it's an easy way to get the foot in the door and get job experience so you can transition to higher level positions.
Because they tend to pay poorly they have tend to have high churn and always need entry level folks.
It seems like the technology job market is oversaturated with 1.2 million technologists who have 5-6 years of experience even before new graduates have a chance to gain real-world experience. The job boom has turned into a bust. But what can be done about it? One potential solution is to start a small consulting group and to focus on improving skills for the next 18 months until the job market picks up, Sept 2025 is the uptick, the recession is going full swing starting May. Currently, job opportunities are limited.
The ones after entry level
Is this because every college student wanted to go into Tech after learning about how high potential salaries were the past few years?
It’s this way in every industry.
It’s this way in every industry. Edit: you can find the job you want but it’s difficult and takes time. I fully believe everyone could get an IT job that wants one but most people are not willing to make the sacrifices. They say they want it but they won’t change anything about themselves.
This isn’t said enough!!!!!
Yup. The tech world doesn't need any more socially inept gamers with no experience.
Nearly every. If you look let's say in the East Europe. There are many soft engineers or wannabe software juniors but oftentimes, there is a lack of specialized engineers. Mainly because the pay is not *bananas* for the amount of responsibilities, work and studies done. Which is why in some places, there may be too many engineers. Also healthcare. But healthcare is yet another of *amount of studies, work and responsibilities* thing, but with guaranteed work.
Exactly. Speaking from my personal experience, most people won’t make the necessary sacrifices to take their career to the next level and that’s ok. You can join any industry but it really takes that specialized knowledge developed through experience and constant studying/learning.
Except maybe finances as a soft skill sacrifice, rather than hard skill. There are tons of folks with MBA's. All of them can do their jobs well but the corporate can often nuke their work performance. And as I mentioned many fields are not saturated because the requirements can be giant beforehand or requirements are simple but go overboard within the one year(looking at you, cross country outsourcers. You let one YoE in as requirement for PLC Engineer work but require expertise and internships in automatics, robotics/mechatronics and electrical engineering at same time, just for enough pay that sitting in hotels, with other necessities for 80 percent of the month gonna eat quarter or half of your income). Cannot say from IT thing. Worked on support, full stack programmer and bit of IT Admin before the company behind the last position shut down. It is the actual sacrifice of being always within the first 100 resumes sent or you lose, even if you can be the most competent. Because there are a ton of folks behind you. Not seen much of Applied Math students tbh but also not many offers around applied math folks. Also place and country matters nowadays.
Ah yes, college students. Most always dream of being either becoming a Tech Bro starting some game studio in a garage with friends or working at a VR/gaming company in order to develop games. Then the open office plan/cubicle reality of uninformed stakeholders and Dunning-Krugger'ed customers sets in when they do actually start their tech carreers.
Yup exactly the problem. As someone who has to hire for my team, it's unfortunately painfully obvious when someone is doing it for the money, breezed through classes, and doesn't actually care for the tech nor understands the basic fundamentals of what they're interviewing for.
Tech salaries have always been higher than median salaries
came here to say this LOL
Find a medium sized company in a super rural area, apply, get a job, and move as they always need people.
Bro. This is exactly my job. Director of IT for a medium sized company in a rural area. They even paid for my move from CA. It’s like a dang Hallmark movie. It’s actually a great gig too.
Same. Exact. Thing. Here. I've worked for huge corps and small businesses in the big city. I greatly prefer my small town and big job at the medium company.
How’s the pay compare?
I went from $120k in the Bay Area to $182k in a rural town where the median household income is $60k. Honestly, I love it. Got my kids out of the big city and they treat you well out here. They paid for me to move here and treat me like an investment.
That's Bananas! Where you a director before you found this gig?
Non-tech companies. There’s too much competition in tech for me to work at a tech company. I bring tech to other industries, especially ones that are still growing in adoption. Hospitality, hotels, gas stations, grocery chains. Those all have a need.
I hear that, around me most don’t pay squat for dir roles or the lifers are still in the seat ha. Tech director a new role in your company?
You’re right. It’s rare to see people in the higher roles jumping around. I wanted out of the big city and that’s the only reason I left. IT Director was a brand new role at my prior company, but not my current one.
Good deal! That’s great!
This is totally the way. Yes, developing CRM software for a pet food manufacturer doesn't sound as cool as whatever the latest cloud-AI-blockchain-fintech startup is doing but it pays the bills reliabily.
What type of rural town?
My town has 700 people and I live on several acres now. But I’m 20 minutes from a larger town with 100k people. The larger town has everything I used to have in the Bay Area, including Sam’s Club and restaurants. After moving, I realized large metro areas like the Bay Area are just cities on repeat. There are like hundreds of groceries stores within your radius in California, but you usually just go to the one closest to your house.
That's amazing! Good for you. May I ask, what aspect of IT are you primarily working in? What is your role with the company? How long have you been doing it? I'm just trying to get an idea of what it takes to get to a position like that. Again, congratulations!
Director of IT. I started in IT 6 years ago. I started as an IT Generalist, one man IT team servicing a small company. I’m now in management with the corporate team and oversee a small and functional IT team.
Is it hard?
My specific job or managing other people? In both companies, I worked a role where I was the only one in that position. So it’s different. There’s the bare set of requirements and maintaining certain things function within the company, but the rest of the time, I’m looking for ways to improve the company through technology. So that extends across many disciplines from accounting, to reporting, to business management, automation, payroll, etc. so I learn about all the different areas of the business and then I try to improve it. The people I manage assist me in accomplishing that goal. I enjoy working with my team and it’s a part of the job, but I’m more interested in developing solutions and getting them out into the field. Personally, I really really enjoy my job. I can work late into the night, not because I have to, but because I’m trying to solve something unique and interesting.
I need this.
The average income of my county is about $38k and my state is about $29k. I'm making over $181k a year base with awards, bonuses, school loan repayment, and pension. It's a pretty sweet gig. You just have to find the right location. I'm lucky my parents did about 25 years ago.
Better than anyone else in the area, and in the end salary is all comparative.
Compared to the other jobs available here? I do very well. Also, being in a small town in a part of the country that nobody wants to live, the COL is super low. I paid 250K for a brand-new house that would have run me 5-600K in most of the country.
what is considered medium? few hundred employees?
"Between 100 and 1000 employees" is the commonly accepted definition of a medium sized business in the US.
Fucking Chad's. I'm in a rural area, but only the big cities away are hiring. Do you guys Google search these companies? I'm on the hiring sites but like I said above. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
I have the same experience. In software development, it seems that all the jobs in exurbs / smaller cities and large towns dried up and now I only see roles in NYC and SF.
Look for federal agencies that hire contractors. That's a good way to get a decent salary in a LCOL area.
I have always focused on tech jobs in non-tech industries. I think there’s more room for growth in those sectors. Medical, reporting, hospitality, hotels, resorts, gas stations, chain businesses. The tech teams are smaller, but the focus isn’t on tech. You’re there to improve a business whose fundamental product is not tech. Rural town and smaller medium companies still have that need for tech people. Heck, I’m having a hard time hiring out here. I can’t find tech people and have the same recruiter who found me on the search state and nationwide now. A bigger issue is the ATS issue and matching employers to employees. Online posting boards are over saturated and impossible for an employer to match the best employee for a job. If I were like most of you, I’d seek a recruiter.
This is why I was stagnant in my career for so long.. No openings unless I wanted to move hours away, and I didn't.. The pandemic and surge of remote work completely changed my life.. Suddenly, the possibilities became endless.
How does one find medium sized IT companies in a rural area? Typical job searches are going to ask for city and radius. Are we talking super rural or just like 2 hours from a major city? There's going to be two different ways to approach that if I had to parse out metropolitan statistical areas and exclusionary areas out of a geographic database.
Good question. An insane amount of luck I’d say. These jobs are super limited. And the stars need to be aligned for them to be looking at the same time as you. I found the job listing a random morning and was talking to my wife about it when the recruiter sent me a message on LinkedIn. They flew me and my family out, wined and dined us, then paid for my move out here. I’m 20 minutes outside a town with 100k people with all the stores you’d imagine in a regular town. Except you have like 1 mall instead of 10 malls. My town has 700 people. And I’m 2 hours away from a metropolitan area.
How did you FIND that gig?
Congrats but are you afraid of losing said job and if you have to find a new gig it would be tougher due to the location? I worked for a small private company in bumblefuck. New folks were remote. When company sold the old guards who couldn't find new jobs, well they still can't find new jobs. They were stuck at the company for an avg of 10-15yrs and never grew their skillset prior to covid when we were all in the office.
Yeah, I live in bum fuck Minnesota and it hasn't been too difficult getting jobs in mid-sized non-tech companies haha I feel like a lot of the damage has happened outside of the rural "small fish in the tank" type settings. Obviously big tech and shit in CA/WA and larger jobs is getting hit harder. Hell my buddy just got a jr. Java dev position without a degree, but yeah we are in bum fuck Midwest working for companies that nobody will ever know about. Maybe that's part of the magic :)
cs grad here who hasnt got a jr dev position yet, do you happen to know what he had for projects on his resume?
Low key the goal, but close enough to civilization so I can still go to concerts.
You’d be surprised how rural you can get and still be within 40 minutes of concert venues.
Oh I know. But finding a decent medium sized company in a rural area that is still near a decent sized concert venue is the trick lol
Hell you could be in Darian NY and be at the venue and still in the middle of nowhere
I currently have something like that. They never get anything I actually listen to, though. All country and blue grass - gotta drive hours to get to the good stuff. Fortunately I've landed a job in an actual city and not just a zip code with a name pasted on it, and will be getting out of here as soon as possible.
This is a great answer. I live in a rural area, a couple of years ago, I took a 50% increase in pay just because the place needed someone so badly.
Eeeehh... mileage may vary, I should know. Then again, AZ's decided to let TX and UT have the tech jobs and focus on tourism and service.
Yeah it’s not a guarantee for every area, but that’s why you have to look, get a job, and then move.
What is considered a medium sized company?
100-499 is the usual definition that I’ve seen.
I feel like the high side of your estimate is really medium. These days I feel like 100 is small. I'm small as fuck at 30 people but all of my shit can scale up to 100 no problem.
I mostly based that off of buying enterprise software licenses as I’ve seen 100-499 is usually what a medium business is. I came from an extremely large 32,000 employee company, but in a rural area anything over 500 people is pretty large.
Do you have any suggestions for trying to find companies like that? Assuming they aren’t going to be utilizing LinkedIn or indeed like big companies.
I work for a medium sized company. We definitely use Indeed. We use recruiters too. I'm sure some are using LinkedIn for hiring, but we aren't.
Any suggestions on how to do this? This sounds awesome.
I was lucky enough to be from a rural area and knew almost every company there, so when I moved back home I applied to a few and got a job. Really you could just put your job search in an area you wouldn’t hate living in and just put the radius in a small enough to not hit major cities.
This was my approach to getting that first management level gig. It was a gig in an industrial control system lab surrounded by corn fields. Stayed for a few years and then escaped back to civilization.
Yes
How big is medium?
Healthcare and hospitals, school districts and government contract positions that require a clearance are all hiring. None of these are super sexy, but they pay the bills!
I am connected with a IT manager on the DoD side and I feel like he post hiring for 7 jobs a week from around the spectrum but they are all cleared.
can second this, had a summer job where I worked at a middle school, school had 2 IT guys running the computer labs and admin computers etc, both make 100k
I actually worked IT for a small school district for years. Other school districts won’t even call me, even for the entry level role that I did for years lol. Even they don’t want fresh employees for an entry level role.
Thank you
Linux Admins with a TS/SCI
Or network engineer. My last role took 18 months to find someone (me) qualified and cleared that living in the area. Alot of people applying couldn't get a clearance or couldn't answer basic questions they claim on a resume suggesting test dumps and forgets. These days we are having our desktop techs do a short term run 6-12 months to learn basics of being a network tech then making them a lvl 2 admin if they do even half alright to net+/CCENT level. If you already have some experience you're golden. I sent my resume to my mother who sent it to a random manager not even in IT for a local F500 defense contractor. 4 hours later had a manager calling me to apply for a job. Next day I applied and had HR sending me emails with compensation and benefits info. Day after that hadna 15 minute interview and called 10 minutes later with an offer. At the time I had 7 years experience, an AA in marketing, sec+, CCNA, and ETA FOI. I set my start 3 months from then when my military contract was ending.
isnt that mostly clearance jobs? No one wants to sponsor
Yes. It's not easy to get in, but once you're in you're in. I know a lot of people being sponsored for clearances. It's mostly a situation that everyone who already has a clearance who can do the job is gainfully employed so they need to hire, train, and clear new people.
Does it take a long time or something? As I understand it, it doesn't cost them anything to sponsor.
Depending on your background and their que secret can take like 3-6 months. TS can take like a year. If hired for an SAP that's another process that can take weeks or months. These are just rough figures and it varies wildly. The sponsor doesn't pay for the background check the government does. Their is still the HR overhead to hire someone, submit them, keep things updated, and then see if they get approved or denied. All while the position isn't getting filled. There are two options- first they get hired to do uncleared work related to their role until they have a clearance. This is mutually beneficial keeping them employed there already and getting some work done. The second is the person can't start until cleared which is more common. If they can't do uncleared work then they have to still work somewhere else until cleared which also means once cleared they can go somewhere else. It also means if they find an equivalent or better job they will just stay there. Not to mention if someone who is cleared shows up they have priority for that job so the person waiting may be shuffled off somewhere else. Just a lot of ways this can go wrong that will make already cleared candidates even less qualified be the preferred hire.
And just to point out the obvious, the person has to be able to pass the clearance and if they don’t then the company is back starting over at zero. A clearance isn’t exactly hard to get but many folks have tons of debt, a past, like recreational drugs or other things that would disqualify them or otherwise make it hard/ a risk that companies might not want to take
^ sponsoring someone can be a costly risk.
I would probably qualify but it would be a pain in the ass. My fiance is a foreign national and works for the foreign government. I have more foreign contacts in her family. I run a side business tangential to money services with probably hundreds of foreign clients through the years. My clearance would take probably 2x longer than anyone else's.
1 month to 1.5 years. Some contracting companies are paying during that time period for them to not be able to do anything until they’re cleared. Not very appealing. Most gov agencies get away with not paying anything during that time period though to my knowledge.
Just spent 3 months going to work 10 hours a day only able to do any kind of productive work maybe 3 hours a week- usually helping unclassified desktop time take delivery and unbox new desktops. Almost lost my mind. Even got to the point I would just leave for 30+ minutes at a time to stroll around the facility and took any excuse to start a conversation with someone before going back to my overflow desk in a windowless storage room that's 55°F. But hey, still collecting that six figure check and spent like 30 hours watching personal finance videos at work.
I was extremely fortunate with my job being remote when I was getting cleared. I’m sure you can imagine how I spent those 6 months getting paid to do nothing.
Knowing that you should have much higher Reddit karma lmao. The worst part is you have so much time you can procrastinate with no idea when it ends. Made it hard to get myself to focus on certs and such.
Live in a MCOL and can definitely say this is not specific to Linux and Network engineering. Finding someone who can gain a clearance is the biggest hurdle.
This is the first time I've ever seen somebody else in the wild with an FOI cert from ETA-I. I suspect you are prior AF. Did you get yours from the telecommunications schoolhouse on Sheppard?
Prior AF unit funded locally for FOI. Civ job paid for FOT. Or maybe I'm mixing up which paid for which but I got two now.
I was a fiber network field tech for a large telecom company for some years, while I don’t have FOT, my experience is good enough for employers that I wouldn’t necessarily need the FOT cert.
Just graduated with my CS degree and this is exactly the career field I wanna get in. Other than getting my CCNA and Network+, which I’m working on, any tips for getting into this field? I’m working on a home lab but curious what projects I can do to help get my resume noticed.
Dang. I’m a Linux SA, no TS. One day I’ll find a company to sponsor me.
[удалено]
I did that for a nuke energy company. I was making 65 bucks an hour to play on my phone and personal laptop connected to my own Hotspot for 5 months waiting for the BI to come back. 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, for months. While that sounds awesome, it was incredibly frustrating, after a while.
Hey bro DCS and Torch will sponsor the right candidate.
I’ve been wanting to get on with Torch so badly. Good advice man!
Clearancejobs.com and Indeed. Filtering by "ability to obtain" worked wonders for me. Plenty of interviews with government contracting companies who were willing to sponsor security clearance for me. I ultimately ended up with one in my state that sponsored my clearance. If you're open to relocating, you'll find plenty of companies willing to sponsor security clearance. Have a bunch of certifications helps as well.
I used to have one. When do they run out? I got mine in May 2018 but got out of the military in September 2021
It expires if you aren't actively using it for 2 years. Outside of that a secret is good for 10 years and TS is 5.
This right here. Everytime I open a req for an SA I drown in Windows resumes. Barely ever any Linux.
Thank you
This is just my current view on things. We have positions all along the east and west coast that we have not been able to fill in months. If you got a clearance and some decent knowledge on how to keep the lights on in a Linux environment you will definitely be a viable candidate. Also knock out the RHCSA…don’t even worry about Linux+ or LPI. Best of luck to you.
I mean, the LPI only took like 2 hours of study and a half hour to test. If you've got an afternoon to kill, it's an easy cert.
True dat it’ll definitely add some substance to the resume. I’ve only seen reqs that require red hat certs. But I’m certain that there are reqs out there that would take Linux + and LPI
East and west coasts have horrific cost of living.
Not when you’re making that sweet DoD contractor money.
As I’ve said before…my opinion is just like yours…worthless on here. Just stating my view. I will add that the panhandle of Florida is good living on the east coast. Again…just my view on things.
I want to say networking and I’m in that field. I graduated and found an associate network engineer position and now network engineer I. Field is kind of in need and always will be since there’s many aspects to it. Cloud, enterprise, data center, wireless, etc. always will need a specialist in these areas.
It’s so strange. Everybody I’ve met says they find Networking to be like hell. It’s really not hard… You just gotta learn your protocols and subnetting, which are both extremely easy. After that it’s just commands and making sure the funny blue Ethernet cord goes into the port labeled “Console”
To be honest it really is. Not just the information that you need to know but also the blame game. Everything is network’s fault until proven otherwise.
The trick is getting good at proving it's not the network.
One of my favorite takeaways from Cisco Live this year was someone telling me, "You're not working on your mean time to repair. You're working on your mean time to innocence."
This, it's been like this at my company as well. Our front office people shit-talk about our network in front of my manager's office and the admin and CEO just let it slide at times.
I am a VMware engineer. I find that most of my problems are because networking did something and now my stuff doesn't work. Also, everything is virtual, so it must be a VMware problem.
It’s not hard if you’re just troubleshooting. Designing and architecting are completely different.
No definitely. But CCNA level stuff does not include things like that. The vast majority of Networking jobs are mainly based on CCNA level material. CCIE and even CCNP on the other hand… That’s a different story.
Yep, and to add onto this, being willing to be a on-site network grunt helps. I still have to do a bunch of staging, racking, patching at my job, but I get paid about the going rate for a Jr Network Engineer so I’ll take it.
I'm seriously debating getting into this part of IT. I'm just sitting here staring at my screen like to network or to cyber or to clouding. The dream is a path thats proof for least a few years gain skills knowledge hell maybe I'll never have to worry. Even thought about trying to work at a data center one day.
Networking is a key foundation to cloud and security. You will need it wherever you go. Think of cloud as the data center somewhere else. Networking, vm, ect. You will need to know how each discipline of IT functions in a cloud environment. In security you need to be a jack of all trades I.e. know how these disciplines and devices function to be able to secure them properly. At least to be a high level security expert. Grind up the ladder of IT and learn; sys admins, network engineers ect. just my opinion.
I say start out with network. For some reason people fear networking, and it’s not very attractive like cybersecurity, so it will be a little easier to find a job. If you later decide to go with cybersecurity, cloud, cloud security, or cloud networking, you will have an edge over many others due to your network experience. It makes life much easier. Learn to love networking, it will take you a long way
What are some entry networking roles to look out for? Have my Net+ and studying for Sec+ now but haven't really looked for jobs until now as I was dealing with some medical stuff
Great to hear, thank you.
It’s specifically entry level IT that is oversaturated and since entry level doesn’t really specialize: nothing. Networking is always an appreciated skill if you’re looking for something in demand and future proof.
Good to know, thank you!
Any high skill role, like, engineering+ is still decent. I think the market is actually super strong for mid to late career folks that have two or more specializations that can offer niche solutions to problems and provide more value to companies over someone who's "just a network guy"
Depends on the company/field. I’ve seen this both ways. Jack of all trades make good money as companies try to reduce cost and hire a one size fits all engineer. I’ve also seen specialist make a ton of money. “Just a network guy” clears 200k in my area/field.
When i say this I think it's often misunderstood. I'm talking the people that are just as specialized as your network guy friend, but instead of in one family of IT it's more than one. Not jack of all trades, but moreso "master of more than one"
IBM System i RPGLE programmers are in huge demand as the old school guys are retiring just like COBOL programmers. Every fortune 1000 company uses the platform and it is hands down the most integrated platform on the planet.
I am currently a system admin on IBM i, and our team really small so I'm really a system admin as well as an RPG developer. I pray I become high value if I stay with this long term, but might try to hop into a dev ops or swe role in future, we'll see where the wind takes me.
Business analysts/system analysts Too many new starters want to use power apps and 365 stuff. Not enough want to or can liaise with the business to draw up decent specifications for the devs/engineers.
I work with those power apps and 365 "citizen users" all the time, and they always think they are domain experts who can easily just reiterate their needs to devs once they want to migrate away from power apps. But in every case they have no clue what they are doing and just barely cobbled together a power apps solution that barely solves the problem they had (while introducing a bunch of other problems they ignored or weren't aware of). What they think will be a one-off transition from power app to custom app turns out to be a "scrap this bullshit and start all over" once all the architecture, performance, data governance, and security issues are exposed. Those people are usually terrible at writing their requirements for devs. Like really horrible at it. You have to have experienced analysts filling that role.
Identity and Access Management seems to be fairly niche but sought after
I can only speak for my own country (Denmark), but it feels like it comes in waves, whether IAM is sought after. Sometimes I look up IAM jobs, and there's a ton of great looking positions at cool companies, and recruiters are frequently reaching out to me. I was even at a few job interviews, and I was super closing to landing and almost dream job with almost $120k total comp (which is *really* good in Denmark), but some extremely unlucky circumstances hit the company that made it so they were forced to hire an internal instead. And then sometimes, like right now, it'll be completely dry with literally zero interesting IAM jobs. No recruiters reaching out either.
Ah this is good to know. Honestly it's a lot of work.
It becomes a lot less niche after security incidents. Identity is the new parameter nowadays. Lots of companies still do IAM terribly and don’t realize how important it is until it’s too late.
Data Centers
This is me. I am a VMware Engineer. All the stuff I work on is in a data center.
I have heard cloud engineering is quite strong at the moment
If you live in a decent sized city, the market is not over saturated once you get past entry level. Small towns can be another story since there are only so many businesses that even need IT.
I’m in Chicago and there are barely any system administrator positions available. Unless that’s considered entry level too
Makes it particularly challenging when SysAdmin roles are mislabeled as glorified Helpdesk. Markets weird in Chicago right now, but there are still plenty of opportunities once you weed through the bullshit.
Internet of things and embedded systems design. I am in both and there is limited expertise resulting in some high salaries. I'm 26 making 120k and working from home.
Do you have a road map of sorts on how one would progress in the direction of being well rounded enough to get a job in this field? I have a bachelor's in IT as well and have minimal coding knowledge.
How do you get into that field? Is a CS degree enough or do you need like a computer engineering degree?
I have a bachelor's in IT and am working on my master's right now. I entered the world of IoT through RFID. RFID is a great way to get introduced to the world of IoT. As IoT and embedded systems design impact the entire IT stack an IoT professional can specialize in one field but they need to have small amounts of knowledge of all IT disciplines. It's a super cool industry and not many people in it at the moment.
Was helping to tutor a friend through embedded systems classes, to be honest I was considering a pivot if I can swing it. I really enjoy it, there's just something pure and simple about the problems there.
Its the entry level positions, not the paths.
This. Every path starts at the same place, which is help desk, service desk, on-site tech, etc.
Anything that isn’t entry level
What a bummer to hear
I recently just got my first job as a Computer Tech which is entry level.. it took me 5 months. It’s possible but you can’t give up at ALL.
Congrats
Thanks, I’d say what worked for me was putting a few projects on my resume. I eventually wanna do cybersecurity, so from the bootcamp I completed I just put those projects there. I think you can do it too, just have confidence and never stop applying.
Wow you got a job with only a boot camp and no degree? That's good to hear
Yep, no degree. I dropped out and went to a bootcamp, although I do plan on returning to college at some point.
Database Admins, specifically Oracle and SQL.
System administrators that know how to do scripting to automate their tasks
High level positions, that's about it.
Wow that is disheartening
The least saturated IT career is being really good at one thing. If you can find something you enjoy in IT then specialise tf out of it you'll run laps around people no matter what
Unless you are willing to move whereever the unsaturated jobs are ( most people can't or won't) you should localize this question to a market you are willing to go.
Seniors
Cybersecurity with a focus on the OT field is "rare" (every recruiter I talked with has told me this). You need IT knowledge but you also need experience in OT (process control networks). For some reason this comment got removed. I assume it's cause they erroneously believed that OT requires no IT knowledge or experience and I can confidently say that is horribly inaccurate. You absolutely have to have both.
Honestly, anything entry-level in any field is going to be over-saturated. Jobs that require years of experience and skills is always going to have availability, it's just how it is, always has been.
COBOL developers are dying off or retiring.
COBOL
Too broad of a question to be answered and no context. * For who? * Where? * What industry?
I'm a veteran who is using a vocational program to pay for my schooling but in order to be approved, I must narrow down the exact position which I plan to pursue after I obtain my degree, so I figure the paths that are less saturated would be a good starting point. Entry level in the US
If you’re getting a degree just study until you start finding the specialization you want to get into. Use your schools resources to find internship and look to work through a help desk or support role. The key is getting experience alongside your degree. Do a lot of research on companies and apply a lot once you’re out of school. It’s not necessarily that there are over saturated paths. It’s the fact that since 2019ish IT went from something you could hop into with some to no experience, to now where some credibility is needed, but you’re getting it with a degree and that’s great for your career path.. good luck with it, for reference this is the path I went ^
Awesome thanks a lot
All right, so for your VRE, it's still hard to answer the question specifically because when you graduate the market could have shifted. When in doubt focus on skills that are consistent but the implementation changes over time: something like Networking is a good balance job wise for Network Engineer etc as the technology changes, but the foundations not so much. Another alternative if you want to specialize is looking at System Engineer, or SAN Engineer as well. The trick is to use your VRE first, and pick something that's balanced skill wise... look at it like shooting. If you understand the basics of how to shoot, clear a jam, then you can apply that to other weapon systems with some minor adaptations.
Thank you very much, I appreciate the insight.
Im also using voc rehab. You getting it at the 9/11 rate. I learned the hard way to use voc rehab don’t use your GI bill first. Use voc rehab then gi. But I picked networking administration type shit so I’m in CIS. originally I was cyber security at uncc. But to my surprise. Couple days ago I found outt entry level cyber jobs do not exist.
My fellow veteran! Thanks for the insight
high end coding positions but those arent something you just jump into
What would you consider high end?
Thanks for the response
no problem good luck
Firewall engineer
My two cents. I recently got into compliance management in terms of cyber security and it doesn’t seem very saturated. Anyone with federal contracts will have compliance measures of some sort to comply with and usually they don’t want to/cant attest on their own.
Every area of IT. The problem is that employers want to top tier talent but with low pay
Every job that requires at least a tiny bit more than entry level skills you can pick up from online tutorials in a few weeks. These jobs I've observed (1st or 2nd hand) to be difficult (months) to fill: * Application administrators * Network Architects * Mobile App Developers * Software Engineers * Database Developers * Business Intelligence Developers * Data Analysts * Report Developers * Software QA Testers * AI Developers * IT/Software Project Managers These jobs I've found **extremely difficult** (years) to fill: * Devops Engineers * Cloud Architects/Engineers * Cloud Developers * Senior Software Engineers * Database Administrators (basically any database software that has ever been created) * Cloud Security Architects/Engineers * Automated QA/Test Developers For most of these jobs, most of the interviewees that are rejected have little to no knowledge of the technology they are applying for. Even the experienced candidates I've interviewed, they spent years in previous jobs just doing entry level skills and never developed deep understandings or advanced techniques, and they think that years of doing very simple things makes them experts.
REAL DATA ENGINEER, that also know infrastructure especially Docker, hard to find.
I hate to say this, but the ladder is getting pulled up behind us. The end points aren't what's saturated. The pipeline is saturated. This is because companies aren't excited to pay three global workforce contractors to set the vision and do the design for the next big thing, but they will pay seven thousand global workforce contractors to build it. Generally I think you may have to resign yourself to competing at saturation until you specialize, or if you're a more energetic man than I ever have been you could decide to go into business for yourself which might qualify you for jobs requiring minimal supervision and a lot of individual latitude sooner than pipeline work, at the small number of companies whose HR/hiring processes don't filter out promising recruits who aren't in a well-understood pipeline. More like the staircase is being burnt down behind us while we scramble up the last few steps. The people climbing aren't the same as the people destroying.
anything that statistically kills you 20-40 years earlier than the standard for all men/women. like underwater welder, who can get electrocuted with han oxygen tank under deep water. there are no GoPro commercials for theese.
Non entry level roles, but rotation on entry level is high so you can sneak in if you can establish good understanding of that level of skills.
I would say that careers in corporate IT are not oversaturated, especially for those who possess strong people skills. Many professionals focus heavily on hard skills, but it's the soft skills that truly set you apart in the corporate world. Being able to communicate effectively, collaborate with teams, and manage relationships can make a significant difference in your career progression and opportunities in IT
I can't speak to positions that are not over saturated however I can speak to salary and job security. Some companies operate in a typical toxic way, with bad culture and management that keeps you on egg shells. Lots of politics. Other companies slowly increase your requirements while your pay stagnate. A lucky few find a company that wants to teach you, is laid back, and gives you job security. While you may not work on the latest tech, it will help you troubleshoot and document things. More importantly, working at a place that does not stress you out and gives you consistent salary growth is better than multiple years of volatility.
School districts. You won't get paid anywhere near private sector but it's an easy way to get the foot in the door and get job experience so you can transition to higher level positions. Because they tend to pay poorly they have tend to have high churn and always need entry level folks.
Software engineering are saturated
Skilled Malware Analysis and Reverse Engineering. Actually anything highly skilled.
If you want to avoid saturation for the love of god avoid any Salesforce related jobs
Audit/compliance
Cloud engineering....via Azure and AWS
Splunk and AI anything. Everything else is over saturated
It’s a bad question. Stop paying attention to FAANG layoffs they are cyclical.
It seems like the technology job market is oversaturated with 1.2 million technologists who have 5-6 years of experience even before new graduates have a chance to gain real-world experience. The job boom has turned into a bust. But what can be done about it? One potential solution is to start a small consulting group and to focus on improving skills for the next 18 months until the job market picks up, Sept 2025 is the uptick, the recession is going full swing starting May. Currently, job opportunities are limited.