IT Career Paths

welcome everyone Jacob has here your instructor and mentor and in today's lesson we'll be discussing IT career paths and the best way to make the most lucrative path that you can in IT so let's go ahead and get started by looking at our agenda we'll start out by discussing different IT roles we won't talk about every IT role available but we will discuss the most important ones and the ones that will probably be of the most interest to you will then jump into enterprise networking as a realm of expertise it's actually the place that you should start and we'll discuss that in a little detail well then jump into different specializations that you convince your into after getting good in enterprise networking then we'll discuss some different roles according to these specialist categories well then look at some different companies that you can actually work for as an IT operations person or an IT engineer in general then we'll look at how you can be successful in your IT career basically how to get started with this kind of stuff and how to make sure that you're actually marketable and you can get a job and then we'll wrap it up by just letting you know that we've got you covered and that will be our lesson for today so let's get started with roles in IT so there's a lot of roles in IT right but I'm gonna start out by discussing some different IT engineering and operations roles your most entry-level role that there is is the desktop support or help desk technician I just put desktop support here because this role can have a lot of different names now in our programs and things we generally don't want people to start out here because you don't have to start out in desktop support you don't have to start out on the help desk we want people to start out in networking if they can however if you can't the desktop support or help desk role is still an entry-level place where you can break into IT and then work up to more advanced roles so we have more advanced roles from there like network support then you can look at server administration we'll focus in the networking realm though in our trainings network administrator network engineer systems engineer moving on up to the more advanced roles like network architect and Solutions Architect and then if you're in the realm of consulting you even have things like consulting engineer now these job titles will be dispersed across various different forms of IT whether you're working for like a manufacturer or you're working for any company you'll have similar roles across these different organizations these are just some of the different names of roles that you'll find and again there's many many more but these are some of the most interesting ones we also have software development now we are specializing in networking here and the reason why I have this here is because yes software and developer roles are IT roles but the DevOps engineer role is a hybrid role and I would really wanted to mention that because DevOps is kind of something that's new you're the network engineer between the software team and the network infrastructure and your understanding software and networking combined and this is becoming more and more of a role that people want and it is a very lucrative role it is more advanced though you do need to know some networking and you do need to know some software development there's also a software engineers front-end and back-end software engineers those are also IT related roles we won't focus on those in our training as we're more infrastructure and networking focus and we know that that's the best way to carve the most lucrative path is to start out in networking no matter what you're going to do of course there are also management roles so we have IT management you can be a project manager for example just managing IT projects you could also be an IT manager over a network team or maybe over a server team or maybe managing a data center or you can be an IT director maybe you work for a company and you're managing an entire IT department or a portion of that IT department you can also be a VP of IT usually the IT director and everybody reports up to the VP of IT or a VP of engineering and then the CIO or the chief information officer is going to be over all of it the CIO and a more software based company it will be more of a software role or someone who understands software a little bit more heavily in an IT operations or IT department kind of rolled the CIO is going to be very versed in server infrastructure and even a little bit of software stuff so it depends on where you're working as to what the roles require and again there's a lot more roles than this and they do vary but this should help you understand a little bit better what different roles you can actually look at getting into now the management roles are going to be a little bit more senior right except for the project manager the project manager role you can just get like a project management certification and then you can jump into managing projects I just listed it here under IT management to help you understand that it's not a technical role it is more of a management role and it is something that's available to us if we want to go that path and we need to wrap up this section with just stating again the most options for a great career begin with network engineering and you'll see why here in a second let's go ahead and break that down and starting with enterprise networking so with enterprise networking what does that actually entail well it entails the core of your network all the systems that allow your main primary communications to traverse from one place to another and that's things like routing switching wireless voice over IP and security this is the core of any network and this was what enterprise networking is meaning if you master these skills or if you just get entry-level basics of these skills you'll still be a value to any organization because all organizations have a network infrastructure that includes routing switching Wireless some phones usually everybody is now on voice over IP almost and then security right we have to secure the perimeter of our networks so we need to understand all of these things and this is why actually our full stack network engineer program contains all of these things because these are the things you need to know in order to be effective in the workplace it used to be you could just specialize in like routing and switching and then you'll be ok but these days it's not that way you need to understand more of a full stack of the networking technologies in order to be a value and what do some of these roles actually look like whenever we're looking at enterprise networking well it's gonna be a lot of the rules we already discussed it'll be things like network support for an entry level or a network administrator for an entry associate level kind of job network engineer for a more professional or advanced kind of job systems engineer network architect for a very advanced type of job solutions architect in consulting engineers so whether or not you're working for it just any company and working in IT operations or you're working for a consulting company where you're designing and deploying large networks for other companies all of these skills come into play and if you master them you'll be very valuable or like I said before if you even just learn the basics you can get yourself into the door and you'll be effective in that organization and you'll be able to grow after that now we have some actually photos here we can look at some different people doing these jobs I just think it's cool to kind of show this stuff here we have a girl you know working in the data center she actually working on 6500 series switch there that would be like a network engineer right these are the people who design and configure maintain your networks all of the infrastructure here's some somebody working on some Cisco switches here some smart smaller access switches we have also guy in the datacenter troubleshooting something figuring something out these are just examples of the types of things you might be doing in enterprise networking now we also have design that's associated with this right especially if you're in the consulting realm you'll be doing a lot of design you'll be designing and deploying and configuring networks for customers but you may also be doing design working in an IT operations environment in just an IT department so design is something that comes along with it and these are the people again who design architect maintain and support our networks all of the systems that run our organizations communication our routers our switches our Wireless our voice over IP and our security this is enterprise networking in these days also we do have network programmability and a little bit of coding that helps things like python help too as well anyways this is enterprise networking and from here we set our base and from here we can branch out and specialize into even more lucrative positions or we can specialize in more in enterprise networking learning it even better in enterprise networking itself can be very very lucrative for anyone so you could stay a full-stack network engineer for your whole life if you want it or you can branch out but this is the place to start that's the point so let's look at some specializations now as we discussed enterprise networking and that can branch out into all kinds of stuff so from here we will specialize right we could specialize further in routing and switching or we could go into security we could go in also into cybersecurity we could specialize in data center stuff looking at data center switches and storage networking environments we could get into collaboration where we specialize more on voice over IP and video over IP technologies we can specialize more on Wireless become a wireless expert and be at deploying large wireless networks like let's say it's some type of festival or something there's a lot of wireless access at those things or a baseball game or anything's like that right or it could be even smaller scale just trying to give you something to think about we also have DevOps which is again the cross between networking and software and the person who is responsible for making sure it's a seamless connection between the software environment and the main network infrastructure in supporting all of that that's a DevOps type of specialization and then we have a service provider service provider is here because there are some special technologies or certain things you need to know in order to work in a service provider environment but mainly it does deal with routing and switching in the core technologies too I just listed it here because it is an area where we can also specialize so those are some specializations that we can well specialize in all right let's look at some different roles associated with these specializations so here we have all the different specializations we just looked at and here we have some different roles that we can associate with these specializations now these are not all the different roles that will be associated these are just examples to give you an idea so if you specialize in routes which for example you're going to be more of a network or systems engineer you're going to be maintaining the land in the wind so your title will be something like network engineer assessments engineer associate network engineer senior network engineer things like that if you specialize in the security space you're going to be a network security engineer or cyber security engineer or maybe even a cyber security analyst that would be a more entry cyber security level role but network security is a big deal and there's lots of roles associated with it moving on to data center we'll have a data center engineer or maybe someone specialized in the storage aspect of that and maybe there are storage engineer maybe we have a voice engineer that's along the collaboration specialization someone who specializes in rolling out voice over IP and phones it does get very complex in that realm so that is a very technical specialization that can earn you decent money it can be lucrative for sure then Wireless right Wireless engineer pretty simple DevOps DevOps engineer something like that and in the service provider space you'll have actually your normal network engineer types of job titles such as systems engineer even just network engineer maybe also network architect or solutions architect working for a service provider all right so those are our specialist roles some of the more common ones you might see or hear about and very interesting ones now let's go ahead and move on to different companies that you can actually work for with any of these types of skills any of these roles that we just talked about from enterprise networking all the way through all the specializations you can work for just about any company there is so any business any corporation or even the government such as the Department of Defense right you can work for the military you can work for any corporation or any business coca-cola for example you go work for Google like all these different businesses corporations in government are places you can work as an IT operations engineer or network engineer or any of those specializations however there are other places that we need to understand in the environment of the IT ecosystem because these are other places you can work at - now they are actually businesses and corporations but I want to specify them so here specifically we have a manufacturer this would be a company like Cisco systems or Arista networks or Dell EMC or even Microsoft I guess it can be Google - it can be any of these type of of manufacturers who create a service or a product that is installed into these businesses corporations and governments so the whole point here is that if you work directly for a business like coca-cola for example you might work on their IT operations team you might work in the IT department now that IT department is going to need to upgrade their network install new network stuff and they're going to buy these items from these manufacturers right they're going to be installing things like Cisco switches and Cisco routers they might be installing Dell AMC or NetApp storage systems then we've been installing Arista datacenter switches or maybe in the cisco nexus data center switches there's all these different manufacturers even Microsoft right these are all manufacturers that contribute to this ecosystem and you can go work for any of them as well now a lot of times you need to have a little bit of experience in order to go work for a manufacturer but there are some entry-level roles - they're just a little bit fewer most of the time when people get started out they start out in just a business or a corporation or the government and those are great places to start but if you get opportunity to work at a manufacturer hey that's great - you can also work at a value-added reseller or a managed service provider these are great places to start as well if you can get your foot in the door there now I would look more for working at a value-added reseller because you're going to learn a lot you're going to do a lot of projects you're going to have a lot of customers and basically what you're doing at a value-added reseller is installing the manufacturers gear the manufacturing equipment and services you're installing that into a business corporation environment right you're going to install that for your customer since you're a consultant you're working for a value-added reseller as they call it but these are the consultants so why is it called a value-added reseller well they resell the manufacturers equipment to the business then they add additional value by providing professional services which is the installation of that equipment into that environment so that's a var as they call it these will be like your Cisco partners some of the largest ones in the world here we have like world wide technology we have dimension data I also used to work for tech links not the largest in the world but a great company and who is a var and also they have an MSP arm as well so these are included together because a lot of times your var is also going to have an MSP type of service associated with it but they can be separate companies they don't have to be the same company so you can go work for them again highly recommend it if you can get into a var and then you have your service provider in the service provider space you're going to see a lot of big names that are a lot of times household names like AT&T or Verizon or Comcast these are a lot of providers that people associate with phones like cell phones well that is also a network service and they also provide things like internet connectivity right that is a network service they also provide things like high-speed network connectivity private network connectivity between locations and cities so they can provide your business or corporation organization with a high speed data connection between two locations and these are all different services that a service provider will provide and you need to specifically study how that environment works to go work there but it's not that much different it's still things like routing and switching but there are certain protocols that you need to know in order to be effective in those environments so these are the different companies to work for and what does this tell you this tells you that you can basically go work or any company almost any company will need an IT engineer of some sort the bigger ones of course are going to have more lucrative pay and they're going to have more positions well you could work for any company like a gaming company or a bank or anything right so basically the sky is the limit you can go work anywhere but it's very important to understand this ecosystem and the different types of companies you can go work for alright so that wraps that up and we can just go ahead and quickly look at how you can be successful in this right so how can you work toward a lucrative career in IT well we can state it very simply but it's a little bit more difficult to implement on your own but very simply this is how you do it you learn networking and IT concepts no you do not have to go to college you just learn networking and IT concepts for example routing switching Wireless etc there's so many more types of concepts to cover but these are just a few examples right and then learn actual skills that are needed so for example if you're going into an environment that has Cisco equipment you're going to want to know Cisco IOS but Cisco IOS is something that's that's spread across you know the entire world basically Cisco Systems equipment is everywhere so you're pretty good starting out which is learning Cisco IOS because most environments have it and it's also a great place to start because they have things like Cisco packet tracer that can help you with learning these concepts and skills in a technical mock up environment so you need to learn actual skills that are needed of course there's a lots of other manufacturers but these skills are related to manufacture equipment right need to know how to configure and set up equipment from these manufacturers Cisco Systems is one we also have like Juniper Networks and Arista networks we also have VMware so it's good to learn things like virtualization it's good to learn things like network programmability and a little bit of python for coding so you can understand how to automate network tasks and functions and then network design as well as an important concept or skill that that will help you and help you be able to create a lucrative career so understanding how all the parts and pieces fit together how to diagram it all out and how to present it that's network design folks all right so next we will look at earning certifications in our skill areas after we have actually learned actual skills so that the whole thing we don't want to jump right into certifications we want to learn some skills first and then start working on certifications around those skills that is going to produce a much better result than if you just try to get the certification right away and that's our approach that we take in our programs at zero to engineer so some skill areas would be like routing and switching enterprise networking things like that right so you have your CCNA s and your C CMPs for VMware you have your VC P for juniper you have your JN CIA for their associate level cert and I added in the certified ethical hacker the ceh for more of a cyber security related type of certification if that's where you're trying to go but generally you start out an enterprise networking right and then you would branch out into things like cyber I just included that so you understand you can get that cert 2 if you want in the beginning it's up to you and then gain experience and do projects well how do you do that well you can volunteer in things or you can get some type of base entry level job or maybe you already work somewhere and they have an IT department and they will allow you to volunteer to do projects with them there's many different ways you can gain experience to do projects however it's not mandatory to have that it just really helps and as part of our programs we usually have a project associated with our tech degree or with our program so in our full-stack network engineer program for example we have a full-stack networking project where you build out a HQ and two branch offices interconnect them and you build out all the all the routing the switching the wireless the voice-over-ip and the security right so that's enterprise networking at its finest we build all that out and one giant project so that's one way to kind of gain experience even though it's virtualized and it's through practice practice items like packet tracer for example Cisco packet tracer there's all kinds of other things you can practice on and create many virtualized projects on so even if it's not a project that you do on a real active network you can still get project experience by doing project training and you can also of course again go volunteer at places to gain some real experience and if it's entry level if you're trying to get into an entry-level job break your way into IT even things as simple as just racking and stacking routers or helping people move their computers into a new branch installation these are all things that someone could do in order to get experience and a lot of our students actually do just that and then lastly once you land your entry-level job you don't need to stagnate as soon as you land that job you keep on learning right so land your entry-level or associate job and then grow as much as you can so grow as much as you can and as fast as you can that means learning more technologies getting better at what you already know and getting more certifications and making yourself more marketable and you can skyrocket your career if you really grow in a manner like that if you always think about that if you have a growth mindset as soon as you hit the as soon as you hit the ground running at your initial organization have that growth mindset and you'll soon be on your way to actually breaking six figures many of these roles that I mentioned most of them are based around six-figure salaries entry-level roles won't be so much right but you can quickly make your way into that six-figure well realm or somewhere near that if you have a growth mindset so that's how you can be successful and lastly I just want to wrap all this up with just reminding everyone or telling you if the firt if this is the first time you've heard of us that we have you covered at next-gen we have you covered and with our Xero to engineer programs we've already got everything laid out for you so we discuss all the different types of careers we give you the skills that you need and help you learn all the networking concepts and then point you in the right direction as to where you should actually go and help you with your career and actually finding a job that will be good for you so we've got you covered and that wraps up the lesson ladies and gents we discuss roles in IT we looked at enterprise networking as the base place that we want to start learning routing switching wireless voice over IP and security that is going to give you the best and fastest way to a lucrative career is starting there we then discuss different specializations you can go to like specializing in data center or specializing in security or specializing in wireless or collaboration and voice all these different types of areas then we discuss different roles associated with those areas and we looked at different companies to work for so remember there is in an environment here in IT ecosystem that includes all the different companies in the world basically and then these specific companies like manufacturers value-added resellers and managed service providers and then service providers themselves so all of that creates the ecosystem and you can go work anywhere anywhere in the world just about as an IT engineer we then looked at how you can actually be successful and then wrapped it up with saying hey we've got you covered because how you be successful is by following our plan right we've already got it all laid out for you so that wraps up the lesson ladies and gents on IT career paths my name is Jacob Hess your instructor and mentor and I'll see you in the next video Jacob Hess here thank you guys for viewing the video I hope you really enjoyed it and I'd also like to remind you that if you're truly serious about your career in information technology be sure to check out our career blueprint and engineer training program at ww0 to engineer calm you

Channel: NexGenT

Views: 72,643

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Id: AJsdLnsEFPQ

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2019