Career path for IT pros

[luohongxian]

In a harsh manner, one has to reflect onto one's capability at times. Obviously no one else can tell you what you can be because simply they do not know enough. But any individual will want to be truthful for his/her own sake. The advise is merely given as a 3rd party, recipient should ponder over it and assess if it is appropriate.

I was advising based on the following description


While I advocate 活到老学到老，it doesn't mean the way at which one will absorb at the age of 40-50 is the same as one whom is 10-20. Also the mentality/心境 is different.

AI and BIG DATA is a radically different field as oppose to the normal software engineering and system engineering. Based on the past 20 years experience of the said poster, his/her lowest lying fruit, IMHO, is cloud computing. Starting afresh to pick up all the necessary fundamentals to be successful in AI and Big Data is a rush timeline for someone whom is in one's 40s while mainly only experienced as a system engineer. Even software engineering will be a significant jump.

On the other hand, cloud computing is extension from system engineering with a good mixture of devops; hence the inclusion of a software engineering skill set. Future employers looking for a cloud computing certified engineer will regard his/her past experience as a system engineer a relevant skill set. AI and BIG DATA does not regard system engineers as prior skill set.

Does it answer your doubt to my recommendation ?

Thank for answering so promptly. But basically what i do is just destop support, not even system enginner. I will consider your advice seeiously and plan for next step.

 

[davidktw]

Do you study during office hours? Or at home? Wife doesn't complain?

Do you need to entertain your wife 24x7? I bet she need free time away from you too at times to do her own stuffs or just loitering around. When she does, what do you do?

Meanwhile I am experimenting with React using the initial style, and then using the Hook style. Basically playing around with the technology exploring it, not just using it.

Let’s just also say, even during work, I have free time to dwell into my own research. We are not all that busy at times, but rather sometimes we are sloppy in time management

 

[davidktw]

Thank for answering so promptly. But basically what i do is just destop support, not even system enginner. I will consider your advice seeiously and plan for next step.

Desktop support can also move up to cloud computing. Albeit it wouldn’t be devops, it will certainly make you more attractive as a system support managing cloud infrastructure. From there you can transit more into a system engineer.

I recommend that you take a look at the various AWS certifications and sign up some udemy courses to get yourself familiarise with AWS. AWS is not the largest cloud provider for the wrong reason. There is certainly a marketable skill set to it

https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-sysops-admin-associate/

Do take a closer look

 

[luohongxian]

Desktop support can also move up to cloud computing. Albeit it wouldn’t be devops, it will certainly make you more attractive as a system support managing cloud infrastructure. From there you can transit more into a system engineer.

I recommend that you take a look at the various AWS certifications and sign up some udemy courses to get yourself familiarise with AWS. AWS is not the largest cloud provider for the wrong reason. There is certainly a marketable skill set to it

https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-sysops-admin-associate/

Do take a closer look

Thank, david. Currently, i applying for the sgunited google cloud technology.

https://grow.google/intl/ALL_sg/result/cloud-engineering/

Is this google cloud technology similar to the AWS that you have mentioned above?

 

[FatalityV]

Do you need to entertain your wife 24x7? I bet she need free time away from you too at times to do her own stuffs or just loitering around. When she does, what do you do?

Meanwhile I am experimenting with React using the initial style, and then using the Hook style. Basically playing around with the technology exploring it, not just using it.

Let’s just also say, even during work, I have free time to dwell into my own research. We are not all that busy at times, but rather sometimes we are sloppy in time management

React is fun! Is this your first foray into react?

Once I got into react, I could never go back to the jquery way of doing things.

 

[davidktw]

React is fun! Is this your first foray into react?

Once I got into react, I could never go back to the jquery way of doing things.

I have been playing with frontend technologies all over the places, not new to react, just don’t use it often enough myself. Can’t say first foray, just dwell into it at times and see what I may have missed out

Don’t like it too much for it may change yet again some days down the road. The essence of all these stuffs is virtual dom, maybe you want to find out how virtual dom works

Generally my forte is with backend technologies more than frontend.

 

[fzhfzh]

For normal tech career progression, there’s the independent contributor track or the management track. This is kind of the common standard for larger tech companies:

Independent contributor track:
Entry (Fresh grad) -> intermediate (3yoe) -> senior (6yoe) -> staff -> senior staff -> principal etc

Senior is the terminal level and you are not expected to be promoted beyond that. So you could be there for 20+ years with gradually increasing pay.

The problem with independent contributor track is that other than a couple of huge tech companies you can count with 2 hands, most other tech companies will not have the complexity or scalability requirements that really need a senior staff or above level of expertise. So IC track is a lot harder to climb in terms of corporate.

Management track:
Entry -> intermediate -> senior -> engineering manager -> engineering director -> vp engineering

Management track for engineering usually starts at senior. It’s usually a lot easier to advance to manager, director etc than staff engineer. So this is the track you will see most engineers end up in. But it requires totally different set of skills. It’s basically a manager skill set with understanding of engineering background. This model is commonly used in Silicon Valley as good engineers don’t respect or listen to managers who weren’t great engineers themselves. But you basically stop coding when you go on this track.

There are mixed models like tech lead manager where you do half coding half management. But it’s rare because it’s not a good idea most of the time. When you are coding and managing at the same time, there are conflicts of interests are you are managing people who are coding in the same code base as you.


Product management:

Other than that, it’s also common for engineers, especially front end engineers to transition to product management track. Product management requires ability to communicate with engineers, as well as close understanding of the product, which fits front end engineers perfectly.

 

[davidktw]

Thank, david. Currently, i applying for the sgunited google cloud technology.

https://grow.google/intl/ALL_sg/result/cloud-engineering/

Is this google cloud technology similar to the AWS that you have mentioned above?

I would have suggested AWS as your first into cloud, but you can also try GCP if you prefer. While cloud computing general knowledge across all the mature cloud providers are similar, the details to each platform do differs significantly. If I am not mistaken, the 2 main go-to cloud providers in Singapore is AWS and Azure. If you are keen to venture, you should choose either of them.

Referring to the gartner magic quadrant, https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-cloud-gains-in-gartners-2019-cloud-infrastructure-magic-quadrant/, for 2019, it should be quite evident why I say so.

 

[jackoats.sg]

Each cloud provider has competing products and services for a particular use cases such as compute, databases, app development etc.

AWS is clearly the market leader, so as Azure.

But I like Google's generous offers to get us trained in their technologies. One thing that they could improve on is to create better training materials and stronger community that would make learning easier.

Thank, david. Currently, i applying for the sgunited google cloud technology.

https://grow.google/intl/ALL_sg/result/cloud-engineering/

Is this google cloud technology similar to the AWS that you have mentioned above?

 

[Trader11]

I would have suggested AWS as your first into cloud, but you can also try GCP if you prefer. While cloud computing general knowledge across all the mature cloud providers are similar, the details to each platform do differs significantly. If I am not mistaken, the 2 main go-to cloud providers in Singapore is AWS and Azure. If you are keen to venture, you should choose either of them.

Referring to the gartner magic quadrant, https://www.zdnet.com/article/googl...ers-2019-cloud-infrastructure-magic-quadrant/, for 2019, it should be quite evident why I say so.

Google have been trying hard to increase adoption. But a lot of local agencies are Microsoft stack.

 

[Skyeagle]

I would have suggested AWS as your first into cloud, but you can also try GCP if you prefer. While cloud computing general knowledge across all the mature cloud providers are similar, the details to each platform do differs significantly. If I am not mistaken, the 2 main go-to cloud providers in Singapore is AWS and Azure. If you are keen to venture, you should choose either of them.

Referring to the gartner magic quadrant, https://www.zdnet.com/article/googl...ers-2019-cloud-infrastructure-magic-quadrant/, for 2019, it should be quite evident why I say so.

Let's say a person from a decides to study for cloud certifications. And maybe, end of the day, he passes all the exams and gets all the certifications in cloud. I am not sure how easy or difficult are all these certifications.

What are the chances of this person getting hired by a company dealing with cloud since all he do not have really industry experience?

 

[Trader11]

Let's say a person from a decides to study for cloud certifications. And maybe, end of the day, he passes all the exams and gets all the certifications in cloud. I am not sure how easy or difficult are all these certifications.

What are the chances of this person getting hired by a company dealing with cloud since all he do not have really industry experience?

How many people in Singapore can claim that they have industry experience in GCP (since it is less popular than Azure or AWS)? If they have, why would they move laterally to another company?

 

[davidktw]

Google have been trying hard to increase adoption. But a lot of local agencies are Microsoft stack.

Do you know which provider the GCC is most developed in?

 

[davidktw]

Let's say a person from a decides to study for cloud certifications. And maybe, end of the day, he passes all the exams and gets all the certifications in cloud. I am not sure how easy or difficult are all these certifications.

What are the chances of this person getting hired by a company dealing with cloud since all he do not have really industry experience?

I can’t give you a percentage of how more attractive, but certainly more than someone whom has none. Do not be mistaken that none of these certifications are standalone certifications compared to a Computer Science degree or years of relevant industrial knowledge and experiences. They are there to compliment your existing knowledge.

You should be more concern with what you get out from able to be certified, not the certifications themselves.

 

[luohongxian]

I can’t give you a percentage of how more attractive, but certainly more than someone whom has none. Do not be mistaken that none of these certifications are standalone certifications compared to a Computer Science degree or years of relevant industrial knowledge and experiences. They are there to compliment your existing knowledge.

You should be more concern with what you get out from able to be certified, not the certifications themselves.

But even you can get certification and if I never find a relevant job, im quite sure I will forgot all the knowledge that i have study for 6 months.

 

[davidktw]

But even you can get certification and if I never find a relevant job, im quite sure I will forgot all the knowledge that i have study for 6 months.

Did you forget how to cycle or swim? I don’t even forget things I have learnt almost 20 years back, but someone just graduated 3 years ago told me they have forgotten it.

It depends on how much you love the knowledge you are studying. Hence you have to decide for yourself, why are you in this line?

It will be an egg and chicken problem, using your line of thoughts. Thus what do you want to do? Want to learn or just leave it alone and never be considered by your future employers? You decide

Be very noted. I didn’t advise people to get certification for cloud computing for the sake of the certifications. I advise people to learn cloud computing and be certified for your employers to know you are capable in handling cloud deployments. When you are questioned and tested for the relevant knowledge, you should be able to demonstrate your worth, not take out your certificates.

For example: If you know AWS well enough, you should be able to tell me that snapshots of EBS volumes are full snapshot with incremental cost. If you architect your snapshots talking about incremental backups daily and full backup weekly/monthly, that means you don’t know AWS EBS volume backup. That is what I mean by you know cloud computing, in specific to AWS in this case.

 

[Trader11]

Did you forget how to cycle or swim? I don’t even forget things I have learnt almost 20 years back, but someone just graduated 3 years ago told me they have forgotten it.

It depends on how much you love the knowledge you are studying. Hence you have to decide for yourself, why are you in this line?

It will be an egg and chicken problem, using your line of thoughts. Thus what do you want to do? Want to learn or just leave it alone and never be considered by your future employers? You decide

Be very noted. I didn’t advise people to get certification for cloud computing for the sake of the certifications. I advise people to learn cloud computing and be certified for your employers to know you are capable in handling cloud deployments. When you are questioned and tested for the relevant knowledge, you should be able to demonstrate your worth, not take out your certificates.

For example: If you know AWS well enough, you should be able to tell me that snapshots of EBS volumes are full snapshot with incremental cost. If you architect your snapshots talking about incremental backups daily and full backup weekly/monthly, that means you don’t know AWS EBS volume backup. That is what I mean by you know cloud computing, in specific to AWS in this case.

Hw do you learn these practical knowledge in 6 months?

 

[davidktw]

Hw do you learn these practical knowledge in 6 months?

You don’t. You will have to use AWS and read up from its documentation and other sources to be well informed. AWS documentation is rather comprehensive but one can be lost in it easily too if you are not competent to a certain level because you wouldn’t have enough depth to know what to look for. Thus passing the certification is not equivalent to knowing AWS deep enough to architect robustly. There are gotchas along the way that I found out using it extensively in my projects and also research on my own. I say it will take between 1-2 years of real using it to be familiar, and more years to keep up with the ever changing features in AWS. AWS is really large today versus a few years back. That being said you don’t need to be good in all services to be relatively competent in it.

 

[ceecookie]

For normal tech career progression, there’s the independent contributor track or the management track. This is kind of the common standard for larger tech companies:

Independent contributor track:
Entry (Fresh grad) -> intermediate (3yoe) -> senior (6yoe) -> staff -> senior staff -> principal etc

Senior is the terminal level and you are not expected to be promoted beyond that. So you could be there for 20+ years with gradually increasing pay.

The problem with independent contributor track is that other than a couple of huge tech companies you can count with 2 hands, most other tech companies will not have the complexity or scalability requirements that really need a senior staff or above level of expertise. So IC track is a lot harder to climb in terms of corporate.

Management track:
Entry -> intermediate -> senior -> engineering manager -> engineering director -> vp engineering

Management track for engineering usually starts at senior. It’s usually a lot easier to advance to manager, director etc than staff engineer. So this is the track you will see most engineers end up in. But it requires totally different set of skills. It’s basically a manager skill set with understanding of engineering background. This model is commonly used in Silicon Valley as good engineers don’t respect or listen to managers who weren’t great engineers themselves. But you basically stop coding when you go on this track.

There are mixed models like tech lead manager where you do half coding half management. But it’s rare because it’s not a good idea most of the time. When you are coding and managing at the same time, there are conflicts of interests are you are managing people who are coding in the same code base as you.


Product management:

Other than that, it’s also common for engineers, especially front end engineers to transition to product management track. Product management requires ability to communicate with engineers, as well as close understanding of the product, which fits front end engineers perfectly.

Well written. I find coding is typically feasible only for 5-10 years post-grad maximum. Beyond that, pay will be stagnant and those that continue are really "passionate" about the coding language itself. Same goes for direct networking and AWS skills.

After 5-10 years, best is to hop to project management track so the bulk of the time consuming coding works can be left to the junior developers or even FTs. You can then focus on the management part which require more personal skills and less time consuming code stuff. If you excel in this, your pay can accelerate faster than a typical developer. Depending on company, this track is also less chance of being replaced fully with FT/**** since it's more higher corporate level.

If you have the fortune of joining the government sector, most IT depts development/coding works are outsourced to external vendors so you will be fast tracked on the project management track. Regardless of how many new SDK or other coding features launched in the market, u can leave it to the outsourced developers to learn them. U just need to know the high level view to explain to the upper mgt.

 

[davidktw]

Thank for your resourceful insight in cloud computing sector. I'm really appreciated your reply.

You are welcome, just prompt when you have doubts.