Posts made by IRJ

@dashrender said in Job offer:

Personally - I don't know anyone who's made the jump from help desk to IT job. Not saying it doesn't happen, Just that those that I know that worked help desk jobs have generally either stayed there for near ever, or went a completely different direction.

I wanted to upvote your post because it was pretty good, but I can't disagree with this statement more.

I worked Helpdesk nearly 16 years ago, and I've had it come up in interviews and been praised for it every single time except one occasion (I'll expand on that later). Most of the time senior level people will say I started in Helpdesk, too! This happens with c levels like CTO or CISO.

The only guy who had a snide remark was at five below and just recently promoted to help desk manager. He was part of a panel interviewing me and he brought up if I'm so skilled why would I ever accept working at Helpdesk. My response was some people learn by fire and some learn from universities. If rather have a general that knows how to fight in the trenches vs one that doesn't.

But as for @WrCombs it's too late to go to Helpdesk. That would have been a better option from day one, but you're not a rookie anymore. It's gonna look bad on your resume.

@dashrender said in Job offer:

Others around here have mentioned that they do contract work all the time - there are huge advantages and disadvantages to it. Think of is like your mother's traveling job. If you have the skills - you'll likely always find the next contract, though you likely will have to move for it.

That's a good basic take on it. To expand on this a bit more, it comes down to the value of the employee, and almost solely on the value of the employee. In order to determine the value of the employee, it comes down to factors you'd expect such as experience, technical expertise, work ethic, documentation, and presentation. Now take that last sentence I wrote and work backwards to determine value of contract employee. Presentation, documentation, work ethic, technical expertise, and experience.

In most fortune 500s, I've seen contractors run the show. Alot of companies can become hostage to contractors. It's actually wild how often contractors are offered FTE and turn it down. It's several times a year, generally.

FTE is great when you have a family, and you want to be a little less aggressive in your career. In general though if you are brought into a contract to hire situation, and you have the above values you have nothing to worry about. I've been in CTH situations 4 times in my career and got offered FTE everytime without any worry.

@gjacobse said in Job offer:

I'll preface this with saying merely that IT jobs aren't what they used to be ten and twenty years ago. And with the scope of things in the world right now,. they aren't even what they used to be pre-Covid.

You can substitute IT with end user support. End user support is becoming less and less valuable vs infrastructure support. We've seen the gap widen as infrastructure as become more advanced. Now that most companies are leveraging automation for tasks this gap is widening even more.

For example if you have a couple years experience with AWS or Azure today you could have a remote 6 figure job at the drop of a hat.

If you have experience in end user support, it becomes much more difficult, more common for SMB. However, at the same time the common role is much less valuable because in general its a shrinking field as infrastructure side figures out automation and troubleshooting goes the way of the dodo bird.

One extremely important thing to me is the industry of the company. Certain industries tend to be more IT friendly and have more robust infrastructure with more needs. For example, the best industries for stability and pay tend to be important ones like financial, Healthcare, government/defense, and a few others.

Other industries like retail, manufacturing, etc don't care about IT or data safety as much as they purely do for profits (right now). I'd gotta say travel agency is probably one of the worst industries to be involved with IMO.

1. the obvious reasons why it's bad during a pandemic, but also 2) it's just a middle man and completely unnecessary industry.

Now that we've looked at the industry of the employer let move onto the other obvious cons.

1. you're a temp for an entry level position after having what 3-4 years experience? This is the kind of position you might take if you walked off the street with zero experience.

2. you might be making more money without the benefits, but you've just basically told everyone that I'm ok being an entry level for another 2-3 years of my life.

3. what's a potential employer gonna think a year from now when they see a guy with 4-5 years entry level experience with two lateral entry level jobs?

4. the job sounds like it sucks.

@gjacobse said in Whack a mole: Dealing with Spam/Phishing:

It seems that this has become a really bad habit and a poor solution to the over all problem. What is a better way to deal with this?

Awareness training and actual testing is thr best way to handle this. Blocking random Gmail addresses one by one is complete waste of time.

You should be training and testing your employees with your own phishing campaign. Once they get fooled a few times and see their stats being recorded, they will become more cautious.

Scale Down

######################################
## Save Deployment State (excludes kube,mongo,k8 pods)
######################################

kubectl get deploy -A --no-headers | grep -v -E 'kube|mongo|k8s-api-proxy' > deploy_state_before_scale.txt

######################################
## Copy Deployment State to GCS Bucket
######################################

gsutil cp deploy_state_before_scale.txt gs://app1

#######################################
## Scale Deployments to zero
#######################################

kubectl get deploy -A --no-headers | grep -v -E 'kube|mongo|k8s-api-proxy' | awk '{print \$1,\$2}' | while read NS DEPLOY; do  kubectl scale --replicas=0 deployment/\$DEPLOY -n \$NS; done

#######################################
## Scale Daemons to zero
#######################################
kubectl -n <namespace> patch daemonset <name-of-daemon-set> -p '{"spec": {"template": {"spec": {"nodeSelector": {"non-existing": "true"}}}}}'


#######################################
## Turn off Autoscaler on GKE nodepools
#######################################

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --no-enable-autoscaling --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool1>

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --no-enable-autoscaling --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool2>


#######################################
## Resize Node Pools to zero
#######################################

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --num-nodes 0 --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool1>

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --num-nodes 0 --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool2>

Scale Up

#######################################
## Resize Node size to 1 for each node pool
#######################################

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --num-nodes 1 --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool1>

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --num-nodes 1 --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool2>


#######################################
##  Turn Autoscaling Back on
#######################################

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --enable-autoscaling --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool1>

gcloud container clusters update <app1-cluster> --enable-autoscaling --region <region>  --node-pool <app1nodepool2>

#####################################################
## Copy Saved Deployment State from GCS bucket
#####################################################

gsutil cp  gs://<app1>/deploy_state_before_scale.txt . 



#####################################################
## Scale deployments using the previously saved state file
#####################################################

awk '{print \$1,\$2,\$4}' deploy_state_before_scale.txt | while read NS DEPLOY SCALE; do kubectl scale --replicas=\$SCALE deployment/\$DEPLOY -n \$NS; done


#####################################################
## Scale Daemons back up
#####################################################

kubectl -n <namespace> patch daemonset <name-of-daemon-set> --type json -p='[{"op": "remove", "path": "/spec/template/spec/nodeSelector/non-existing"}]'

@dashrender said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@gjacobse said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@irj said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

I'm 6 years into IT (network admin, sysadmin, security (generalist)) and have my Security+ and am making $70,000

You are doing better than a fellow I worked at the state - who was two years from retirement (28 years of service)... By almost $20k... At $70k I think is is more an exception than the rule... Location is a big key here.... Yes - State Employees generally make less...

This is my general belief as well - location is king!

Now - today after Covid, location is a bit less, but I wouldn't say significantly less important, assuming the company moved a position to fully remote.

Living in SF, LA, NYC all cost 2-4 times what it does in Wisconsin.

I've read that west coast companies are now starting to have a new baseline salary for a position, then up it based on where you actually live. So the base might be $80K, but if you live in SF, you get $40K/y more, but live in Wisconsin - you just get 80K.

I have no personal experience in that happening - so no idea if it's true.

And those that are seeing high prices around here on ML - I think most of you live in or near those expensive cities - correct me if I'm wrong.

Even for remote workers sometimes there are differences depending on location, but some don't discriminate at all on location. Even the ones that does its not 100% more pay for California like in your example.

The best thing to do is confirm salary expectations and your location up front. Then this is never an issue. If you agree to the salary, then what's the problem?

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@irj said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@gjacobse said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@irj said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

He's referring to total comp in which you get a base of $150-200k

Lol - Guess I'm in the wrong LinkedIn circle as I don't get anything in that base range... And I'm okay with that (twitch).

It's generally based on skillset and experience. 2-3 years cloud experience is super valuable right now. I posted about this in 2019 here.

https://mangolassi.it/topic/19837/you-need-to-get-cloud-certified

I'm 6 years into IT (network admin, sysadmin, security (generalist)) and have my Security+ and am making $70,000 in Wisconsin right now. Is that low/normal/high?

It seems low, but it depends on industry, size of company, company competitors, and of course good directional leadership in IT.

I'm looking to scale down a large GKE cluster in a non prod environment to save costs. I have two main goals.

1. Scale down to use very minimal resources (basically shutdown).
2. Fast, automated restore

It's important that database persistent disk stays attached, and I don't mind keeping the database active and scaling other services down to zero.

Just looking for some thoughts on the subject.

@gjacobse said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@irj said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

He's referring to total comp in which you get a base of $150-200k

Lol - Guess I'm in the wrong LinkedIn circle as I don't get anything in that base range... And I'm okay with that (twitch).

It's generally based on skillset and experience. 2-3 years cloud experience is super valuable right now. I posted about this in 2019 here.

https://mangolassi.it/topic/19837/you-need-to-get-cloud-certified

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@obsolesce said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@jaredbusch said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

Where is everyone searching for quality IT job postings these days?

Word of mouth. I've never gotten a good job from a random posting.

I suppose the correct answer to myself is a wide net of every combination, including word of mouth, job posting sites like Indeed, Monster, etc, direct job postings on the website of the company, LinkedIn, etc.

I managed to get my first IT job using my state's job network website. I got a call-back from HR and had some awesome back and forth and landed a great gig. My friend and past co-worker got an amazing job from a head-hunter on LinkedIn. Another friend got a job from a company website post...

The last several good jobs I was either offered or have started were directly from LinkedIn, and some of them are $300K to $500K jobs.

Can I ask what kind of IT jobs those were and the general requirements? That seems a little hard to believe unless you're talking about jobs in the major US technology hubs... but I have limited knowledge and experience in this area.

He's referring to total comp in which you get a base of $150-200k and then have bonuses and stock incentives.

Here's an example of one that recently came across to me. This came via email, but I get most of these through LinkedIn.

'''
I’m the Talent Sourcing Partner for the world’s first API security unicorn, NoName Security. We just announced our billion-dollar valuation and we’re looking for a Lead Attack Surface Management Architect (or Engineer - title is flexible) who can continue driving us to the next level!

Primary responsibilities will be establishing and maintaining a vulnerability and patch management program for all of Noname, working with our incoming AppSec lead to identify and address issues in the core platform, understanding the perimeter and identifying concerns with the perimeter security, and establishing / operating tooling, dashboards, and reporting

Salary will depend on your experience, but to start us off I can tell you our target comp range for this role is $175-200k base + bonus + equity and fantastic benefits including 401K with 4% match and unlimited PTO.

Check out the job details below, and let me know if you’re interested in learning more, applying, or just asking questions about us!

'''

https://www.comeet.com/jobs/noname/86.001/lead-attack-surface-management-architect--engineer/5C.726?coref=1.10.uAF_01A&t=1639674771037

Hope to hear from you

@dashrender said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@obsolesce said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@jaredbusch said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

Where is everyone searching for quality IT job postings these days?

Word of mouth. I've never gotten a good job from a random posting.

I suppose the correct answer to myself is a wide net of every combination, including word of mouth, job posting sites like Indeed, Monster, etc, direct job postings on the website of the company, LinkedIn, etc.

I managed to get my first IT job using my state's job network website. I got a call-back from HR and had some awesome back and forth and landed a great gig. My friend and past co-worker got an amazing job from a head-hunter on LinkedIn. Another friend got a job from a company website post...

The last several good jobs I was either offered or have started were directly from LinkedIn, and some of them are $300K to $500K jobs.

How much of that salary is cause of location?

The higher paying the job, the more likely its remote and location doesn't matter. Some companies choose to pay more based on remote workers location. However, it's always better to be in tax free state either way

@dave247 said in Staying at your shitty employer is your fault:

Where is everyone searching for quality IT job postings these days?

LinkedIn and they mostly come to me via inbox on Linkedin. Even so, LinkedIn is mostly crap like most job sites, but I find that most top tech companies use it for recruitment.

Update in 2022... The job market is still as hot as it was last year, and it's still your fault for being with a shitty employer.

@obsolesce said in Windows 11 auto upgrade?:

@wrcombs said in Windows 11 auto upgrade?:

Has anyone noticed an uptick in Windows10 auto upgrading to Windows11 due to windows updates?
Seeing this with many Back office PC's where they "leave at the end of the night and it's windows10 and the come back and it's windows 11"

Just curious if were the only one's seeing this

Windows 10 will never automatically upgrade to Windows 11 without user action and consent by default.

Yeah. I have windows 10 on my home pc with auto updates and it only asks me if I want to upgrade. It never forces me or does it without my consent.

@scottalanmiller said in Responding to "This BS called URE" from Synology Forums:

@irj said in Responding to "This BS called URE" from Synology Forums:

@scottalanmiller said in Responding to "This BS called URE" from Synology Forums:

So this guy trying to claim he knows something about math and computers makes a thread on the Synology forums seven years ago and @Dashrender found it today and it seems like it never got any great responses and it is bad to leave this kind of misinformation out there and doing these analyses are always good, so let's break it down (since moving from SW to ML, the amount of "correcting dumbassery and people trying to mislead others has all but disappeared so we don't get to do this much.)

https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/17/post/79816

Why not reply to original post on synology. It doesn't make sense to address it here

Trying again. I tried to put all this there but the "comment" buttons didn't do anything. Maybe they were having an issue. Let's see...

Ah ok. I see

@scottalanmiller said in Responding to "This BS called URE" from Synology Forums:

So this guy trying to claim he knows something about math and computers makes a thread on the Synology forums seven years ago and @Dashrender found it today and it seems like it never got any great responses and it is bad to leave this kind of misinformation out there and doing these analyses are always good, so let's break it down (since moving from SW to ML, the amount of "correcting dumbassery and people trying to mislead others has all but disappeared so we don't get to do this much.)

https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/17/post/79816

Why not reply to original post on synology. It doesn't make sense to address it here

I have a domain name that I think has some value. How can I determine the value and where is a good place to sell the domain?

@fredtx said in Is this a fake job?:

Turns out, he would be the person I would report directly to. Interview was very dry to begin with. He asked me some Azure questions, which I have a base knowledge/ experience with, but I think he wants in depth advanced knowledge, which should have been listed in job description imo. Even when we were almost hitting the 30min mark, he said he had a 1:30 appointment he had to meet, and if I had any more questions to let him know. I don’t expect to receive an offer. Lol.

No shame in interviewing to gain personal experience with it. It's something good to consistently do in your career. I do it sometimes even if my interest in job is virtually zero. It helps when you have an interview that is very important and you want to nail.

@fredtx said in Is this a fake job?:

@irj Don't you think it's odd that the interview is planned for 30min with the IT director? I would think at least an hour. Unless he'll be able to determine candidates that quickly?

No I don't think that's odd. You'd have a longer interview with your direct manager and potential team in most cases.