Domain switch

[xiao_cai7]

Dear All

Currently had been working for 9 years, bulk of my career in the areas of VOIP, IP-PBX, IP telephony.

Initially found VOIP very interesting and was able to help customer save IDD costs.

However now I find a stagnation in this domain and low pay though we are in a niche area.

Current trends in my industry

-Death of Nortel
-Slowing death of Avaya, customers moving to cisco, or other cheaper IP-PBX vendor, many vendors.
-Customers' mindset, telephone system is for calling, no need spend so much to buy new system or upgrade system. Our decreasing revenue from maintenance, hardly from new implementations.
-Survive from contact centre, but bulk of contact centres infra are located in Philippines.
-PBX no longer important except for large enterprise, there's mobile.
- seeing my colleagues toiled so much to learn a new system to be render useless in 8-10years, then pay get stagnated.

My ideal move
-Domain which involves no hardware (no stupid EOS and EOL stuff)
-Put in my energy and hardwork dedicating at a skillset to last me till retirement with increasing pay.( similar like govt job)
-Aiming to enter junior management as can't be ground engineer forever.


Domains I see not phasing out soon with increasing demand and pay, which am interested.
- Security
- Apps Development
- Virtualization
- IT Governance
- IT Audit
- BIG Data

Weakeness
-Programming

Background
- Diploma in IT
- Bachleor Degree in IT
- Expired CCNA
- Expired Nortel Certs
- Alittle video background
- gross pay 3.5, aim 8k take home.

Anyone in a same situation can share how you all transited to another domain.

All advices and criticisms are welcomed.

 

[seesiang]

Dear All

Currently had been working for 9 years, bulk of my career in the areas of VOIP, IP-PBX, IP telephony.

Initially found VOIP very interesting and was able to help customer save IDD costs.

However now I find a stagnation in this domain and low pay though we are in a niche area.

Current trends in my industry

-Death of Nortel
-Slowing death of Avaya, customers moving to cisco, or other cheaper IP-PBX vendor, many vendors.
-Customers' mindset, telephone system is for calling, no need spend so much to buy new system or upgrade system. Our decreasing revenue from maintenance, hardly from new implementations.
-Survive from contact centre, but bulk of contact centres infra are located in Philippines.
-PBX no longer important except for large enterprise, there's mobile.
- seeing my colleagues toiled so much to learn a new system to be render useless in 8-10years, then pay get stagnated.

My ideal move
-Domain which involves no hardware (no stupid EOS and EOL stuff)
-Put in my energy and hardwork dedicating at a skillset to last me till retirement with increasing pay.( similar like govt job)
-Aiming to enter junior management as can't be ground engineer forever.


Domains I see not phasing out soon with increasing demand and pay, which am interested.
- Security
- Apps Development
- Virtualization
- IT Governance
- IT Audit
- BIG Data

Weakeness
-Programming

Background
- Diploma in IT
- Bachleor Degree in IT
- Expired CCNA
- Expired Nortel Certs
- Alittle video background
- gross pay 3.5, aim 8k take home.

Anyone in a same situation can share how you all transited to another domain.

All advices and criticisms are welcomed.

Don't go into app development. Too many ft and non-Chinese are doing. Big data is old technology but it is heavily used recently. Security is alway there since 4 years ago. But securiry has been moving fast.

 

[alvinaloy]

Don't bother with IT governance. Most companies don't really care about it while other companies think that IT governance = IT security...

 

[charliebrown]

since u got ccna, why not network?
cisco system not dying. IOS commands also not major relearning.

 

[zuoom]

Compliance and security. This.

 

[xiao_cai7]

Don't go into app development. Too many ft and non-Chinese are doing. Big data is old technology but it is heavily used recently. Security is alway there since 4 years ago. But securiry has been moving fast.

Hi mind to sharing whats your focus now, position and gross pay?

 

[seowbin]

what VoIP system you specialize in?

now the story is not about cost saving, is about collaboration, increasing efficiency such as with IM, click to call, group chat (with history from the beginning when this group established) , etc .

it has been donkey years that i tell my customer that VoIP can bring them IDD cost saving tangible stuff like ROI is very hard to achieve but intangible stuff gain such as time saving, faster decision making, time to market, etc is what every company wants.

 

[seesiang]

Don't bother with IT governance. Most companies don't really care about it while other companies think that IT governance = IT security...

Most companies may not focus in depth such as red team, audit, compliance. But decent companies still require these.

For example, banks due to ibtrm or a common term technology risk management. Healthcare due to hipaa and "money gateway" due to pci dss.

There is no right no wrong but depending if you have the right skill sets at the right time.

Security is niche market to start with.

 

[seesiang]

Hi mind to sharing whats your focus now, position and gross pay?

Salary is about your range, maybe slightly higher.
Position is just a humble information security analyst which is a junior position.
Focus is on security. In order to survive, paper chasing and hunger for knowledge must be there. The scope is too wide as you go along. But I am getting tired of paper chasing.

Every field can become an elite. Only elite can bring home 8k or 5 digits salary. Even for voip, there are companies willing to pay, of course, it goes back to paper chasing, the ccie, unix/Windows etc.

There is no shortcut to success.

Think twice if you want to swing to another field. In Singapore, without pathing the right way, you may end up having short change in your salary.

 

[xiao_cai7]

what VoIP system you specialize in?

now the story is not about cost saving, is about collaboration, increasing efficiency such as with IM, click to call, group chat (with history from the beginning when this group established) , etc .

it has been donkey years that i tell my customer that VoIP can bring them IDD cost saving tangible stuff like ROI is very hard to achieve but intangible stuff gain such as time saving, faster decision making, time to market, etc is what every company wants.

You doing Lync?

 

[seowbin]

You doing Lync?

cisco

collabration suite from phone system to IM to webex, video from any devices. a lot of things to sell but boring already

 

[chengsun]

anyone here is involved int eh Smart Nation thingy?

 

[Dryden28]

Xiao_Cai bro

Forget about vmware, the category is too wide. You need to know abit of everything from network to different systems. Its impossible to be expert at everything. As for security, if i'm not wrong i believe cisco have bought over ecop therefore its almost a monopoly for IT security in SG at the moment. Most opening right now are sensors installation jobs instead of monitoring

My suggestion is re-certified your ccna or get a jncia. I recently got employed by a data center and i'm quite surprised by how competitive the industry is. Every company is expanding at the moment and there's simply a lack of both cisco and juniper routing expert in the field. They are also trying very hard to retain their staff too as there are also alot of headhunting. The person previously in my position was headhunted by google.

The only down side is data center is 24/7 there will definitely be 12 hr shift work and working on public holidays but don't worry, you will not work more that 44 hrs per week (work 3 day rest 2 day or work 4 day rest 3 day) and be paid reasonably well

 

[seesiang]

Xiao_Cai bro

Forget about vmware, the category is too wide. You need to know abit of everything from network to different systems. Its impossible to be expert at everything. As for security, if i'm not wrong i believe cisco have bought over ecop therefore its almost a monopoly for IT security in SG at the moment. Most opening right now are sensors installation jobs instead of monitoring

My suggestion is re-certified your ccna or get a jncia. I recently got employed by a data center and i'm quite surprised by how competitive the industry is. Every company is expanding at the moment and there's simply a lack of both cisco and juniper routing expert in the field. They are also trying very hard to retain their staff too as there are also alot of headhunting. The person previously in my position was headhunted by google.

The only down side is data center is 24/7 there will definitely be 12 hr shift work and working on public holidays but don't worry, you will not work more that 44 hrs per week (work 3 day rest 2 day or work 4 day rest 3 day) and be paid reasonably well

Go with this person's saying. Do something related to your current role if your main motive is to earn more money. And do something to upgrade your market value.

This apply even for my role in security.

Certis Cisco bought e-Cop to provide one stop hub for security. There are other SI available other than e-Cop. And e-Cop is in heavy demand for manpower now.

If you are good with telecommunications, try the datacenter. There are really large mnc around with good paying power. But you have to jusitfy why they pay you that amount

 

[havetheveryfun]

Xiao_Cai bro

Forget about vmware, the category is too wide. You need to know abit of everything from network to different systems. Its impossible to be expert at everything. As for security, if i'm not wrong i believe cisco have bought over ecop therefore its almost a monopoly for IT security in SG at the moment. Most opening right now are sensors installation jobs instead of monitoring

My suggestion is re-certified your ccna or get a jncia. I recently got employed by a data center and i'm quite surprised by how competitive the industry is. Every company is expanding at the moment and there's simply a lack of both cisco and juniper routing expert in the field. They are also trying very hard to retain their staff too as there are also alot of headhunting. The person previously in my position was headhunted by google.

The only down side is data center is 24/7 there will definitely be 12 hr shift work and working on public holidays but don't worry, you will not work more that 44 hrs per week (work 3 day rest 2 day or work 4 day rest 3 day) and be paid reasonably well

hmm the 12 hr shift have overnight right ? if only 12 hr day shift still ok, but if got overnight one I think a lot of people in their 30-40s their bodies cant take it or want to accompany their families more...

maybe that is also the reason why the industry is more competitive since this would have already weeded out like half of the people.. so guess theres good and bad

 

[seowbin]

just do something of your interests.

 

[Dryden28]

hmm the 12 hr shift have overnight right ? if only 12 hr day shift still ok, but if got overnight one I think a lot of people in their 30-40s their bodies cant take it or want to accompany their families more...

maybe that is also the reason why the industry is more competitive since this would have already weeded out like half of the people.. so guess theres good and bad

9 to 6 and shift work positions are about 50-50. In my opinion, I seem to have more time for my family on shift compared to my fellow colleagues who is on 9 to 6 work.

Those on shift practically do not get disturb on their off days but those on normal working hours seems to have to standby, be recalled, asked to work from home during their off days and midnight calls to make urgent changes to system to meet SLA quite often.

The most awesome thing is that when I apply for 3 days of annual leave, i will get 8 rest days due to the off days before and after the 3 work days I have applied for

The down side would definitely whether your body can take working 12hrs in the night. I do feel the effect after about 3 months even though i skip the soft drinks and snacks in the pantry and made sure i have aleast 7 hrs of sleep a day.

 

[seesiang]

9 to 6 and shift work positions are about 50-50. In my opinion, I seem to have more time for my family on shift compared to my fellow colleagues who is on 9 to 6 work.

Those on shift practically do not get disturb on their off days but those on normal working hours seems to have to standby, be recalled, asked to work from home during their off days and midnight calls to make urgent changes to system to meet SLA quite often.

The most awesome thing is that when I apply for 3 days of annual leave, i will get 8 rest days due to the off days before and after the 3 work days I have applied for

The down side would definitely whether your body can take working 12hrs in the night. I do feel the effect after about 3 months even though i skip the soft drinks and snacks in the pantry and made sure i have aleast 7 hrs of sleep a day.

Diet is one of the factors. Quality of sleep and excerise are a couple few more.

There are a lot of factors to it. Like your current stress, the support of family etc.

If you are working on shift, do watch what you eat and the time of meal. One wrong move and you gain weight faster than any one can imagine.

 

[xiao_cai7]

cisco

collabration suite from phone system to IM to webex, video from any devices. a lot of things to sell but boring already

Bro how competitive compared to Lync, comparing license costs?

Lync need a voice gateway/ video gateway and few windows servers.

You in pre-sales role?

 

[xiao_cai7]

9 to 6 and shift work positions are about 50-50. In my opinion, I seem to have more time for my family on shift compared to my fellow colleagues who is on 9 to 6 work.

Those on shift practically do not get disturb on their off days but those on normal working hours seems to have to standby, be recalled, asked to work from home during their off days and midnight calls to make urgent changes to system to meet SLA quite often.

The most awesome thing is that when I apply for 3 days of annual leave, i will get 8 rest days due to the off days before and after the 3 work days I have applied for

The down side would definitely whether your body can take working 12hrs in the night. I do feel the effect after about 3 months even though i skip the soft drinks and snacks in the pantry and made sure i have aleast 7 hrs of sleep a day.

My first full-time after NS, is a shift role in network-monitoring role. Told myself never ever do shift work. Do 3 nights i zombie, wonder how my senior can do 3 months night.

Got even a colleague now do perm night office hours (US office hours).

My ex-colleagues love it can plan lump off and few days leaves for long holiday. Work only half a month.