[lopsa-discuss] Career planning

[Stephen Potter]

<quote who="John Stoffel">
> 	Length	Type		Whys (tags!)
> 	------	-------		--------------------
> 	3.5	Academia	money, growth potential
> 	2.3	Corp		new wife, relocation
> 	6+	Corp		death spiral, miserable
> 	1	Corp		still there

I've found that as I've grown older, I've tended to look for more
stability.  I "started" in academia as a student administrator -- at one
school for 1.5y before I transferred to another school where I was for
close to 3y.

I then got a job at a small development shop as their sole SA.  I was
bored stiff within 9 months (I automated myself out of a job) and decided
that consulting (automating myself out of jobs on a regular basis) was the
way to go.  I spent 4.5 years with Collective Technologies, until I saw it
was about to implode and jumped to a local consulting firm.  I was with
them for about two years when an ex-manager at the client moved to Bank
One to set up a new organization and asked me to come with him.

I've been there for 4 years now (well, Bank One for 2.5 years and JPMC for
1.5, but only because of the merger  :).  I don't necessarily see myself
leaving JPMC; the environment is fairly good, there is good opportunity
for advancement, there's cool technology to play with.  My career has
changed significantly though, I'm not directly technical any more I've
moved into something resembling product management.

-spp
-- 
Stephen Potter  <spp at unixsa.net>      <http://www.systemadministrators.org>
Director, LOPSA Executive Board                      <http://www.lopsa.org>

"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, two
useless men are a law firm, and three are a congress." - John Adams