Career advice

[RiaX]

Quite the generalization there. As with all generalizations, it means you're both correct and incorrect, depending on what you're looking at.

Relevance is the most important word in that sentence.

I worked at a company that serviced multiple huge clients providing development work. Most senior developers and team leads did not continuously study and write exams, but that was the nature of the niche we were in (Oracle development). You didn't need to do that kind of thing. On-the-job learning was more than enough.

Compare that to someone who wants to be at the forefront of their field and be able to dive into many different kinds of systems/clients/projects, and you will find you need to upskill.

Speaking of:



Like @RiaX said... are you seriously telling me this engineering manager did no training/upskilling/certifications since completing formal education in 2003? Do you think he would be "relevant" if he were to leave that company now and say, go for work at a Civil Eng firm in the UK for example?

Windows 98 is where it's at

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

let me ask here where do people see AI and its implementations in the world of IT going.
will support engineers your A+/N+ guys be irrelevant with AI that can do all the initial troubleshooting and already book out calls,

and the Coding guys who pump out lines of Code, will AI do to their jobs? or do they have a few more years until the technology matures enough.
and they look for higher level engineers who can program the AI to implement something for them.
same with Sales and all the other things AI is already capable of doing.

TLDR, is becoming a AI prompt engineer/Specialist worth it?

 

[Harmonic]

Stay away from IT, unless you want to constantly study and write exams to stay relevant.

10 years later I haven't written a single test since finishing my degree

 

[Tetsuo365]

Most of theses cloud courses relates to managing environments. What AWS, Azure, etc. services you need, how to configure and look after them.

If you want to develop you need to learn programming languages and frameworks like Python, JS, C#, Java, React, Angular the list goes on.

So do you want to develop or manage environments or do both

I want to manage environments

 

[Tetsuo365]

It's probably going to be difficult finding something with those certs alone. Even with A+ or N+... it's not a walk in the park, the job market in sa is brutal. Software devs on the other hand are currently in demand and coding bootcamps have produced many graduates that are now working at large companies so it's possible...

Don't sell your soul and become a support tech is all i can say..

I feel like A+ is if you want to be a desktop/hardware technician and N+ is if you want to be a Network Engineer. I don't personally know any devs with those certs (and I know quite a few devs).

When you say "get into IT"... what is it you are wanting to do?

To me, "IT" is an industry, not a job or career path. It's like saying I want to get into the "Automotive industry". But what in the automotive industry? Mechanic? Technician? Electrician? Sales? Test driver?

Same with IT. Developer? QA/Tester? Network Engineer? System Admin? DevOps specialist?

EDIT: Well done on doing the cloud cert. It's definitely a positive step. I know many "IT" positions where it could come in valuable, as well as non-IT positions. For reference, a friend of mine is a consultant at PwC in a non-IT-related role, but he was assigned to do a cloud cert. Cloud is big right now, whether you use it fully or not.

I want to be a cloud administrator...
I saw two Azure admin jobs posts on pnet that had A+ and N+ listed as a requirement

 

[Dylan_G]

I want to be a cloud administrator...
I saw two Azure admin jobs posts on pnet that had A+ and N+ listed as a requirement

Maybe someone else who has cloud admin/Azure experience can comment... But I don't think you need the A+ and N+ for that.

Sometimes job posts ask for the most random things.

 

[Bliksis]

10 years later I haven't written a single test since finishing my degree

Exactly

 

[GrootVoet]

Maybe someone else who has cloud admin/Azure experience can comment... But I don't think you need the A+ and N+ for that.

Sometimes job posts ask for the most random things.

No

 

[Genisys]

let me ask here where do people see AI and its implementations in the world of IT going.
will support engineers your A+/N+ guys be irrelevant with AI that can do all the initial troubleshooting and already book out calls,

and the Coding guys who pump out lines of Code, will AI do to their jobs? or do they have a few more years until the technology matures enough.
and they look for higher level engineers who can program the AI to implement something for them.
same with Sales and all the other things AI is already capable of doing.

TLDR, is becoming a AI prompt engineer/Specialist worth it?

You are drinking the "AI will replace everyone" cool aid

 

[InvisibleJim]

I want to be a cloud administrator...
I saw two Azure admin jobs posts on pnet that had A+ and N+ listed as a requirement

I would consider A+ minimally relevant to cloud computing.

Networking is an important component of cloud platforms so the N+ might have some value for a beginner if you haven't acquired a good knowledge of networking basics through experience or some other route. I would see this as being helpful in filling gaps in someone's understanding of basic networking rather than that the cert in itself is required for a cloud role.

If you came across networking concepts in your Azure studies that were difficult or didn't fully make sense then the N+ might be worth considering.

 

[InvisibleJim]

let me ask here where do people see AI and its implementations in the world of IT going.
will support engineers your A+/N+ guys be irrelevant with AI that can do all the initial troubleshooting and already book out calls,

and the Coding guys who pump out lines of Code, will AI do to their jobs? or do they have a few more years until the technology matures enough.
and they look for higher level engineers who can program the AI to implement something for them.
same with Sales and all the other things AI is already capable of doing.

TLDR, is becoming a AI prompt engineer/Specialist worth it?

I think for a while at least, it will largely be a productivity tool that will allow people to look at the overall picture and let the AI deal with some of the detail.

I'm sceptical that prompt engineering will in itself be a career path as it is really just communicating effectively in natural language with a view to a desired outcome. I think this will be a basic requirement in the AI powered near future and rather the individual's domain specific expertise will dictate their value.

 

[Y'all Qaeda]

let me ask here where do people see AI and its implementations in the world of IT going.
will support engineers your A+/N+ guys be irrelevant with AI that can do all the initial troubleshooting and already book out calls,

and the Coding guys who pump out lines of Code, will AI do to their jobs? or do they have a few more years until the technology matures enough.
and they look for higher level engineers who can program the AI to implement something for them.
same with Sales and all the other things AI is already capable of doing.

TLDR, is becoming a AI prompt engineer/Specialist worth it?

No user in the history of development has described their problem thorough enough for an AI to solve their problem.