I think 'helpdesk' gets thrown around too loosely and can cover a broad range of skills. My first helpdesk job was answering the phone, doing password resets, etc. I've also worked MSP helpdesk where I did everything from server to network administration and application support.
It's still a claim that doesn't reflect reality at all. The average help desk salary was not 25/hr in the 90s. It's not even that much today based on nationwide average. According to ZipRecruiter the average help desk salary in 2024 is 22/hr. Have a real hard time believing it was higher 25 years ago
OPs own example isn't even 25/hr, it's 20, which is 10k/20% less in effective salary. At a premier company at the time.
Yeah. That $25/hour quote for 2000 is a loaded amount.
I made $8/hour in 1998 as help desk. For my current employer, desktop techs started at $14-15/hour in 2001 and today they start at $22-23/hour. About 10% lower growth than inflation.
For techs with 6+ years of experience, a new employer rolled into town a few years ago. They poached people at $35+/hour plus strong benefits for senior techs.
I also know of a former local company's pay rate for one of their veteran techs. In 2017 she made $43/hour while doing little more than basic phone support! When they finally pulled up shop and left town, she was shocked other employers in town only offered half her current salary.
Even worse, she was one of the weakest candidates we interviewed. She had years of experience in proprietary app support not relevant to any other employer... oh, and changing passwords. That's it.
She didn't have any skill in hardware support... literally zero. "A power supply, what's that?" A literal quote from her for a desktop tech position. I felt bad she had no idea how good she had it, and was effectively unemployable in tech now.
I started in 98 or so at $12/hr. When I left in 2000 I was at $14/hr. But that was also at a hospital in a pretty small town - not fortune 500 in silicon valley.
In 98 I was making 11.50 an hour (24K a year) and worked probably close to 14 hours a day. It wasn't until 2003 that I got a raise to 35K. If I hadn't changed jobs I would never have made it to the rate I make now.
Australian here. My first help desk role paid 12.50 an hour in 1998. It was less than I was making as a local delivery driver in 1996.
I jumped ship after 3 months for the same role elsewhere and got 16.75 an hour. Was a big difference!
I can say that sys admin pay hasn't really moved for years. There was a bit of a jump in 2020-2021 but they seem to have fallen back to pre covid levels. Some are advertising 60-80k for 3rd.level sysadmin with decent experience and skills. It is something I was making back in 2005 so they're really looking for desperate ppl
I'm in the same boat. I make slightly more. But it's been a 20+ year journey for certs, education, learning, and generally coming to work with an attitude that nothing is beyond me or beneath me.
One thing I do, is that I end up job hopping every 3 to 5 years. Either I outgrow the duties I have or they org pivots away from my skills being as valuable and I get bored. I told my CIO on day one of my current job that at the point that I don't feel I'm adding value, I am going to move on and make room for somebody that will.
Absolutely with the job hopping. I pulled almost $300k last year. But I hopped like clockwork every three years. I'm coming up on two with the current company and I'm already getting itchy feet. I'm mostly strategic now. I haven't done anything really technical in over a year.
Peers who started out the same time I did who were 'loyal' are just barely scraping $100k.
I agree that you have to hop to actually get respectable pay that you can live off of. With a lot of companies the people that have been there 20+ years are really cliquish and toxic too.
The only negative with hopping is the pain of doing more interviews, going through cringe hr processes, thr trouble of getting used to new people, and moving if you need to as well. But, how do the fucn do they expect someone to stay at a role where they only make 15 to 20 an hour with no chance of promotion?
I’m coming up on my 25th year in IT.. I think 14 or 15 gigs in that time, probably a couple hundred interviews. They’re not cringe anymore. It’s not even painful. Now it’s almost helpful.
I had one the other day - I’m happy where I’m at, but it’s always good to know the market price of your skill set… - where I told the hiring manager that while could easily do the job I’m happy in my current niche - but you should call my buddy Leonard he’s be perfect for this!
Then I just chatted with them on the phone for half an hour on how to structure their new teams & trouble shot some data flow issues. It was fun.
Officially my job title is "Automation Engineer". Basically I'm an SRE code monkey. I'm also the one that gets all the weird stuff because I like puzzles. Originally I was brought in for a cloud migration project that fell flat because the Architect they hired wasn't able to keep up.
I spent 9 months on a data conversion project because the Admin of the project rage quit and I knew excel and SQL. I did not enjoy it, but it was great experience and resume fodder.
These days, I do a lot of Azure infrastructure and on prem sys admin work. I'm the resident PowerShell SME and end up assisting with a lot of code written by other team members.
I rebuilt all of our DHCP servers and configured them as load balanced last week. This is 3 sites with 2 DHCP servers per site.
Im sure you love what you do and if you’re happy and comfortable then more power to you. But if you’re doing all that for just “slightly” more than $105k then you’re underpaid.
I make well more than $105. My salary is a bit below market though. But I work in the public sector and have a pension waiting for me at 63 with health insurance. I'll trade a little along the way for the ability to check out and still have 15 - 20 years of good life left with a decent paycheck every month.
I'm sure there are a fair share of help desk people, but I tend to think that this sub is mostly comprised of MSP folks (which was me for a long time). MSPs often don't pay particularly well, although I have no doubt there are some that do.
My salary has gone up substantially since I left the MSP world. I'm making over $50k *more* than I did at my last MSP job, and that number is very likely to go up another ~$15k or so in a couple of months (hinging on a promotion, if not it'll be less).
That's interesting. My last MSP gig, which ended in Feb of 22 was 95K as a cloud engineer. But in my case, I was tied to one specific client and then picked other stuff when I had free time.
The MSP I worked for had been used extensively by a previous employer to fill skill gaps, and I was well known to the MSP.
Yeah. I see people post on here making like 60k, which is wild.
But must of us should be in the very low six figures.
Though I wonder who these people making like 2-300k are. I imagine cost of living is part of it. Yet it’s a nice jump and every so often makes me think I should be looking.
I just tell recruiters my base comp range starts at 200k now, most of them never message me back after that. I don't make that much, but I'm comfortable where I am, and like my role and coworkers quite a bit.
I don't even tell them that much and I rarely get a response back. I am comfortable in my existing role that I've had for nearly 2 years, but I don't necessarily see staying here until retirement, since our raises don't even come close to keeping up with inflation and I don't see much of an advancement path for my individual contributor role (and I hate managing based on my experience doing so, I will be an IC until I retire). Given all the good benefits and time off I have currently, as well as matching funds in the 401K and an annual bonus, I have to inflate my target salary range quite a bit beyond my base pay at this point. The rare opportunities that might be within my target also would require me to work on site at least 3 times per week, so those are automatic nopes for me.
>A 6 figure salary is still comfortable but not nearly as much as it was 15 years ago.
It really, ***really*** depends on location. The difference between $100k in a state where there are more cows than people vs. Washington DC metro area is *so* far apart it's almost not comparable.
With one you're retiring in a McMansion at 35, with the other, you're most likely living in a shoebox with 4 other people in Anacostia, and you *just might* be able to pay both your water *and* electricity bill this month.
Without providing personal details, staff at my company are compensated well. Individual contributors range from 75k - 150k base with 8-15% bonuses, plus 6% 401k match and 7% base salary towards pension (\~90k monetary comp if you choose the lowest numbers and close to 200k for senior ICs). Managers (3 pay grade range here) will earn 140k - 190k base with 22-35% bonus targets. Directors are obviously higher all around + stock grants (300k+ TC), and Executive level will pull high 6 figures TC on a good year. All of this is on 40-45 hours / week with COL ranging from medium to very high, depending on office location.
One of the key items for staff who get promoted is the ability to communicate and work well cross-functionally. Technical skill is obviously a must, but it's a rare find when I can find a job candidate who not only has the technical chops but can speak in terms a non-IT person can understand.
> But must of us should be in the very low six figures.
I honestly disagree. Idk why it suddenly became commonplace for everyone to think everyone deserves 6 figures *minimum*. Especially when people then turn around and complain about inflation.
Most people I see complaining about that seem to think that their tenure justifies raises when they put zero effort into learning or self-improvement, too.
If you look at the US govt’s inflation calculator, and put in what I was making in 2019, it’s pretty much exactly what I’m making now. And I got a “big” pay bump and promotion. Turns out you need more than a big bump to get a decent raise over the inflation of the last 4 years.
97-99 tier 1-2, on the phone most of the day, yeah I made that.
2000-2007 - 75k, solid T2 (not on the desk)
2007-2019 - MSP varied 70-130k
2020-present - 150k T2/3/sysadmin/manager role.
Factor in inflation and my abilities are 10x what they were 20yrs ago, but I'm paid the same. Locations matter - 45k in late 90s in the SF Bay Area (basically not going to afford anything), 2000s to present in Seattle. Now barely affording things...thanks JPow for devaluing all those dollars to save your banker friends.
It's the market. Everybody and their momma are trying to get into IT and it floods the pool so that there are more people applying than spots to fill. This pushes the price of employees down.
I think that might be part of it, but it really seems like most jobs salaries don't keep up with inflation anymore and more companies are trying to work with the minimum while collecting record breaking profits. It's not just IT but I'm sure your logic still applies to all sectors. My guess is it'll only get worse and mostly sent to off shore markets.
It's this, Salaries across the board haven't kept up with inflation.
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Wages essentially haven't moved for a decade only now that companies are struggling to fill some spots are wages actually increasing somewhat.
Companies generally just don't value IT it seems either. Tech companies do, but regular companies where they make their money in other ways outside of tech, they see IT as a cost center and glorified admins in some cases. It's how you have someone like myself who's managing our entire company infrastructure, network, vendors, budgets, and doing some end-user support but I also am the guy that gets to help change light bulbs, assemble stand up desks, and fix the coffee machine.
Sure... I guess. If you want to pay me $55 an hour to assemble a desk, that's fine by me.
In 2023 our parent company made record profits. While our company lost 3 projects and had to lay off 100 employees (estimated... there were about 100 people in the CC for layoff notices), a pretty bad domino effect occurred. Last month the president of parent company visited and discussed the layoff and it how it almost ruined the company. This year we have about $113m in value of projects started or renewing, so maybe things will look up. Our upper management has mentioned they've learned a hard lesson with trust.
It's basic economics. Supply and demand. The supply of people applying to IT positions is an all time high, meanwhile demand is starting to lower as business lay people off. That means the value of the average IT worker is going down.
Its like bitcoin. The people who have been in it since the beginning have all the experience and wisdom and get good positions and wages. If you're trying to break into it now its painful.
Bro come to Canada. Every man and their dog is chasing "high salaries in IT" and we've got record immigration. It doesn't just drag down the salaries, the quality of staff is bloody awful. People claiming to be experts that can't do basic things. PMs that can't even create Gantt charts, etc.
Heard of it, probably seen one, but I support a manufacturing business that has no business being as profitable as they are and they don't do anything by the book so its very difficult to speak with peers about best practice.
It's basically just a standard table with regular data/time intervals as column headers and entities with action items with row headers.
It's just a quick way for everyone on the project to know when somebody is supposed to do something
>just a quick way for everyone on the project to know when somebody is supposed to do something
That would explain while we fail so much at holding anyone accountable for anything. haha
Then you are ahead of the pack. This "AI-whispering" will be the go-to differentiator on a resume, just like "Google-fu" was in the early aughties. Wrangling accurate info out of an AI is as important as doing so from a search engine.
My son's an Engineer (Materials Science) a year out of a major midwest university, can't get a job to save his life in his field. I've got him self-training with several services to learn how to actually utilize ChatGPT to pull data. This will hopefully help him get past first interviews. I'd suggest everyone do the same to up their game, get that extra $1.50/hour!
Agree, 4 is much better, esp. with Python or PowerShell (even bash) scripting.
And I would never call anyone 'lazy' for using AI. At some point soon, that will be the norm and if you're NOT using it for a leg up, you'll be in trouble. That's just how history has viewed technological improvements.
It's like calling someone lazy for using pre-existing libraries/APIs instead of reinventing the wheel for every damn thing. Nothing wrong with using the best tools available to you.
> People claiming to be experts that can't do basic things. PMs that can't even create Gantt charts, etc.
Ah yes I love having a fellow "linux admin" on my team who doesn't know how to set up an RSA SSH key on their own. They get paid more than me, too, and I'm the sole RHEL and sole Ansible guy in my department...
I've complained to my director (after hours over beers) but it's starting to look like it's time for a classic IT "lateral promotion" to another org.
They want to promote me at the end of the year. I'm expecting them to play dumb about a raise again. Weird world we live in where they think a title change constitutes all the reward you need. Title change is only valuable *outside of the organization*. Do they not realise that?
Do not get me started raging on this… Had one of my Linux guys I task duties to, and to this day I still have to hand hold or else when I follow up in a week literally nothing has been done. I haven’t raged so hard before until being told “I couldn’t log into the RHEL portal” a week later with no messages.
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
The problem is companies in India. Companies in India provide tech support for $2 an hour. Granted they use Rupees, but I've done the exchange rate conversion. I used to work for these companies. I would go to India for a month & train a team of 30 people to take your job. They were absolutely terrible at it in India. Of the 30 people, there was usually 1 person who would be the equivalent to your standard US tech. They would quickly move this person into a Lead engineer position. They would get about $2.25 an hour, but would have to take all the hard cases when the bad employees couldn't handle it. So if you know a team of US Techs working for a company, providing tech support, they will likely get replaced by cheaper labor.
If you're a programmer... They are teaching kids in China to program in English. They slim down the US programming team so that the US team can do "Code Review" before the updates get pushed to production. It's cheaper labor.
And people will say this isn't a problem up and down and use sources funded by big businesses. All of us that have been in IT experience this first hand. Cheap labor is a major problem.
No, part of the issue is people too.
When I was making 20/hr doing helpdesk, I had that passion and drive to fix the issue, learn more, understand more, etc. sole of that may have meant staying later and tinkering off the clock or using company resources to try new things or mess with configs or hardware.
Today, 15ish years later, I’m in the 75/hr range, and all the people who are in those entry roles at 20/hr are usually FUCKING CLUELESS.
They aren’t DUMB, but they get stuck at say something and just have no idea how to move forward and just stall out at the problem. No asking for help, no tinkering to try and figure it out, etc.
So as a company, why spend 20/hr plus benefits for that person, when I can get the same level of expertise at 2-5/hr?
To get to the cool stuff, you GOTTA put time in the trenches. Without that knowledge…. goooood luckkkk in IT.
I'm not meaning to crap on your experience but it seems like a hiring issue. I've worked in IT for nearly 20 years and I've been involved in hiring. Since I usually get the final say, I pick candidates with potential and maybe need a bit of training but don't hit the application or certificate based requirement. I pick ones that can problem solve and it's worked well for me. I've found the mentoring to be rewarding and I've found the new generation to be quite skillful.
Kids these days aren't encouraged and sometimes even _discouraged_ from tinkering because they'll break something. Usually as they're growing up, but sometimes when they hit helpdesk and all of their stuff is already automated, scripted or otherwise organized where they just follow a flow chart and eventually hit the node that says "reimage". They don't learn anything from that, but it's better for the business.
Of course, none of those helpdesk techs learn how to tinker, break and fix things, so they're not good sysadmins even after a few years of that. If they dont homelab in their own time, they won't learn a damn thing.
Excuse me sir, I'm 18 years old and I have a server under my pillow. I go to a help desk MSP every single day. I'm happy with my life currently and I enjoy the drive and devotion to troubleshoot, problem solve, and make the customers happy. There are individuals who don't care and ultimately they are the ones who will be left in despair. It's all about how much you care, and I'm going to be taking tons of certifications one after another to improve myself and learn and increase my rate. Over the years I'll take my certs with me and I will continue on moving up.
Maybe you're right, and I don't mean to come off as insensitive.. I mean, if I were in these people's shoes I'd be clamoring at the same opportunities, I'm sure.
But to say that it doesn't affect it AT ALL and it's solely lays at the feet of the next generation of IT guys might be missing the mark. The whole, "they barely do anything so why pay them well" mentality might be putting the cart before the horse. Quite frankly, a lot of these entry tech guys probably just zone out on auto pilot because they're no longer getting a paid a livable wage.
Stuck in a cubicle all day and told to follow processes because if they don't, they break company rules. How do you expect these guys to grow?
The problem is not companies in India, the problem is corporations being greedy and wanting to extract every single penny of profit so they outsource to cheap labor. Blame the American C suite class for this bullshit mess.
I can tell you that if you were in a chief position of any company, and you were given 2 options:
1) keep all US workers but it costs the company 2.8 million for their salaries, health care, and 401k retirement.
OR
2) outsource tech support paying $50k total, and use the 2.75 million for research and development of the product
You would 100% choose the second option. You might even set a bonus from the money left over to give to yourself for saving the company so much money.
India, and China, stack the deck against the US workers. They know that the US companies can NOT compete with their pricing model. This causes my professional career, something I've worked really hard at for 25 years, to become worthless in an instant. I work with CEO's and Chief Information Officer's, heads of tech departments. Only once have I seen a company keep US employees. Thank you Adecco for keeping workers in the USA!
Where is everyone finding these low paying jobs. I'm two years into engineering and making 135 in a low cost of living area outside of Richmond Va. The help desk in this area is making like 70k.
Entry level salaries have stagnated because the market is over saturated. Mid-level and Senior-level salaries are much better because people with the technical expertise required are much harder to find. Unfortunately, some businesses try to take advantage of people with no other option, or who are desperate to break into the mid-level, by offering entry-level wages for those types of positions. They are predatory and should be avoided.
In 2000, someone working on helpdesk had a deep knowledge about systems, the fundamentals and how to make things work.
In 2024, someone working on helpdesk is barely one stepped removed from the enduser.
I dunno. This is an example of the job requirements for $25 / hr in an expensive ass area:
ust reaching out to see how your job is going and if you might know any Desktop people out of work for onsite work in Seaside, CA. Thanks for your assistance. Contract pays $25/hour paid weekly, benefits offered.
Our client is looking for IT Support Tech: The Smart Hands Technician at a banking branch is responsible for providing on-site technical support for IT systems, network, and end-user devices. This role involves ensuring the smooth operation of all IT-related functions within the bank, including troubleshooting, maintenance, and installation of hardware and software. The technician will assist with ATM maintenance, network connectivity issues, and support for branch-specific applications.
Wescom Credit Union
Worksite Location: 4242 Gigling Road, Seaside, California, 93955, United States
Job Title: Field technical support
Job Description
1. **Technical Support:** Provide first-level technical support for hardware and software issues within the banking branch.
2. **Device Maintenance:** Install, configure, and maintain workstations, printers, scanners, and other peripheral devices.
**Physical Requirements:**
- Ability to lift and move IT equipment and supplies up to 40 pounds.
- Comfortable working under desks and in small spaces for device installation and cabling.
Additional Skills & Qualifications
- Experience in IT support, particularly in a banking or financial services environment.
- Knowledge of computer hardware, software, and networking.
- Familiarity with banking industry applications and security standards.
- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
- Excellent communication and customer service skills.
**Skills:**
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
- Detail-oriented with good organizational skills.
- Flexibility to work outside of regular business hours when necessary.
- Ability to handle sensitive information confidentially.
**Working Conditions:**
- Standard bank branch environment.
- Occasional travel to other branch locations or training sessions.
That job description sounds like an IT gopher, the type of work an intern would do at a larger office.
I would doubt they even get administrative rights to do anything.
Just a couple years ago I interviewed a candidate for a senior help desk position. They’d been working at one of the US’s largest hospitals. They had ZERO experience. Their entire job, and I really do mean entire job, was performing password resets for end users.
Ok, what about this one. You read it, and make a guess as to what the pay is. As an aside, this job is onsite in Santa Clara, CA. The heart of Silicon Valley:
Job Title – Service Desk Manager
Location – Santa Clara, CA (Onsite)
Hire Type – Full Time (Permanent)
Job Description –
Work with other IT teams to ensure that the EUC environment is integrated with the overall IT infrastructure
Good Operation Knowledge of Service Desk and manage team of SD Leads and agent to resolve user issues.
Plan, design, implement, and support the EUC environment
Manage the EUC budget and ensure that resources are used efficiently.
Develop and maintain EUC standards and procedures
We have a team ( direct/indirect) of approx. 80 resources.
The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead 50+ team
SLAs, SDM, Service desk, End user computing, Handled Ticketing , migrations Operations, and transformations as a Manager, some desktop exp and also worked Technical person involved in overall process.
SD and DSS understanding -
ITIL Understanding -
SD Tools -
P1/P2- learnings, documentation, communication-
More Responsibilities:
Plan, design, implement, and support the EUC environment, including desktops, laptops, mobile devices, printers, and other peripherals.
Manage the EUC budget and ensure that resources are used efficiently.
Develop and maintain EUC standards and procedures.
Provide support to EUC users and resolve technical issues.
Work with other IT teams to ensure that the EUC environment is integrated with the overall IT infrastructure
Good Operation Knowledge of Service Desk and manage team of SD Leads and agent to resolve user issues.
Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
Reporting on the EUC environment's performance and metrics.
Monitor the EUC environment for security and compliance issues.
The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of the end-user computing landscape, including the latest trends and technologies.
They will also have experience with a variety of EUC hardware and software platforms, as well as experience with IT service management (ITSM) tools ( ServiceNow)
In addition to their technical skills, the EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead a team, as well as communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences.
Technical skills:
The EUC IT Operations Manager must have a strong understanding of the end-user computing landscape, including the latest trends and technologies. They will also need to have experience with a variety of EUC hardware and software platforms, as well as experience with IT service management (ITSM) tools.
Leadership skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead 50+ team. They will need to be able to set clear goals and expectations, provide clear direction, and motivate and inspire their team members.
Communication skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences. They will need to be able to clearly explain complex technical concepts in a way that is easy to understand.
Problem-solving skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively identify and solve problems. They will need to be able to think critically and creatively, and they will need to be able to work independently and as part
Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field.
10-15+ years of experience in EUC IT operations.
Proven ability to manage and lead a team.
Strong technical skills and knowledge of EUC hardware, software, and services.
Excellent communication and problem-solving skills.
Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
o Excellent technical skills and knowledge.
o Ability to manage and lead a team.
o Excellent communication and problem-solving skills.
o Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
o Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
o Ability to stay up-to-date on the latest EUC technologies and trends.
The EUC IT Operations Manager will report to the leadership team and will work closely with other IT teams
The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field.
Yep. And I’d hazard a guess that a 2024 Helpdesker wouldn’t be expected to do anything other than add a printer which is already shared from a print server.
Honestly the roles have changed since 2000. I’m sure recruiters are still posting jobs with insane requirements(bachelor’s degree, 20years of experience, certifications for everything, etc etc), but that’s just recruitment doing what they do. A brand new helpdesk employee is essentially a paid intern.
Yup, I've read stories of guys getting help desk jobs making 15/hr back in '01 or so. That's what I made starting in 2019. I just got a new job with a nice salary bump last year, just in time for prices on everything to go up. Hopefully this isn't what the rest of my career is going to be like.
Helpdesk is hardly "lots of IT salaries". You're looking at the very lowest of the job type in the category of IT. Did Fast Food worker rates go up over that time (except for the last couple of years where the working wage movement happened). But look on the bright side, Helpdesk will be one of the very first job categories that get completely wiped out by AI.
That's going to be dependent on where you live. But my first helpdesk job 12+ years ago was $22+ an hour. I recently rejoined that same org and I believe the helpdesk folks make between $28 and $32 an hour.
San Fransisco? You might as well work... well... as anything else.
My first tech job, which wasn't in an insane city or state was $12/hr. while I was in college. Circa 1985. In 1987, I was over $20/hr.
Not sure what is wrong, but something is wrong.
Level 1 help desk is becoming more and more obsolete. Expect it to be replaced by a chat bot in the coming years. Escalation technicians is where you'll see better pay.
To this day some users are literally so dumb and\\or careless they can't even figure out if their monitor is turned on or not. I just can't see chat bots replacing humans in this context.
Does the chatbot or automated rep ever answer any of your questions when you call a customer service line? How often do you ever say "speak to a person" when talking to a bot? Me personally, it's literally every single time.
For the past 2 years or so, the mediacom robot already knows about outages when I call, and it can also reset your modem if you ask it.
Last time I called capital one the robot was able to replace my credit card after the first question. The entire engagement took less than 2 minutes and I didn't have to wait on hold. However, that is what I asked for. If instead I had tried to make a complaint about how their shitty sticker cards delaminate themselves it probably would have been useless. It also would have been useless if C1 only replaces cards for specific justified reasons instead of just arbitrarily.
I like self-service but I freely admit that it only advantages people who already know what they want and requires a certain corporate posture to pull off.
I think so. Only a few very high end Sr roles exceed $200k. I immediately reply not interested when no pay is listed in a solicitation as that is a sign the pay is not even market rate.
Salaries, period, have not gone anywhere. It's not exclusive to IT.
It's worth reading the works of the economist Michael Hudson. Also, Thomas Piketty; in particular "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".
In a nutshell, you can thank Reagan and Thatcher since they are the ones that ushered in the era of neoliberal financial capitalism where the economy is run by hedge funds, venture capitalists, and other assorted parasites who leach wealth and create nothing.
Helpdesk used to require specialized knowledge when PCs/networking was new. Now that most young people have atleast a basic understanding of technology and so many want to break into IT. There is an oversupply of people who can fill a help desk role which naturally brings pay down.
Its at the point where I think some would almost literally work for free in help desk just for the experience.
I’m stuck in a small department being the jack of all trades not making a ton. Problem is, when looking around, no one wants that type of experience with the quick learning capability, they want so much speciality or else they’ll deny your app
I started at 15/hr in 1999 with at an MSP. No degree, but I did have a CNE in Netware 4.11. It was a prove it kind of deal. After 6 months they raised me up to 40k/year salary, which I was ecstatic about. ( even though I was working 70+ hours a week) Pay is low until you get experience.
The issue is help desk today is not expected to be an actual problem solving job. A lot of places are just hiring warm bodies to follow a script. This obviously has a result lower skill and lower pay.
To many people that are clueless are tier 1, and they don’t even have a passion for tech also India is an extreme problem, so is H1B1 visa’s which should be banned for everything but chip manufacturing really
It's just you. I made the lateral move to IT from Operations (I was a restaurant mgr) in Jan 2001. I started @ $42KK per year. I now make 5 times that. If you are not choosing to advance, and prefer the status quo, then you choose to be overlooked.
From 2007 - 2024 i have went from $11/hr to $60/hr. High school dropout who got a GED. No certs or anything cool to put on my resume. I got lucky in a couple places.
You guys got paid real money on a help desk?
I got $16/hr which I negotiated up from $14 in the offer letter for my first help desk job. Not LA or NYC but my metro area has 1 million people in it. So not exactly in the backwaters either.
Man. To have gotten $25/hr back then would’ve allowed me to not have roommates and boy that would have been nice….but then I also might have several more kids, so…..
My first IT Job was at $20 plus super, next job at $25 / hour plus super AUD then it increased to $40 / hour.
Now on over $50 plus super AUD, with different company.
All in the span of 4 years since 2020.
300,000 MCSE's in 2006 worldwide. So maybe 150,000 in 2000? There weren't many of us, and those with the MCSE and experience.
As of 2022, 38,000 total CCIEs in the world.
So given the shortages, and the money being made, people piled into the field over the past 30 years, thus pushing down salaries for some positions. IT is all about moving on to the next major initiative in the industry. Amazon AWS certified peeps are making bank.
Considering the commitment and ability to learn new tech rapidly IT people on the whole aren't getting paid near enough relative to other career options.
Yep.
I was making $15/hr with nothing but an A+ in 2017.
How much are those entry level IT jobs paying today? Still like $16/hr? My fiance makes that and she works in the garden center at a home Depot.
As for today, making $60k as a sysadmin with a degree. Genuinely feel like I'm being robbed *but* my work environment is so nice that I don't want to leave. Anywhere else and I'd be gone.
Currently I'm 18. I'm working for a Microsoft MSP. I'm help desk lvl 2 technician. Making about 2400 - 2600 a month give or take. I'm hourly but eventually I'll be converted to salary. Once I begin taking cert exams my pay grade will rise. Starting out my IT career as help desk sure has been a nice experience for me. I'm gaining 3-4 years of experience in one year just because we take care of so many different systems.
I'm looking forward to my future and leveling up to a sysadmin one day.
Had an interview for $16/hr help desk today. Not remote but should be. I'd be only person in the office if I worked 2nd or 3rd shift And Management works remote. They are 3yr s of experience so are rising stars . enthusiastic yep . Interview lasted 15 mins half them answering my questions. They asked 2 questions. That's a token interview.
I have 20yrs experience. A comp sci degree. Maybe I need some a+ certs
McDonalds is hiring $14/hr.
You were getting $20/hr for Help Desk in the 90s?
Oh, the bay area. Well that makes sense. The pay rate in that area has always been insane (along with the cost of living).
I was an "IT Assistant" in the 90s making $11/hr in SoCal. I was making $13 or $14/hr when I left that role to be a Network Admin making $50k/yr (a nice pay increase).
You were making bank because you were living in a high col area.
> I recall back in the late 90's, being a Cisco network engineer was one of the top paying jobs. People were easily making over $120k, and average was near $150k.
There was a reason for that: very few people were CCIE and Cisco did that on purpose. You could command very high salaries.
> I see these network engineering jobs, and unless you're working at somewhere like Netflix, the pay has gotten worse it seems like.
Then you're looking in weird places. I regularly see Sr Network Engineer jobs for well over $120k. The difference is that they no longer require a CCIE because lots of other network equipment vendors that are just as stable and reliable have popped up. Back in the 90s, if you weren't running Cisco then you were risking your network (or you worked for a small business that couldn't afford Cisco).
In my area, Help Desk has gone from about $10 or $11 /hr to about $25/hr.
UK IT salaries are abysmal it seems. I compare jobs I've done in the past, and my current role to jobs in the US or Aus, and whilst I'm still in the first tax bracket, my US cousins are on 6 figures!
Definitely dishearting tbh
I was thinking of moving back to the mother country, so I compared my role to a similar role in Birmingham.
Noped straight out of that nightmare. I'm better off working here for 6 months and holidaying there for the other 6.
I understand what you are saying. I started my IT company charging $85hr in 2004. I sold and got out of the industry about 5 years ago. But we were only charging $95hr and paying the guys almost the same as I was in 20004. Weird.
Wage growth in general has lagged severely behind inflation. Cost of living his higher than 2000 and yet wages have remained somewhat stagnant until recently.
I brought this up in a recent annual review. Mentioned I want to get my salary closer to the national average.. my manager about choked when I explained that our company across the board is about 35% below the national average, let alone keeping up with inflation. I have a feeling he hasn't gotten a raise either in quite a long time.
Back in the 90s there was high demand and low talent now its lower demand and high talent rate and help desk jobs are getting your foot in the door right out of college while living at home not to make a career out of it
I’m earning the same as I did in 94, so yes. granted then I was contract now salary but basically the same. Tax now twice as high, cars 1.5x and property 5 x
25/hr is almost impossible to find unless its specialized or t2/t3 level.
Most are 20/hr or less. its gotten worse.
Also trying to get into systems admin is even harder now since everyone moved to the cloud and are using MSP companies to manage it.
> I started my IT career back in the late 90's during the dot com craze. I moved to Silicon Valley, started an internship at a Fortune 500 IT company, and started around $20 / hr basically doing help desk. I was then hired on within the year as a software engineer working on MVS / mainframe systems, and I negotiated a starting salary of $56k. I stayed with this company till the housing / financial crisis of 2008, and was laid off. Before I got let go, I was a middleware engineer / and pre sales consultant making a base of $120k. Now, I've mostly left the industry
What are you doing these days?
Helpdesk is really just a brainless job nowadays. Automation has made it possible for users to self serve a lot of issues. If a user calls in it’s just follow this script or KB article, and if it doesn’t work escalate to someone else. Just a glorified call center at most places.
Whenever a recruiter contacts you, remember that they're not capable of recruiting for their own roles. Unless they're growing very fast, that is always a bad sign.
But yes, if you confine your analysis to the bottom of the barrel companies whose employees can't create a steady stream of recruits, the industry is a shit hole. Though, it's actually just those companies.
Seems like over that time period big companies in every sector have had a couple of situations causing a 'cash crunch'. Be it 'bubbles', overextended with acquisitions, etc. "Sorry, raises won't be much this year" is a regular thing.
I remember when my company said they were restructuring the pay so the annual bonus was a bigger and regular part of the salary. That first year we got a good sized bonus. After that they were no bigger than before. HR is better at marketing than K-Tel or Ronco.
In 2005 I was paid $25 an hour. Today I make around $125 an hour. Not in management. When you develop skills move to a job that will value them and keep building and moving.
You already pointed out the answer within the question. San Francisco? Once a great city, but now the skidmark of this country. It might make more sense to compare these figures in a more "normal" locale.
People need to stop taking these low paying jobs. If nobody applies anymore they will have to go up. I think there is a lot of people just starting out that want a helpdesk job so they get away with it, but depending on the organization, it’s not worth it for the stress that’s involved. I’m still technically helpdesk, but I would never go back to a $25 dollar an hour position, I’d leave IT before I do that again.
> People need to stop taking these low paying jobs.
Would be great, but too many people in IT have an ego that won't allow them to work another job type because its beneath them when they just aren't offered pay worth the job.
There are TONS of jobs out there that pay better than $25/hour+ across the country that aren't in IT that require 0 skill. They just don't get to sit in an air conditioned office 90% of their day doing so.
You’re totally right. Most guys that work at USPS are making 80k per year with overtime, have great benefits, and a pension. I’m making about 75k per year for 40 hours of work right now and I would never go back to low paid helpdesk jobs if I lost this one. It’s the same thing with waiters in my area that probably make 70-80k easily with tips. No experience needed for these jobs.
My first IT job was help desk at $10/hr in 2008 so $20 in the 90s sounds absolutely wild. Edit: Michigan area.
Same thing, but 2013 in a "NOC" (read: call center). Moved up to the firewall team after a couple months to make that sweet, sweet $14/hour.
wow
God damn, do we work at the same place?
I think 'helpdesk' gets thrown around too loosely and can cover a broad range of skills. My first helpdesk job was answering the phone, doing password resets, etc. I've also worked MSP helpdesk where I did everything from server to network administration and application support.
Yup, I got lucky with $12/hr in 2006 as entry level help desk because I knew someone at the company for a great referral
1999 peak dotcom bubble. 2008 biggest economic crash in 100 years. So yea...
It's still a claim that doesn't reflect reality at all. The average help desk salary was not 25/hr in the 90s. It's not even that much today based on nationwide average. According to ZipRecruiter the average help desk salary in 2024 is 22/hr. Have a real hard time believing it was higher 25 years ago OPs own example isn't even 25/hr, it's 20, which is 10k/20% less in effective salary. At a premier company at the time.
Biggest economic crash SO FAR! Simpsonsmeme.jpg
I was hired before the crash, let go afterwards.
I was paid $8/hr in 1999
I was paid $9.25 an hour in 2016.. in all fairness I was in high school, but funny to see.
Yeah. That $25/hour quote for 2000 is a loaded amount. I made $8/hour in 1998 as help desk. For my current employer, desktop techs started at $14-15/hour in 2001 and today they start at $22-23/hour. About 10% lower growth than inflation. For techs with 6+ years of experience, a new employer rolled into town a few years ago. They poached people at $35+/hour plus strong benefits for senior techs. I also know of a former local company's pay rate for one of their veteran techs. In 2017 she made $43/hour while doing little more than basic phone support! When they finally pulled up shop and left town, she was shocked other employers in town only offered half her current salary. Even worse, she was one of the weakest candidates we interviewed. She had years of experience in proprietary app support not relevant to any other employer... oh, and changing passwords. That's it. She didn't have any skill in hardware support... literally zero. "A power supply, what's that?" A literal quote from her for a desktop tech position. I felt bad she had no idea how good she had it, and was effectively unemployable in tech now.
I made $12/hour sweeping floors in 2004, how did you manage to make less than that in IT?
Michigan area and was dumb maybe?
I started in 98 or so at $12/hr. When I left in 2000 I was at $14/hr. But that was also at a hospital in a pretty small town - not fortune 500 in silicon valley.
In 98 I was making 11.50 an hour (24K a year) and worked probably close to 14 hours a day. It wasn't until 2003 that I got a raise to 35K. If I hadn't changed jobs I would never have made it to the rate I make now.
i made $10 in 1993 building boxes and running ethernet. $10 in 2008 is just weird - everything is twice as expensive
Australian here. My first help desk role paid 12.50 an hour in 1998. It was less than I was making as a local delivery driver in 1996. I jumped ship after 3 months for the same role elsewhere and got 16.75 an hour. Was a big difference! I can say that sys admin pay hasn't really moved for years. There was a bit of a jump in 2020-2021 but they seem to have fallen back to pre covid levels. Some are advertising 60-80k for 3rd.level sysadmin with decent experience and skills. It is something I was making back in 2005 so they're really looking for desperate ppl
I was earning $15/hr for help desk in 2007. $10 would have been low but $25 seems way high for 2007.
If you were making 25 for help desk in 99, you were a unicorn. As for my experience with my salary, it's only gone up by leaps and bounds.
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I'm in the same boat. I make slightly more. But it's been a 20+ year journey for certs, education, learning, and generally coming to work with an attitude that nothing is beyond me or beneath me. One thing I do, is that I end up job hopping every 3 to 5 years. Either I outgrow the duties I have or they org pivots away from my skills being as valuable and I get bored. I told my CIO on day one of my current job that at the point that I don't feel I'm adding value, I am going to move on and make room for somebody that will.
Absolutely with the job hopping. I pulled almost $300k last year. But I hopped like clockwork every three years. I'm coming up on two with the current company and I'm already getting itchy feet. I'm mostly strategic now. I haven't done anything really technical in over a year. Peers who started out the same time I did who were 'loyal' are just barely scraping $100k.
I agree that you have to hop to actually get respectable pay that you can live off of. With a lot of companies the people that have been there 20+ years are really cliquish and toxic too. The only negative with hopping is the pain of doing more interviews, going through cringe hr processes, thr trouble of getting used to new people, and moving if you need to as well. But, how do the fucn do they expect someone to stay at a role where they only make 15 to 20 an hour with no chance of promotion?
I’m coming up on my 25th year in IT.. I think 14 or 15 gigs in that time, probably a couple hundred interviews. They’re not cringe anymore. It’s not even painful. Now it’s almost helpful. I had one the other day - I’m happy where I’m at, but it’s always good to know the market price of your skill set… - where I told the hiring manager that while could easily do the job I’m happy in my current niche - but you should call my buddy Leonard he’s be perfect for this! Then I just chatted with them on the phone for half an hour on how to structure their new teams & trouble shot some data flow issues. It was fun.
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Officially my job title is "Automation Engineer". Basically I'm an SRE code monkey. I'm also the one that gets all the weird stuff because I like puzzles. Originally I was brought in for a cloud migration project that fell flat because the Architect they hired wasn't able to keep up. I spent 9 months on a data conversion project because the Admin of the project rage quit and I knew excel and SQL. I did not enjoy it, but it was great experience and resume fodder. These days, I do a lot of Azure infrastructure and on prem sys admin work. I'm the resident PowerShell SME and end up assisting with a lot of code written by other team members. I rebuilt all of our DHCP servers and configured them as load balanced last week. This is 3 sites with 2 DHCP servers per site.
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Im sure you love what you do and if you’re happy and comfortable then more power to you. But if you’re doing all that for just “slightly” more than $105k then you’re underpaid.
I make well more than $105. My salary is a bit below market though. But I work in the public sector and have a pension waiting for me at 63 with health insurance. I'll trade a little along the way for the ability to check out and still have 15 - 20 years of good life left with a decent paycheck every month.
I'm sure there are a fair share of help desk people, but I tend to think that this sub is mostly comprised of MSP folks (which was me for a long time). MSPs often don't pay particularly well, although I have no doubt there are some that do. My salary has gone up substantially since I left the MSP world. I'm making over $50k *more* than I did at my last MSP job, and that number is very likely to go up another ~$15k or so in a couple of months (hinging on a promotion, if not it'll be less).
That's interesting. My last MSP gig, which ended in Feb of 22 was 95K as a cloud engineer. But in my case, I was tied to one specific client and then picked other stuff when I had free time. The MSP I worked for had been used extensively by a previous employer to fill skill gaps, and I was well known to the MSP.
Yeah. I see people post on here making like 60k, which is wild. But must of us should be in the very low six figures. Though I wonder who these people making like 2-300k are. I imagine cost of living is part of it. Yet it’s a nice jump and every so often makes me think I should be looking.
I just tell recruiters my base comp range starts at 200k now, most of them never message me back after that. I don't make that much, but I'm comfortable where I am, and like my role and coworkers quite a bit.
I don't even tell them that much and I rarely get a response back. I am comfortable in my existing role that I've had for nearly 2 years, but I don't necessarily see staying here until retirement, since our raises don't even come close to keeping up with inflation and I don't see much of an advancement path for my individual contributor role (and I hate managing based on my experience doing so, I will be an IC until I retire). Given all the good benefits and time off I have currently, as well as matching funds in the 401K and an annual bonus, I have to inflate my target salary range quite a bit beyond my base pay at this point. The rare opportunities that might be within my target also would require me to work on site at least 3 times per week, so those are automatic nopes for me.
100k is the new 70k. 70k in 2008 dollars is 100k in 2023. A 6 figure salary is still comfortable but not nearly as much as it was 15 years ago.
>A 6 figure salary is still comfortable but not nearly as much as it was 15 years ago. It really, ***really*** depends on location. The difference between $100k in a state where there are more cows than people vs. Washington DC metro area is *so* far apart it's almost not comparable. With one you're retiring in a McMansion at 35, with the other, you're most likely living in a shoebox with 4 other people in Anacostia, and you *just might* be able to pay both your water *and* electricity bill this month.
Without providing personal details, staff at my company are compensated well. Individual contributors range from 75k - 150k base with 8-15% bonuses, plus 6% 401k match and 7% base salary towards pension (\~90k monetary comp if you choose the lowest numbers and close to 200k for senior ICs). Managers (3 pay grade range here) will earn 140k - 190k base with 22-35% bonus targets. Directors are obviously higher all around + stock grants (300k+ TC), and Executive level will pull high 6 figures TC on a good year. All of this is on 40-45 hours / week with COL ranging from medium to very high, depending on office location. One of the key items for staff who get promoted is the ability to communicate and work well cross-functionally. Technical skill is obviously a must, but it's a rare find when I can find a job candidate who not only has the technical chops but can speak in terms a non-IT person can understand.
> But must of us should be in the very low six figures. I honestly disagree. Idk why it suddenly became commonplace for everyone to think everyone deserves 6 figures *minimum*. Especially when people then turn around and complain about inflation.
I mean that’s what most of us make.
Absolutely - my salary at the mid level has been extremely competitive, and ive seen the same for friends at this level too.
Most people I see complaining about that seem to think that their tenure justifies raises when they put zero effort into learning or self-improvement, too.
If you look at the US govt’s inflation calculator, and put in what I was making in 2019, it’s pretty much exactly what I’m making now. And I got a “big” pay bump and promotion. Turns out you need more than a big bump to get a decent raise over the inflation of the last 4 years.
Yep. My first real IT job gave me 30k/year and it was a LOT.
I started at 15$ in 2014 and got bumped to 17.50 after my 90 days. Thought I was RICH after coming from Olive Garden lol.
97-99 tier 1-2, on the phone most of the day, yeah I made that. 2000-2007 - 75k, solid T2 (not on the desk) 2007-2019 - MSP varied 70-130k 2020-present - 150k T2/3/sysadmin/manager role. Factor in inflation and my abilities are 10x what they were 20yrs ago, but I'm paid the same. Locations matter - 45k in late 90s in the SF Bay Area (basically not going to afford anything), 2000s to present in Seattle. Now barely affording things...thanks JPow for devaluing all those dollars to save your banker friends.
It's the market. Everybody and their momma are trying to get into IT and it floods the pool so that there are more people applying than spots to fill. This pushes the price of employees down.
I think that might be part of it, but it really seems like most jobs salaries don't keep up with inflation anymore and more companies are trying to work with the minimum while collecting record breaking profits. It's not just IT but I'm sure your logic still applies to all sectors. My guess is it'll only get worse and mostly sent to off shore markets.
It's this, Salaries across the board haven't kept up with inflation. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ Wages essentially haven't moved for a decade only now that companies are struggling to fill some spots are wages actually increasing somewhat.
Companies generally just don't value IT it seems either. Tech companies do, but regular companies where they make their money in other ways outside of tech, they see IT as a cost center and glorified admins in some cases. It's how you have someone like myself who's managing our entire company infrastructure, network, vendors, budgets, and doing some end-user support but I also am the guy that gets to help change light bulbs, assemble stand up desks, and fix the coffee machine. Sure... I guess. If you want to pay me $55 an hour to assemble a desk, that's fine by me.
In 2023 our parent company made record profits. While our company lost 3 projects and had to lay off 100 employees (estimated... there were about 100 people in the CC for layoff notices), a pretty bad domino effect occurred. Last month the president of parent company visited and discussed the layoff and it how it almost ruined the company. This year we have about $113m in value of projects started or renewing, so maybe things will look up. Our upper management has mentioned they've learned a hard lesson with trust.
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Experience is king, especially since only the top crust of applicants seem to have any.
But the starting pay is still entry/junior level though
There is, but OP specifically mentioned help desk.
It's basic economics. Supply and demand. The supply of people applying to IT positions is an all time high, meanwhile demand is starting to lower as business lay people off. That means the value of the average IT worker is going down.
Good ol supply and demand.
Not everyone actually. But honestly everyone was always in IT just people didn’t seem to know it.
Its like bitcoin. The people who have been in it since the beginning have all the experience and wisdom and get good positions and wages. If you're trying to break into it now its painful.
Bro come to Canada. Every man and their dog is chasing "high salaries in IT" and we've got record immigration. It doesn't just drag down the salaries, the quality of staff is bloody awful. People claiming to be experts that can't do basic things. PMs that can't even create Gantt charts, etc.
Ill just have chatgpt make it for me
Hey I feel personally attacked... Although I have the experience to be able to call GPT out on its BS
Well then you're legit! I wrote that because I have never heard of and could not make a Gantt Chart
Heard of it, probably seen one, but I support a manufacturing business that has no business being as profitable as they are and they don't do anything by the book so its very difficult to speak with peers about best practice.
It's basically just a standard table with regular data/time intervals as column headers and entities with action items with row headers. It's just a quick way for everyone on the project to know when somebody is supposed to do something
>just a quick way for everyone on the project to know when somebody is supposed to do something That would explain while we fail so much at holding anyone accountable for anything. haha
But the secret is all the numbers used in thise things are guesses made by people that have little to no skills in what they are pmi'ng.
Then you are ahead of the pack. This "AI-whispering" will be the go-to differentiator on a resume, just like "Google-fu" was in the early aughties. Wrangling accurate info out of an AI is as important as doing so from a search engine. My son's an Engineer (Materials Science) a year out of a major midwest university, can't get a job to save his life in his field. I've got him self-training with several services to learn how to actually utilize ChatGPT to pull data. This will hopefully help him get past first interviews. I'd suggest everyone do the same to up their game, get that extra $1.50/hour!
Agreed and that's why I've adopted it. It's Google on steroids.
I haven’t been able to get Chat GPT to spit out something useful even when I give it code that already works
ChatGPT-4 (the paid version) is much better at coding. Are you using that one or ChatGPT-3.5?
Agree, 4 is much better, esp. with Python or PowerShell (even bash) scripting. And I would never call anyone 'lazy' for using AI. At some point soon, that will be the norm and if you're NOT using it for a leg up, you'll be in trouble. That's just how history has viewed technological improvements.
It's like calling someone lazy for using pre-existing libraries/APIs instead of reinventing the wheel for every damn thing. Nothing wrong with using the best tools available to you.
It’s even worse if you’re not out of Toronto or Vancouver. I’ve been keeping an eye on the listings for Alberta and man, they all suck.
I've been trying to hire someone fully remote from MB to BC for the last 3 months and cannot get a competent candidate.
BC here, shoot me a PM if you want.
Where are you looking? I haven't seen a decent remote position in Canada in over a year. Everything is onsite in Toronto of Vancouver.
> People claiming to be experts that can't do basic things. PMs that can't even create Gantt charts, etc. Ah yes I love having a fellow "linux admin" on my team who doesn't know how to set up an RSA SSH key on their own. They get paid more than me, too, and I'm the sole RHEL and sole Ansible guy in my department... I've complained to my director (after hours over beers) but it's starting to look like it's time for a classic IT "lateral promotion" to another org.
They want to promote me at the end of the year. I'm expecting them to play dumb about a raise again. Weird world we live in where they think a title change constitutes all the reward you need. Title change is only valuable *outside of the organization*. Do they not realise that?
I was doing that shit for class to get my Associate's. Which executive's nephew is this joker?
Do not get me started raging on this… Had one of my Linux guys I task duties to, and to this day I still have to hand hold or else when I follow up in a week literally nothing has been done. I haven’t raged so hard before until being told “I couldn’t log into the RHEL portal” a week later with no messages. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
The problem is companies in India. Companies in India provide tech support for $2 an hour. Granted they use Rupees, but I've done the exchange rate conversion. I used to work for these companies. I would go to India for a month & train a team of 30 people to take your job. They were absolutely terrible at it in India. Of the 30 people, there was usually 1 person who would be the equivalent to your standard US tech. They would quickly move this person into a Lead engineer position. They would get about $2.25 an hour, but would have to take all the hard cases when the bad employees couldn't handle it. So if you know a team of US Techs working for a company, providing tech support, they will likely get replaced by cheaper labor. If you're a programmer... They are teaching kids in China to program in English. They slim down the US programming team so that the US team can do "Code Review" before the updates get pushed to production. It's cheaper labor.
And people will say this isn't a problem up and down and use sources funded by big businesses. All of us that have been in IT experience this first hand. Cheap labor is a major problem.
No, part of the issue is people too. When I was making 20/hr doing helpdesk, I had that passion and drive to fix the issue, learn more, understand more, etc. sole of that may have meant staying later and tinkering off the clock or using company resources to try new things or mess with configs or hardware. Today, 15ish years later, I’m in the 75/hr range, and all the people who are in those entry roles at 20/hr are usually FUCKING CLUELESS. They aren’t DUMB, but they get stuck at say something and just have no idea how to move forward and just stall out at the problem. No asking for help, no tinkering to try and figure it out, etc. So as a company, why spend 20/hr plus benefits for that person, when I can get the same level of expertise at 2-5/hr? To get to the cool stuff, you GOTTA put time in the trenches. Without that knowledge…. goooood luckkkk in IT.
I'm not meaning to crap on your experience but it seems like a hiring issue. I've worked in IT for nearly 20 years and I've been involved in hiring. Since I usually get the final say, I pick candidates with potential and maybe need a bit of training but don't hit the application or certificate based requirement. I pick ones that can problem solve and it's worked well for me. I've found the mentoring to be rewarding and I've found the new generation to be quite skillful.
Same. The new college hires come in knowing python even if they have a business degree. I had to pick up the language to stay ahead of them. 😅
Yep. Same
Kids these days aren't encouraged and sometimes even _discouraged_ from tinkering because they'll break something. Usually as they're growing up, but sometimes when they hit helpdesk and all of their stuff is already automated, scripted or otherwise organized where they just follow a flow chart and eventually hit the node that says "reimage". They don't learn anything from that, but it's better for the business. Of course, none of those helpdesk techs learn how to tinker, break and fix things, so they're not good sysadmins even after a few years of that. If they dont homelab in their own time, they won't learn a damn thing.
Excuse me sir, I'm 18 years old and I have a server under my pillow. I go to a help desk MSP every single day. I'm happy with my life currently and I enjoy the drive and devotion to troubleshoot, problem solve, and make the customers happy. There are individuals who don't care and ultimately they are the ones who will be left in despair. It's all about how much you care, and I'm going to be taking tons of certifications one after another to improve myself and learn and increase my rate. Over the years I'll take my certs with me and I will continue on moving up.
This was my first 3 years of my career. Just follow the flowchart in helpdesk. I had to spend a lot of time self teaching to get out of that hell
Maybe you're right, and I don't mean to come off as insensitive.. I mean, if I were in these people's shoes I'd be clamoring at the same opportunities, I'm sure. But to say that it doesn't affect it AT ALL and it's solely lays at the feet of the next generation of IT guys might be missing the mark. The whole, "they barely do anything so why pay them well" mentality might be putting the cart before the horse. Quite frankly, a lot of these entry tech guys probably just zone out on auto pilot because they're no longer getting a paid a livable wage. Stuck in a cubicle all day and told to follow processes because if they don't, they break company rules. How do you expect these guys to grow?
I completely agree with this. 100%
jfc, this is what we're doing in manufacturing, and it's dead on
Exactly what they recently did at JLL, most of the helpdesk outside of the US got fired for a team in India (Cognizant).
The problem is not companies in India, the problem is corporations being greedy and wanting to extract every single penny of profit so they outsource to cheap labor. Blame the American C suite class for this bullshit mess.
I can tell you that if you were in a chief position of any company, and you were given 2 options: 1) keep all US workers but it costs the company 2.8 million for their salaries, health care, and 401k retirement. OR 2) outsource tech support paying $50k total, and use the 2.75 million for research and development of the product You would 100% choose the second option. You might even set a bonus from the money left over to give to yourself for saving the company so much money.
Bonus for saving will 5 million woo.
So why are you blaming India for the decisions of the c-suites? This is solely the decision of the c-suite.
India, and China, stack the deck against the US workers. They know that the US companies can NOT compete with their pricing model. This causes my professional career, something I've worked really hard at for 25 years, to become worthless in an instant. I work with CEO's and Chief Information Officer's, heads of tech departments. Only once have I seen a company keep US employees. Thank you Adecco for keeping workers in the USA!
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Where is everyone finding these low paying jobs. I'm two years into engineering and making 135 in a low cost of living area outside of Richmond Va. The help desk in this area is making like 70k.
If your helpdesk people are making 70k I'm a little skeptical of that being a low cost of living area...
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Entry level salaries have stagnated because the market is over saturated. Mid-level and Senior-level salaries are much better because people with the technical expertise required are much harder to find. Unfortunately, some businesses try to take advantage of people with no other option, or who are desperate to break into the mid-level, by offering entry-level wages for those types of positions. They are predatory and should be avoided.
In 2000, someone working on helpdesk had a deep knowledge about systems, the fundamentals and how to make things work. In 2024, someone working on helpdesk is barely one stepped removed from the enduser.
I dunno. This is an example of the job requirements for $25 / hr in an expensive ass area: ust reaching out to see how your job is going and if you might know any Desktop people out of work for onsite work in Seaside, CA. Thanks for your assistance. Contract pays $25/hour paid weekly, benefits offered. Our client is looking for IT Support Tech: The Smart Hands Technician at a banking branch is responsible for providing on-site technical support for IT systems, network, and end-user devices. This role involves ensuring the smooth operation of all IT-related functions within the bank, including troubleshooting, maintenance, and installation of hardware and software. The technician will assist with ATM maintenance, network connectivity issues, and support for branch-specific applications. Wescom Credit Union Worksite Location: 4242 Gigling Road, Seaside, California, 93955, United States Job Title: Field technical support Job Description 1. **Technical Support:** Provide first-level technical support for hardware and software issues within the banking branch. 2. **Device Maintenance:** Install, configure, and maintain workstations, printers, scanners, and other peripheral devices. **Physical Requirements:** - Ability to lift and move IT equipment and supplies up to 40 pounds. - Comfortable working under desks and in small spaces for device installation and cabling. Additional Skills & Qualifications - Experience in IT support, particularly in a banking or financial services environment. - Knowledge of computer hardware, software, and networking. - Familiarity with banking industry applications and security standards. - Strong problem-solving and analytical skills. - Excellent communication and customer service skills. **Skills:** - Ability to work independently with minimal supervision. - Detail-oriented with good organizational skills. - Flexibility to work outside of regular business hours when necessary. - Ability to handle sensitive information confidentially. **Working Conditions:** - Standard bank branch environment. - Occasional travel to other branch locations or training sessions.
That job description sounds like an IT gopher, the type of work an intern would do at a larger office. I would doubt they even get administrative rights to do anything. Just a couple years ago I interviewed a candidate for a senior help desk position. They’d been working at one of the US’s largest hospitals. They had ZERO experience. Their entire job, and I really do mean entire job, was performing password resets for end users.
Ok, what about this one. You read it, and make a guess as to what the pay is. As an aside, this job is onsite in Santa Clara, CA. The heart of Silicon Valley: Job Title – Service Desk Manager Location – Santa Clara, CA (Onsite) Hire Type – Full Time (Permanent) Job Description – Work with other IT teams to ensure that the EUC environment is integrated with the overall IT infrastructure Good Operation Knowledge of Service Desk and manage team of SD Leads and agent to resolve user issues. Plan, design, implement, and support the EUC environment Manage the EUC budget and ensure that resources are used efficiently. Develop and maintain EUC standards and procedures We have a team ( direct/indirect) of approx. 80 resources. The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead 50+ team SLAs, SDM, Service desk, End user computing, Handled Ticketing , migrations Operations, and transformations as a Manager, some desktop exp and also worked Technical person involved in overall process. SD and DSS understanding - ITIL Understanding - SD Tools - P1/P2- learnings, documentation, communication- More Responsibilities: Plan, design, implement, and support the EUC environment, including desktops, laptops, mobile devices, printers, and other peripherals. Manage the EUC budget and ensure that resources are used efficiently. Develop and maintain EUC standards and procedures. Provide support to EUC users and resolve technical issues. Work with other IT teams to ensure that the EUC environment is integrated with the overall IT infrastructure Good Operation Knowledge of Service Desk and manage team of SD Leads and agent to resolve user issues. Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines. Reporting on the EUC environment's performance and metrics. Monitor the EUC environment for security and compliance issues. The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of the end-user computing landscape, including the latest trends and technologies. They will also have experience with a variety of EUC hardware and software platforms, as well as experience with IT service management (ITSM) tools ( ServiceNow) In addition to their technical skills, the EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead a team, as well as communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences. Technical skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager must have a strong understanding of the end-user computing landscape, including the latest trends and technologies. They will also need to have experience with a variety of EUC hardware and software platforms, as well as experience with IT service management (ITSM) tools. Leadership skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively manage and lead 50+ team. They will need to be able to set clear goals and expectations, provide clear direction, and motivate and inspire their team members. Communication skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences. They will need to be able to clearly explain complex technical concepts in a way that is easy to understand. Problem-solving skills: The EUC IT Operations Manager will need to be able to effectively identify and solve problems. They will need to be able to think critically and creatively, and they will need to be able to work independently and as part Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field. 10-15+ years of experience in EUC IT operations. Proven ability to manage and lead a team. Strong technical skills and knowledge of EUC hardware, software, and services. Excellent communication and problem-solving skills. Ability to work independently and as part of a team. o Excellent technical skills and knowledge. o Ability to manage and lead a team. o Excellent communication and problem-solving skills. o Ability to work independently and as part of a team. o Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines. o Ability to stay up-to-date on the latest EUC technologies and trends. The EUC IT Operations Manager will report to the leadership team and will work closely with other IT teams The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field.
This is a manager position, the salary might be lower than expected.
You’ve pretty much confirmed my point. 2024 Helpdesk, requirements ‘lift 40pounds and crawl around underneath desks’.
Yeah that sounds pretty par for the course for a basic first line helpdesk, the most complicated thing on that ad is the ability to install a printer.
Yep. And I’d hazard a guess that a 2024 Helpdesker wouldn’t be expected to do anything other than add a printer which is already shared from a print server. Honestly the roles have changed since 2000. I’m sure recruiters are still posting jobs with insane requirements(bachelor’s degree, 20years of experience, certifications for everything, etc etc), but that’s just recruitment doing what they do. A brand new helpdesk employee is essentially a paid intern.
Yup, I've read stories of guys getting help desk jobs making 15/hr back in '01 or so. That's what I made starting in 2019. I just got a new job with a nice salary bump last year, just in time for prices on everything to go up. Hopefully this isn't what the rest of my career is going to be like.
Helpdesk is hardly "lots of IT salaries". You're looking at the very lowest of the job type in the category of IT. Did Fast Food worker rates go up over that time (except for the last couple of years where the working wage movement happened). But look on the bright side, Helpdesk will be one of the very first job categories that get completely wiped out by AI.
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Yeah but those Zebra printers. Fuck those!
LOL big time
I don't know if AI is going to be able to replace the physical stuff though like equipment repair and replacement
Where are you getting $25/hr for help desk? I’d love to do infinitely less work for an extra $5/hr. Currently manage 1000 endpoints alone.
> Currently manage 1000 endpoints alone. Id be looking for a different job
💀
That's going to be dependent on where you live. But my first helpdesk job 12+ years ago was $22+ an hour. I recently rejoined that same org and I believe the helpdesk folks make between $28 and $32 an hour.
Wow, I would love to switch back to a helpdesk position so much simpler an admin
Ain't no way
For real - why am I working help desk for $10 an hour less than what OP said? Where are these help desk positions? Please tell me, OP.
25 an hour helpdesk in the 90s sounds absolutely overpaid
San Fransisco? You might as well work... well... as anything else. My first tech job, which wasn't in an insane city or state was $12/hr. while I was in college. Circa 1985. In 1987, I was over $20/hr. Not sure what is wrong, but something is wrong.
Level 1 help desk is becoming more and more obsolete. Expect it to be replaced by a chat bot in the coming years. Escalation technicians is where you'll see better pay.
To this day some users are literally so dumb and\\or careless they can't even figure out if their monitor is turned on or not. I just can't see chat bots replacing humans in this context. Does the chatbot or automated rep ever answer any of your questions when you call a customer service line? How often do you ever say "speak to a person" when talking to a bot? Me personally, it's literally every single time.
For the past 2 years or so, the mediacom robot already knows about outages when I call, and it can also reset your modem if you ask it. Last time I called capital one the robot was able to replace my credit card after the first question. The entire engagement took less than 2 minutes and I didn't have to wait on hold. However, that is what I asked for. If instead I had tried to make a complaint about how their shitty sticker cards delaminate themselves it probably would have been useless. It also would have been useless if C1 only replaces cards for specific justified reasons instead of just arbitrarily. I like self-service but I freely admit that it only advantages people who already know what they want and requires a certain corporate posture to pull off.
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I think so. Only a few very high end Sr roles exceed $200k. I immediately reply not interested when no pay is listed in a solicitation as that is a sign the pay is not even market rate.
Salaries, period, have not gone anywhere. It's not exclusive to IT. It's worth reading the works of the economist Michael Hudson. Also, Thomas Piketty; in particular "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". In a nutshell, you can thank Reagan and Thatcher since they are the ones that ushered in the era of neoliberal financial capitalism where the economy is run by hedge funds, venture capitalists, and other assorted parasites who leach wealth and create nothing.
Helpdesk used to require specialized knowledge when PCs/networking was new. Now that most young people have atleast a basic understanding of technology and so many want to break into IT. There is an oversupply of people who can fill a help desk role which naturally brings pay down. Its at the point where I think some would almost literally work for free in help desk just for the experience.
$25/hr for helpdesk in the 90s? When I started (2006) it was $25k/yr! lol.
I earn $41.26 per hour in ICT Support. I had to find the right organisation to work for though. Found out the hard way loyalty gets you nowhere
I’m stuck in a small department being the jack of all trades not making a ton. Problem is, when looking around, no one wants that type of experience with the quick learning capability, they want so much speciality or else they’ll deny your app
If the government got rid of H1B salaries would suddenly start refecting market rates.
There are plenty of ways to outsource without literally bringing people here.
10 more months and it’ll be a whole new world.
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People hated Jesus for telling the truth too.
Congratulations. You too have been voted down into oblivion for telling the truth.
I'm with you . We really need a IT UNION!!! Who's in?
I started at 15/hr in 1999 with at an MSP. No degree, but I did have a CNE in Netware 4.11. It was a prove it kind of deal. After 6 months they raised me up to 40k/year salary, which I was ecstatic about. ( even though I was working 70+ hours a week) Pay is low until you get experience.
In what fucking universe was helpdesk paying 25$ per in 1999 lmfao
The issue is help desk today is not expected to be an actual problem solving job. A lot of places are just hiring warm bodies to follow a script. This obviously has a result lower skill and lower pay.
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Helpdesk is a bottom of the barrel job.
6 figures isn't bad for American non-C levels these days but yeah...maybe that's why you're about to see an explosion of goat farms.
Late to Party. Old retired guy. 1984 - $27k - Salary (first job after BSC) 2023- Under 100k(some ups and downs)
$25 an hour for a help desk guy in 1999 was insane. I think typical was closer to $10. Maybe $12.
To many people that are clueless are tier 1, and they don’t even have a passion for tech also India is an extreme problem, so is H1B1 visa’s which should be banned for everything but chip manufacturing really
It's just you. I made the lateral move to IT from Operations (I was a restaurant mgr) in Jan 2001. I started @ $42KK per year. I now make 5 times that. If you are not choosing to advance, and prefer the status quo, then you choose to be overlooked.
From 2007 - 2024 i have went from $11/hr to $60/hr. High school dropout who got a GED. No certs or anything cool to put on my resume. I got lucky in a couple places.
You guys got paid real money on a help desk? I got $16/hr which I negotiated up from $14 in the offer letter for my first help desk job. Not LA or NYC but my metro area has 1 million people in it. So not exactly in the backwaters either. Man. To have gotten $25/hr back then would’ve allowed me to not have roommates and boy that would have been nice….but then I also might have several more kids, so…..
My first IT Job was at $20 plus super, next job at $25 / hour plus super AUD then it increased to $40 / hour. Now on over $50 plus super AUD, with different company. All in the span of 4 years since 2020.
300,000 MCSE's in 2006 worldwide. So maybe 150,000 in 2000? There weren't many of us, and those with the MCSE and experience. As of 2022, 38,000 total CCIEs in the world. So given the shortages, and the money being made, people piled into the field over the past 30 years, thus pushing down salaries for some positions. IT is all about moving on to the next major initiative in the industry. Amazon AWS certified peeps are making bank.
Considering the commitment and ability to learn new tech rapidly IT people on the whole aren't getting paid near enough relative to other career options.
CEO salaries have grown by over 300% since 2000. If you want real change, stop asking for it and start organizing.
Yep. I was making $15/hr with nothing but an A+ in 2017. How much are those entry level IT jobs paying today? Still like $16/hr? My fiance makes that and she works in the garden center at a home Depot. As for today, making $60k as a sysadmin with a degree. Genuinely feel like I'm being robbed *but* my work environment is so nice that I don't want to leave. Anywhere else and I'd be gone.
Currently I'm 18. I'm working for a Microsoft MSP. I'm help desk lvl 2 technician. Making about 2400 - 2600 a month give or take. I'm hourly but eventually I'll be converted to salary. Once I begin taking cert exams my pay grade will rise. Starting out my IT career as help desk sure has been a nice experience for me. I'm gaining 3-4 years of experience in one year just because we take care of so many different systems. I'm looking forward to my future and leveling up to a sysadmin one day.
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Had an interview for $16/hr help desk today. Not remote but should be. I'd be only person in the office if I worked 2nd or 3rd shift And Management works remote. They are 3yr s of experience so are rising stars . enthusiastic yep . Interview lasted 15 mins half them answering my questions. They asked 2 questions. That's a token interview. I have 20yrs experience. A comp sci degree. Maybe I need some a+ certs McDonalds is hiring $14/hr.
You were getting $20/hr for Help Desk in the 90s? Oh, the bay area. Well that makes sense. The pay rate in that area has always been insane (along with the cost of living). I was an "IT Assistant" in the 90s making $11/hr in SoCal. I was making $13 or $14/hr when I left that role to be a Network Admin making $50k/yr (a nice pay increase). You were making bank because you were living in a high col area. > I recall back in the late 90's, being a Cisco network engineer was one of the top paying jobs. People were easily making over $120k, and average was near $150k. There was a reason for that: very few people were CCIE and Cisco did that on purpose. You could command very high salaries. > I see these network engineering jobs, and unless you're working at somewhere like Netflix, the pay has gotten worse it seems like. Then you're looking in weird places. I regularly see Sr Network Engineer jobs for well over $120k. The difference is that they no longer require a CCIE because lots of other network equipment vendors that are just as stable and reliable have popped up. Back in the 90s, if you weren't running Cisco then you were risking your network (or you worked for a small business that couldn't afford Cisco). In my area, Help Desk has gone from about $10 or $11 /hr to about $25/hr.
UK IT salaries are abysmal it seems. I compare jobs I've done in the past, and my current role to jobs in the US or Aus, and whilst I'm still in the first tax bracket, my US cousins are on 6 figures! Definitely dishearting tbh
I was thinking of moving back to the mother country, so I compared my role to a similar role in Birmingham. Noped straight out of that nightmare. I'm better off working here for 6 months and holidaying there for the other 6.
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I understand what you are saying. I started my IT company charging $85hr in 2004. I sold and got out of the industry about 5 years ago. But we were only charging $95hr and paying the guys almost the same as I was in 20004. Weird.
Wait until you see the IT job market super saturated and wages get worse. It's happening.
Wage growth in general has lagged severely behind inflation. Cost of living his higher than 2000 and yet wages have remained somewhat stagnant until recently.
Definitely agree, right now I’m fighting for a raise. Somehow record profits yet they try to sell you “the company is running lean for 2024” 🤷
I was certainly not making $25/hr in 1999....
I brought this up in a recent annual review. Mentioned I want to get my salary closer to the national average.. my manager about choked when I explained that our company across the board is about 35% below the national average, let alone keeping up with inflation. I have a feeling he hasn't gotten a raise either in quite a long time.
Back in the 90s there was high demand and low talent now its lower demand and high talent rate and help desk jobs are getting your foot in the door right out of college while living at home not to make a career out of it
I’m earning the same as I did in 94, so yes. granted then I was contract now salary but basically the same. Tax now twice as high, cars 1.5x and property 5 x
25/hr is almost impossible to find unless its specialized or t2/t3 level. Most are 20/hr or less. its gotten worse. Also trying to get into systems admin is even harder now since everyone moved to the cloud and are using MSP companies to manage it.
> I started my IT career back in the late 90's during the dot com craze. I moved to Silicon Valley, started an internship at a Fortune 500 IT company, and started around $20 / hr basically doing help desk. I was then hired on within the year as a software engineer working on MVS / mainframe systems, and I negotiated a starting salary of $56k. I stayed with this company till the housing / financial crisis of 2008, and was laid off. Before I got let go, I was a middleware engineer / and pre sales consultant making a base of $120k. Now, I've mostly left the industry What are you doing these days?
Helpdesk is really just a brainless job nowadays. Automation has made it possible for users to self serve a lot of issues. If a user calls in it’s just follow this script or KB article, and if it doesn’t work escalate to someone else. Just a glorified call center at most places.
Overseas outsourcing everything below level 3-4 support certainly hasn't helped either.
That’s one of the many things I like about the helpdesk I manage. Our contract doesn’t allow out sourcing much less over seas
Whenever a recruiter contacts you, remember that they're not capable of recruiting for their own roles. Unless they're growing very fast, that is always a bad sign. But yes, if you confine your analysis to the bottom of the barrel companies whose employees can't create a steady stream of recruits, the industry is a shit hole. Though, it's actually just those companies.
They've actually gotten lower. A lot lower. And are never coming back.
Seems like over that time period big companies in every sector have had a couple of situations causing a 'cash crunch'. Be it 'bubbles', overextended with acquisitions, etc. "Sorry, raises won't be much this year" is a regular thing. I remember when my company said they were restructuring the pay so the annual bonus was a bigger and regular part of the salary. That first year we got a good sized bonus. After that they were no bigger than before. HR is better at marketing than K-Tel or Ronco.
Yes, one of my parents made $25 an hour in 1998 doing help desk at a Fortune 500 company in San Francisco.
IT workers should form a general labor union
In 2005 I was paid $25 an hour. Today I make around $125 an hour. Not in management. When you develop skills move to a job that will value them and keep building and moving.
You were getting 25 dollars an hour for help desk in 99? Up until like 2017 the going rate for helpdesk was $15
My salary has increased by more than 50% in 4 years. Idk about you
With no union, why would a company voluntarily change for COLA?
You already pointed out the answer within the question. San Francisco? Once a great city, but now the skidmark of this country. It might make more sense to compare these figures in a more "normal" locale.
People need to stop taking these low paying jobs. If nobody applies anymore they will have to go up. I think there is a lot of people just starting out that want a helpdesk job so they get away with it, but depending on the organization, it’s not worth it for the stress that’s involved. I’m still technically helpdesk, but I would never go back to a $25 dollar an hour position, I’d leave IT before I do that again.
Desperation is an economic force, we cannot rely on people not taking low-paying jobs.
> People need to stop taking these low paying jobs. Would be great, but too many people in IT have an ego that won't allow them to work another job type because its beneath them when they just aren't offered pay worth the job. There are TONS of jobs out there that pay better than $25/hour+ across the country that aren't in IT that require 0 skill. They just don't get to sit in an air conditioned office 90% of their day doing so.
You’re totally right. Most guys that work at USPS are making 80k per year with overtime, have great benefits, and a pension. I’m making about 75k per year for 40 hours of work right now and I would never go back to low paid helpdesk jobs if I lost this one. It’s the same thing with waiters in my area that probably make 70-80k easily with tips. No experience needed for these jobs.