I haven't worked "in IT" outside of software development, and I don't even have a great idea of what the various jobs are. Anybody had one or more IT jobs outside of software development?
I haven't worked "in IT" outside of software development, and I don't even have a great idea of what the various jobs are. Anybody had one or more IT jobs outside of software development?
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I started out doing tech support.
From there I worked my way up to developer support (helping developers integrate with our API) which had me realize that I wasn't happy just supporting devs, I wanted to be a dev.
Oddly, I've wondered if moving into a tech support like role would be helpful in my developer career.
🤔
It will surely help you if you are allowed to debug in deep.
Rather just giving pre documented answers.
:-)
I definitely feel like having that background helped me in my developer career, it gives me an empathy towards the end-used that I find many devs lack.
Non-dev IT jobs for me were:
My first job out of college was managing and vetting collaborative tools for use inside the company - instant messaging, live webcasting, web conferencing, eLearning, etc. Once a tool was selected, I'd develop implementation/deployment plans and documentation which required coordination with other IT depts like Security, Architecture, Help Desk, Desktop (in cases where the software had to be installed on all employee machines).
I also worked in accessibility. There was a group that hired mostly hard-of-hearing/deaf employees, so I helped deploy an application that converted text to ASL for them, and devices that allowed employees with cochlear implants to listen to live webcasts and learning modules because traditional headphones would interfere with their implants.
After that, I worked for an accounting firm managing the live webcasting tools and services internally and externally. This was the most challenging because there were so many moving parts and dependencies. For one, video was a such a huge burden on the network, so the Network team hated us =). But we'd work with them to deploy internal CDN technologies from Cisco, Riverbed, etc. I got to work directly with the executives in the company, learned about audio/video production, learned how to work under pressure and troubleshoot in real-time.
In hindsight, these experiences helped me a lot by understanding how end users use and learn new technologies that are presented to them without much choice really, and also how companies procure technologies for internal use.
I interned on a hardware support/sysadmin team for one of the largest logistics companies on Earth. It was pretty difficult but really fun.
At the same company, I also interned on a "Business Intelligence" team, which was kind of like a step between working on a dev team and a data science team. A lot of web portals, SQL reports, and ETL work.
After that, I worked as a pseudo-DBA at a different logistics company.
Somewhere in between those jobs I started writing JavaScript and did some PHP and Python development for an ecommerce company (they paid $8/hr). I dropped out of college and went on to full-time software development about 8 months after that!
Construction Worker
Call Center Employee (most miserable ever)
This was definitely the worst job I ever did. But I had the option to work part-time here, I could focus on studies, started doing full-time software development not long after I took this job :)
Band Worker at Ford Factory (I left after a few weeks)
I have had an internship position called “IT Attestation” for three months in a public accounting firm. Unfortunately I hated every second of it because it doesn’t provide any sort of technical growth or career development path. I got the returning offer that year, but ... nah, I politely rejected, and dashed out of the door when no one is looking 🤪
Two things in the internship that killed this path for me:
Saying no was a super easy decision.
Frankly speaking, it was nice to dive into my accounting/finance friends’ world a little bit. I sort of understand how/why they need to talk, work, dress and perform in certain ways. This was also learning ;)
One of my many duties was to support cisco switches, so I guess that qualifies as IT.
Anything from configuring switches to troubleshooting issues, to updating firmware, etc. Seemed pretty cool to me.
If I ever need to setup a managed switch at home, I am trained to do it lol.
By the way if anyone is interested in learning cisco stuff for free, just sign up for a free account, and then google for packet tracer labs.
netacad.com/courses/packet-tracer
Apparently, retail marketing is my JAM.
Currently I'm basically creating the marketing department at the store I'm at - this includes social media, graphic design, building a website, in house marketing, working on the floor... and everything changes week to week and its INSANE. But I'm good at it, and for some reason I enjoy it.
It's a weird one, for sure. But it's what I'm doing. :P
Abattoir - carrying pigs off hooks onto hooks in back of lorry, and pushing half cow carcasses on hooks down rails.
Some factory that made amongst other things wheelchairs. My temp job was sweeping floor and moving stuff.
Pie factory - putting bits of pastry into slots in a conveyer belt, injecting gell into pork pies and lifting trays from one rack to another.
After that, majority of time as a multimedia developer, technical designer and automation testing.
I worked at one of my city's first ISPs (Internet provider). I did billing & customer service.
It was neat to be part of bringing people their first ever internet access.
But I also saw first hand how all the big companies bought up the little ones & the monopoly formed. In my case we were bought by Primus. A big payday for my boss... but not great for our customers.
System Admin. DevOps. Manager. Network admin. Mentor. Architect. DBA.
Most of those I still do in some fashion or another; I like wearing multiple hats.
My first tech job prior to even thinking about being a dev: Help desk for a mammography clinic when I was 17. Did excel stuff, printers, scanned in xrays for them, moved physical folders of mammograms and other medical images, ran misc errands too.
I started as an Operations Specialist for an ad tech company, then did support engineering, then software configuration management. All at the same company in less than 2 years. I've been a software developer ever since leaving. Looking back, it was interesting to see other pieces of the technical pie and how they fit together.
In uni, I was a part of the help desk as a work-study gig. Since it was "industry" experience, it paid minimum wage. But it was mostly troubleshooting network issues (the building was old and had very thick walls; here's your complementary ethernet cable) or hardware issues (cleaning out a Macbook that had chocolate milk spilt on it) for the other students in my dorm for 30 hours a week.
I'm currently living the...er...dream?!
I started my career in backend web development; eventually settling into a tech lead role with a small web agency. Yay, ColdFusion! (Oh, how I do miss those simpler times.)
The second half of my career has been in higher-ed IT, with responsibilities so varied that I've labeled myself an "applied IT Jack-of-all-trades". I do my best to maintain a developer mindset; however, hands-on dev comprises only a tiny portion of my week-to-week taskings:
Now halfway through my work career, I've got the itch to return to the development world in some capacity. I've been an IT generalist for too long! :)
My first job was in Fresh Produce. Stacking fruit and veg in the grocery area and preparing them for display. Use to have to just off the bottom of the iceberg lettuces because it took the bad outer leaves off and made them look a lot better for sale.
I left that job to work in an IT shop sweeping floors and cleaning bins. I eventually started doing tech work there to fill the time and admin work (balancing the books, banking, mail). After being a tech I ended up briefly (couple of months) filling the workshop manager role (making sure work got done and customers were called).
My longest non-tech job has got to be in Children's Entertainment. My aunt ran a business and needed someone to balloon twist so I helped her out one weekend. And then kept working for her for the following 7 years. Work was casual and seasonal. There would be months of no work followed by a full on weekend and then no work again. I also did bouncy castles, fairy floss and glitter tattoos. I was working for my aunt up until I moved cities earlier this year.
I worked as an offsider for my dad on his building site one year during the winter and summer uni breaks. I had to get my construction whitecard before I was allowed to start, but now can legally work on building sites! In winter we were putting up the roof trusses during a rainstorm, so were constantly getting drenched. That summer we were up to putting up the tin roof on the 40 degree days with no shade. The house was really well insulated, so even after getting only half the roof on, the inside of it was nice and cool.
I did another stint at a small grocery. They hired me to work evenings in fresh produce and work towards being the night manager, but instead gave me the morning deli shift. I didn't stay there long.
Flight Simulator Manufacturing
Flight Simulator IO Specialist
Electrical Design Specialist
Technical SME (Subject Matter Expert), trainer, tech support, and certified Xerox tech on USMC tactical deployables
DISH Field Tech/Installer
CenturyLink I&R (Installation and Repair) Lead Tech
I was primarily HW w/ some software for a decade. Now 100% software.
Grocery Stocker
Ice Bagger
Floor Waxer
About ten restaurants, mostly serving/training
Dog Washer
Doggie Daycare Operator
Cinema Employee (one shift)
Shoe Salesman (a few weeks)
Merchandise Assembler
Military Musician and all the Soldiering jobs that come along
Audio/Lighting Engineer
I owned a business renting motorcycles to a training course in upstate NY, and I have some financial licenses that make it legal for me to protect families from predatory life insurance.
Email development usually sits with marketing, but there are some elements of IT/tech support.
If an email launch has a usual number of bounces or undelivered emails, it's on me to take a first look to see what might have happened. Then, it's usually escalated to ESP support or internal IT support depending on org structure.
I first started out as a Tele Sale Representative in a Call Center. Our main goal was to sell as many energy contracts as possible and it was a s*it show. Dialing and dialing and dealing with frustrated customers was a nightmare. You had to have 300 minutes of calls per day to get full salary at the end of the month and believe me, it is way harder than it sounds.
Retail & cashier at the parking office of my alma-matter.
Ironically, the parking job got me interested in long term development, because in service of my duties, I made an Access database that kept track of Appeals meetings, decisions, scheduling, etc. Was even split between front & back ends to let me work from the front counter workstations as well as my desk in back.
I was given a commendation from the police chief for my ingenuity. Then when a coworker was struggling at a mail merge for something else that I used to do, I realized that my existing DB could be thinned down and modified in less than a week to automate most of the tedium of that process.
For that, I was written up and threatened with being fired for having gone above my pay grade, doing the work of a "developer" when I was being paid less than an assistant manager of a popular video game pawn shop.
In my defense, I took the commendation as encouragement and was just using MS Office as our organization had a site license, and the previous mail merges were all done with a table in a Word doc instead of an Excel sheet…
Before leaving, I also was able to document the entire function of my DB and the appeal clerk's process, which likely also threatened the manager of the department, who had also chastised the whole office for not being keenly aware of the diffs in the parking rules book, despite none of us knowing that changes could even be made between years or by whomst.
I've been everything in catering from busboy to Maitre'D on the floor. I've been a journalist (still am). Professional Editor. Fiction writer (hdwp.com/r/cdb). Ran an RPG club professionally. A couple-few other jobs.
I was an executive and dignitary protection specialist and later corporate director of security and safety for companies including Turner at CNN Center and The Omni. If you told me then I'd be in the tech industry I really would have chuckled.
Almost everything, all at once.
My current job is running IT (literally all of it except for a couple of special situations that are managed by specific other people, like the inventory database server being handled by the accounting manager).
In addition to some software development work (both for production systems we ship out, and internal stuff), this includes, among other things:
I was a Salesperson at a gift and novelty shop - the pay sucked, and the boss was pretty mean, but I really enjoyed chatting with folks to learn about their loved ones and matching them to a lovely gift.
Full time reporter for news service UPI. I've been dining out on the skills I picked up as a reporter for 30+ years: critical listening, skeptical thinking, being able to switch contexts really fast, and writing. Writing is your primary skill as developer.
Hello from a fellow former journalist! I was only a reporter for six years but my path led to technical writing. I was surprised by how many skills were transferrable (interviewing, concise writing, rapidly learning and explaining complex subjects).
I m an IT support dealing with users' It problems..and at the same time dealing with the IT infrastructure. As my actual company doesn't fit me and my tasks are actually not technical at all, so I ve decided to train myself in development... Not easy to be honest but I keep going as I like it!
I worked in my college's computer labs, checking people in and out, and helping them use software.
At the company where I got my first dev job, I started out in tech support, and did that for a year or so before transferring into the engineering department. I'd been doing (non-IT) phone-based customer service for a bank before that, which probably helped me get the tech support job.
I'm not sure if data entry counts, but I had a couple of those jobs during and after college.
Fun topic, Ben! I did tech support on internet service for Comcast for a few years, and I worked in IT for a public school system for about 6 years. We were networking engineers and did service and support for the computers, although the job titles were pretty generic.
I began my carrer as an parking lot cashier.
Network Engineering.
We get to plug things together and make sure all the blinky lights blink. Then build some crazy stuff that transports terabits of data each second.
My first IT job was supporting POS systems on Windows NT and XP, you'd be surprised how many retail systems still run on Windows NT.
My current one is as much helpdesk and admin as developer, if not more so.
When the whole tech team is you, it kinda goes that way...
I'm not sure if this is a dev job or not... but I was a programing teacher for some of my fellow students at the university.
Same here, I have not had a IT job outside development, The only non software engineering job I’ve had, was at a McDonald’s as a crew member than a crew Trainer.
I began my career as a counselor and an administrator for a computer education firm. Does this count?
I'm currently doing help desk work while hunting for my first dev job.
Law enforcement, Construction, Search and Rescue, Landscaping, Private Security... Tutoring hmmm... There's more but if anyone has questions ill answer them lol 😆
Manual QA and later QA team lead. First ever tech job. Loved it! I think every dev should experience some QA in his/her career
I use to be a math teacher for students in difficulties at my Uni. Taught me to explain things and think in a different way.
Domain Administration but love to learn development things coding full stack
Hmmmm... I worked as a waiter, retail electronics salesman, programming instructor for kids & adults, online pitch facilitator for startups.
I was a car mechanics before going into IT as Application Manager then changed into Development.
Carpenter :)
I've done first, second and third line support which lead to development.
I used to climb cell phone towers after I left the army. A truly rough experience that was short lived.
Just IT Helpdesk, starting as Level 1 support and then Level 2.
After that I jumped to Jr Dev that is where I am.
Screen Printing, I make a lot of T-Shirt backthen. Oh I miss that maybe I'll comeback
I taught IT stuff at a college once 😊
Car washer, mechanic helper... Started from the bottom now we're here 🤘
Selling Clothes and Running two Restaurants.
Window fitter. Carpenter. Welder 😬
I've been PC support, sysadmin, laptop repair tech and sales.
In fact, I didn't go for dev jobs for years because I thought I wasn't going to be good enough to get one.
Keyboard cleaner (no seriously)
Tech lead. Now technical team lead. Does this count ?
I am a nanny
Have been a nanny for the last 8 years and before that just had some odd jobs.
Btw if anyone has any tips in how to convert nanny experience into a dev resume let me know 😂
I was teaching IT. It was so challenging but I'm glad I have that experience
I've never had a paid non-IT job.
Worked as tax inspector when I was a student (my first speciality).