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Ask Slashdot: Switching Careers From Software Engineering To Networking?
An anonymous reader writes: I am a software engineer with over 10 years of experience making approx 210k a year after bonus. I've seen countless of software engineering jobs off-shored or taken by H1Bs over the past 5 years. While I am pretty safe at my current job, software engineering as a profession is beginning to look bleak, and i am not even sure if I can ask for the same money if I decide to jump ship to another company (I live in an expensive area).
A friend of mine who works as a network architect with dual CCIEs have no problem finding/landing jobs with high salary. His profession doesn't seem to be affected by outsourcing or H1bs, so I am tempted to switch from my field to networking for better stability and greener pastures.
So the question is, should I do it? The reason why I am looking for the long-term stability is because I've a family of 3 to feed. I cannot afford to be jobless for more than 3 months if I do get laid-off, and software engineering doesn't seem to be the profession after years of observation to provide long-term stability. Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
A friend of mine who works as a network architect with dual CCIEs have no problem finding/landing jobs with high salary. His profession doesn't seem to be affected by outsourcing or H1bs, so I am tempted to switch from my field to networking for better stability and greener pastures.
So the question is, should I do it? The reason why I am looking for the long-term stability is because I've a family of 3 to feed. I cannot afford to be jobless for more than 3 months if I do get laid-off, and software engineering doesn't seem to be the profession after years of observation to provide long-term stability. Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
No!
You need investing advice more than career advice. After 10 years of work you should have much more than a three month cushion -
It sound like you have fallen into the trap of allowing your expenses to grow to consume all current income. That is going to be hard to reverse, and THAT is what you need some professional help with,
approx 210k a year after bonus.... I've a family of 3 to feed. I cannot afford to be jobless for more than 3 months if I do get laid-off
On your salary, you should easily be able to save years of buffer, at the rate of at least a year per year even if you live in an expensive area.
I have plenty of friends in an average priced area making around $40K/year and supporting families of 4 on that. It doesn't involve owning BMWs or big screen TVs or living in mansions and they penny pinch, but they get by okay on what they have. On over 5X that salary, even if your housing prices are several times higher, you should have no problem at all building a huge buffer for bad times if you need it - even with a more luxurious lifestyle than they are living. Years of buffer should not be a problem except when you are just starting out.
Perhaps some of the problem is money management, rather than your choice of career?
Doing a job for money, does not for-fill me. I have 5 to feed, so I understand the money side.
I have seen many in the IT world to be there only for money and NOT skill / passion for job. I work today with a group that mainly in it for money. No future planning on direction of the NETWORK or SOFTWARE. PS: I sit in both worlds.
If you love networking and think with single point failure issues, go for it.
If you are just doing it for money, find something else you enjoy. The money will come.
Been in computers now for 42years, not planning to give that world up any time soon.
Networking is changing rapidly at the moment. Large numbers of companies outsource their WAN networks to telcos eliminating the need for people who understand routing in enterprises. A lot of the the internal networking of companies is moving to software defined networking, eg Vmware NSX, virtual load balancers, virtual firewalls etc. You still need people to manage this, but in theory it should be less people.
Personally as someone in networking I'm not sure I'd recommended it unless you are very interested in the technologies. Those that love what they do will probably be able to find a niche and make it lucrative, but you constantly have to be learning new stuff, I'm finding it harder to find the interest as I get older (37 years old now).
If you're making 210K/year but are unable to save more than 3 months of living expenses, then you are living way, way beyond your means.
Yeah, I know that housing is expensive...so what, though -- everyone else in your area is also dealing with expensive housing, and probably most of them are making well under 210K. Given that service workers in your areas are raising a family on 50K-60K a year, you can surely afford to save far more than you currently are.
First and foremost, how can you possibly have let yourself get into a situation where $210k/year has you three paychecks away from being out on the street? You need to make some adjustments to your living situation ASAP -- get your budget under control, eliminate outstanding debts, etc. You are near the very top of the industry for software engineering compensation -- it's not a matter of the market not being stable (there's very high demand), it's that you're quickly pricing yourself out of the market.
Now onto the meat of your question -- you're not making a fair comparison. What would you think if your dual-CCIE friend saw your position and said they wanted to switch to software engineering because they have a friend with 10 years of experience in a high-level position who is making $210k/year?
Yes, there are people that make as much as you doing network architecture. That is the absolute top-level cream-of-the-crop of the network engineering industry. It takes 10+ years of experience to get there. You will not be there on day one, and you probably wouldn't be there after 5-10 years of hard work, either, unless you get extraordinarily lucky. Your software engineering skills have nothing to do with network engineering at any level, let alone network architecture, so you will start out in entry-level roles making 50-70k/year while you gain experience. You may get to the point after 5-7 years where you're clearing 100k if you're positioned properly and very lucky with the experiences you've gained.
Yes, network engineering is a great profession. No, you won't establish the same standard of living immediately, quickly, or even at all. Fix your personal problems and get your current life under control before you look at doing a major thing like shifting careers when you're currently at the height of your first career.
210k salary and you can't feed a family of 3.
Software engineering jobs are in ever more demand today, and you're talking about bleak prospects in a job which you say isn't going to fire you any time soon.
You talk about stability and jumping ship from a safe job in the same sentence.
Hmm.
Actually, what do you want? Or maybe you just hate software engineering as a job or career?
Don't quote me on this.
Move somewhere else. If you can't save up a years worth of expensives just in case, then you're living outside your means. Only lasting 3 months is far outside your means. One accident, a broken bone, house fire, or etc... to anyone in your family and you're sunk. Get out of there while you still can. Getting a hire paying job will only make things worse because you'll fall faster and deeper when something happens. Living smarter is the way to go. And don't assume insurance will help you. They're in the business of not helping people.
Sorry, I know this is going to sound "holier than thou", but it's still true: high cost area or not, if you can't live more than 3 months without a salary - and you're pulling down 210k (US$, right?) - then your first efforts need to go into a hard look at your financial priorities. With that salary, you ought to be able to put quite a bit aside - it certainly shouldn't be hand-to-mouth anymore. Even in a high-cost area, that's all true.
Brief aside: I assume you are in the US, where there is a lot of peer pressure to buy some awful McMansion that stresses your salary. This is a societal problem and one worth resisting. Even with 3 kids, you do not need 5000 square feet of house. Get a smaller, comfortable place to live and put you money somewhere more useful. If you're married, obviously your spouse needs to agree with this...
As for moving to networking, it all depends on how good you actually are. If you are worth 210k/year, then you are not easily replaceable. OTOH, if you have the feeling that you landed in the gravy by accident, because you aren't actually worth that kind of salary, then maybe you do want to change...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You should be able to afford to raise a family on half of that, even in the Bay Area... unless you keep buying new cars, bought a house you couldn't afford... and generally just represent the kind of person who the people who grew up in the area you moved into despise.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You have a nice salary. My guess is that you've had good raise for many years now, but reached "the plateau" that we all reach sometime regarding salary (regular pay). Your pay is actually pretty steep compared to most of us. Are you that much better than the average? Are you unlike most, and just keep on stacking the deck even after you've reached your maximum output?
My guess is that, barring investing like Warren Buffet, you should be happy with what you get now. If you want the extra work and education involved, by all means jump ship and take on something even more extraordinary. If it's better pay, disregard why it might pay more, and just go for it! Just keep in mind if that's what you really really want.
Is it worth your time and _your life_, compared to spending it with your family and loved ones, or even an interesting hobby or dream?
The rest of your life will be your answer..
Captcha: infuse
I got out of networking because it is too high stress. All you do is put out fires all day. None of the network equipment I ever used actually did everything the vendor said. All of the software you will have to support is crap, and you can't rewrite it.
Networking is an entirely different skill set. Almost none of your current skills, other than management, will transfer. So that may be your best path. Go for a job as a CIO. You can manage big projects, help them avoid crappy software purchases, and not have to learn a thing about actual networking.
Be prepared to take a pay cut if you do this, unless you're aiming for some really focused networking jobs, like core routing, anti-ddos startup, or something equally limited in availability.
If you make $210k a year, and cannot affort being jobless longer than 3 months...
Than your first priority, before everything else, should be to get a grip on your budget and get some emegency funds. You have more than enough money to set a decent part aside.
It wouldn't matter if you had all the ccie certs Cisco puts out. With no actual network work experience you'll be lucky to start around 40-50k probably because you have a degree already. Switching careers in IT these days means starting over. With your salary and comfortable job as others have said you should concentrate on saving as much of that salary as you can and ride out that cush job you have for when things turn south. A better option might be for you to look at a startup that could use your Dev skills and get some equity in the company vs all that salary.
Hello.
It can take like 10+ years for a network professional to reach from 0 level to CCIE status. CCIEs get good money, their income is much more resilient to turbulence but the catch is it is a very long long and tough road to the top.If you start switching to networking, you will have to compete with younger professionals who are already CCNA/CCNP certified.
I recommend to you the following career paths:
1) Management- Move to business, people management, project management something management.
2) Security. Very lucrative field. Somebody with 10+ years in software development can be trained as a security professional with focus on software security, and penetration testing. Who can understand better how to tackle buffer overflow attacks and sql injections than a software developer?
3) Consultant? Architect? Start assessing, architecting and designing software rather than doing what you do now.
Good Software cannot ever be off shored. There are still many out there that know this. You should probably leave the "enterprise" behind and branch out on your own.
Don't go into networking unless you're the principal architect. I know a company that outsourced network engineering to the Philippines. They're willing to stay up late at night their time to accommodate for the normal business hour here. On the other hand, you do need some low level tech to do the manual labor of connecting cables and building racks of equipments, but they are not well paid. You need to be the brain that makes the master plan and ensures that outsourced network engineers work well with the local techs.
Apparently this arrangement makes sense because Cisco IOS user interface is so poorly designed so that it requires a lot of training to use. I think the poor design actually inspired a whole job market, it's sad.
I once had a signature.
> His profession doesn't seem to be affected by outsourcing or H1bs
... for now.
Can you say for sure that this will still continue to be the case in five years?
Where do you live? I live in WA State and can live very well with my family on 50K a year. Granted my car is 8 years old and I rent my home but it's all good.
Seriously, the late 90s was the time to hop on the CCIE gravy train. Back then it was practically a license to print money, today it will not guarantee you any job much less a high paying one. The networking field has reached a sort of rough equilibrium where the number of people working in it is nearly the same as the number of jobs. If you have many years of experience in complex networking environments then you can still command top pay. But if you do not have that then it is not worth pursuing. There are a ton of people out there trying to break into the networking industry and a limited number of entry level jobs.
There are no full-time networking jobs out there in small and medium sized businesses. Large companies may hire a small handful of them but that is it. The jobs are primarily with vendors, ISPs, and consulting firms. You had better have verifiable high-end experience or close personal ties to get into one of those gigs. Otherwise it will be a relatively low-paying NOC job waiting for a higher position to open up and hope that somebody will give you a chance.
I think your biggest problem is that you have the "grass is always greener' mindset right now. You are unhappy in your job so you are looking elsewhere. A better plan would be to look into other areas of software engineering where your past experience can be helpful.
First, ignore the people who just want to shit all over you for making more money than them. They don't know anything about your situation and aren't qualified to comment. Savings and cash flow are two entirely different things, as I'm sure you know.
I've been in networking for about 20 years. I don't have a CCIE, but I've passed the written three times and sat for the lab once (I took a sales path instead). I have intimate knowledge of CCIE compensation. Starting level for a CCIE is around $135K, depending on where you live and what exactly you're doing. I believe there are salary surveys published every few years on this topic.
You will absolutely need extensive experience to become a network architect, though. The certifications would not be enough. Obtaining a CCIE is strenuous and would most likely require those years of experience anyway. You can do it, but it will take time and you will take a pay cut while you build your portfolio. Be aware, though, that networking is not immune to the outsourcing issues you're seeing in software.
As career changes go, networking is not a bad choice, but it won't be an immediate lateral move in terms of comp.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Remember these words:
"It looks okay on my end." *pause* "Try it again."
When you have mastered this, you will be ready for network administration.
A couple of things come to mind beyond your current financial situation.
1) Dual CCIE is the absolute pinnacle of the field. Out of 50 million people in the world who do IT work, the 600-ish people in the world who have this combination of certifications are the top of their field. It generally takes 8-10 years of experience and dedicated study to get to this level. Did you think you would just walk in and get a CCIE in 3 months? The lab itself costs several thousand $$ and requires you to fly to California, where you do an 8-hour long practical exam. It's the top cert among Cisco's 15-18 different certs. Most people get at least 4 others before a CCIE.
2) A quick google on this topic turns up this quote, which is very apt: "Given equal intellectual capabilities and work ethic, 20 years of hands-on costs a lot more to an employer than 3 years of hands-on with 2 CCIEs, in most cases. Also, in most cases, a better investment." Ask your friend what his real world experience and the number of times he's deployed large scale complex WANs and various other technologies and remember that having that experience with dozens of networks is what makes him valuable. The cert is just the proof.
3) If you switch fields, you will start at $50-60k. That's what they pay network engineers with no experience. After 10 years and 6 or 8 certifications leading up to a CCIE, the median salary is $165k. Making $210 is very lucrative. I would find ways to save money now, rather than try to switch careers.
4) Your dream that somehow computer networking is immune to H1B is asinine. They will be outsourced and replaced at the same rate, with the same drivers and the same goals and outcomes.
First, you may want to read a few books on networking before you make a final decision. Just because you have friend that is a CCIE who earns good money - doesn't mean you will necessarily have the same aptitude/mentality for networking. However, because of IPV6 and especially network security issues there exist lots of opportunities for proficient network professionals. You have skills developed from programming that you can leverage as a network specialist, but you may also find that networking requires quite a bit of rote memorization that some engineers and programmers find tedious and boring. Problem solving will be more in the areas of troubleshooting and optimization, consider you may not find this a gratifying as crafting great code.
Bottom Line: Do what you love or have a passion for doing .... the rest will take care of itself. I started building my own networks in the late eighties - just because I just had to know how they worked and enjoyed doing it (very much like others like model trains or cars).
I'm gonna say what everybody else already said with the added bonus of a harsh reality check.
Regardless of the expensive area you've chosen to live in, there is no excuse for you to not be able to survive 3 months without income. Love her or hate her, Suze Orman would be tearing you to shreds if you asked her this question, so i'm going to do so by proxy.
There are people out there that have to feed a family of 3 on $25,000 a year. They have to spend every dime they make on a place to live and food - and for that reason its somewhat acceptable if they're having difficulty saving a cash cushion, they'd have to be REALLY thrifty and still not really make it.
Meanwhile, a rough estimate of your income after taxes means you're probably taking $100-$125,000 a year home. With that level of cash in your pocket, you'd have to be snorting cocaine with $100 bills and then wiping your ass with it to not have more than a 3 month cushion after even just a couple years of employment.
You should be glad that you're making enough that you don't ACTUALLY have to worry about food or shelter. Not making the mortgage payment on your $600k mcmansion does not classify as "worrying about shelter" because it was your choice to overdo it.
Once you break through the median family income, your goal should be to save as much as possible, not to spend it all and have nothing to show for it.
You need to, right now, go to a retirement investtent web site such as Vanguard.com, open an account, and start putting 25% paycheck in it until you have a years worth of income saved up, then you can drop that back to 10-15% or so. If you do this, you basically won't ever have to worry about money again.
Yes, you won't be able to buy a new BMW 5 series every 2 years, no, you won't be able to move out of that $600,000 crapshack and into a million dollar crapshack in 5 years. But for the love of god, don't openly worry about your finances when you make over $200k a year! You have a spending problem, not an earning problem.
Don't the network is becoming software anyways
If you earn 210K, but cannot afford to be unemployed for more then 3 months, than the problem is on your side because you are spending too much money. I would even say that it is unlikely that you will get this salary again if you switch jobs, as your current salary is way above even most high-qualification jobs.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
why not do both and go into SDN. its probably where alot of stuff is going. i'm CCIE, but i'm now studying for the JNCIE-SP. as for SDN, it might be a good option as facebook, google, and even Juniper, and Cisco are doing it. depends what you like to do. i on the other hand prefer networking and systems with a side of programming.
I am a software guy who switched into networking 15 years ago and became one of the top-tier network architects. I changed back into software about 6 years ago because of where the industry is headed (and my skill set fit it perfectly). Being a network engineer (even CCIE) does not have a long future as a career (unless you just want to run cabling). Everything but running cables is being automated over the next decade. If your friend is not aware of this, there is a real awakening coming very soon for him.
Sure, there will continue to be a handful of high end network architects, but most of what network engineers do will be replaced by software written by Software Engineers. If you want to break into networking, do it as a software expert (at your salary band, that sounds like what you are). Configuring networks is really not much different than writing very simple software -- just a bunch of objects (routers, switches) with attributes that define flow.
Learn how networks function, and find a job writing software to replace the network people -- coming from someone doing this: your current salary band is easily achievable in networking if you are doing it as a software guy. As a pure network guy, you need to be at the very top to reach that level, and it isn't going to last long.
Just to warn you, networking is ultra-boring. Do you think software engineering is bad? Networking is worse. You don't really make everything - you spend most of your time trying to get configurations to work, working around bugs in firmware, or figuring out how some numbskull screwed up the various configs.
It is, basically, plumbing.
That's not to say it isn't important, but if you're actually good at software engineering you'll probably find networking ultra-tedious. Do you really want to learn the ins and outs of the OSI stack? All the weird things about hooking Cisco gear to other gear? Troubleshooting connectivity issues due to someone plugging a switch into itself?
Just writing about it makes me want to lobotomize myself.
Want some insulation? Start a side business. A friend and I both started separate businesses about 18 months ago. Him, because he wanted to. Me, because I had to. His business, really a side business, is beekeeping. Mine is IT consulting, but I have a very specific focus based on a specific thing here. We're both doing really well and last weekend we compared notes. We've both kind of knew this, but this is the conclusion we came to: His day job isn't the most thrilling and has ups and downs through the year, but he loves his side business. Me, I have a stable new business, but I might consider getting full time employment somewhere just to make my commute easier, however I love the business so much I'd have to keep parts of the work as a side business. Most people in other parts of the world seem to work like this. End result - side business is f*cking awesome and most people just seem too lazy to do it.
----- obSig
Brewster's Millions is not an instruction manual.
I think the only way you can make that kind of money is networking is dodging bullets - either literal or figurative.
Either you are going to have a high-stress job where you will be on-call 24/7 and people will be yelling at you all day, or you need to go to Irag, Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc.
Just find a job outside of the Bay Area. You will take a pay cut, but you will come out ahead.
I hope you haven't been counting on those stock options that, in the vast majority of cases, will ultimately be worth --- nothing. (statistically, if you work for a venture-funded startup.)
Thought it was switching from software engineering to twerking. Sounded like a solid idea and all.
because we gotta show everyone how big our dicks are.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
"making approx 210k a year after bonus."
:)
For that kind of money you could work for a couple of years and comfortably retire in Atlantic Canada - and spend more quality time with your family.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
but I'll echo everyone else: I think you've got a lifestyle problem. I'm in Boston (not SF but not cheap by any means, either) and living on just over half that salary. In our industries, the days of punching a clock for 30 years then collecting a pension are largely over. If you can find that kind of security, good on you, but I'd never count on it, and certainly not from a lateral (at best) career move. Companies fold, funding dries up, and contracts expire. A cushion isn't just prudent, but absolutely necessary for most of us. If you're earning 50K+ and can't find it, IMO, you're not looking hard enough.
Us software engineers are currently working on automating network engineers out of a job. Tools like Chef allow me to rack up an appliance, plug it in to the network, and it configures itself. The guys that maintain the IT infrastructure are literally being automated away.
Stick with development, man. Software engineering isn't going anywhere.
to Anil Ivannovich Lee or something similar and you should have no problem obtaining that next programming job. And, yes, I know people who are doing this successfully. Hey; it is what it is.
Clearly all the info in the post is fake. Maybe this is Cisco looking to see what others think of the certifications. Are the as watered down as the paper MCSE?
$210,000/year? That's how much money I made programming over the last four years. And you're living paycheck-to-paycheck?
I have friends who make less, are single mothers, take care of children, and in some cases, are financing their education.
Stop living in the equivalent costwise of midtown Manhattan. Move 25 miles further away from work. Learn how to save. Stop eating out so much. Try once a week. If your kids are in private school, pull them out. Get cheaper childcare. Trade in that BMW for a Honda.
You're not being a good father. You're earning a massive amount of money by any stretch of the imagination, and you should have at least a year or two in reserve, if only for the sake of your children.
Once you've sorted your life out, then consider changing careers.
By comparison, the most I've ever made in one year including cash and compensation was about $110,000. I paid for a $35,000 car in cash that year, and still had a foretune left over.
I'd rather know more about switching careers from software engineering to billionaire playboy super-spy. C'mon, think big!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There are software engineering jobs all over the nation in areas with reasonable living costs and good salaries. Boise, ID and the metropolitan area surrounding it is one of them. There are 10+ large companies here that hire software engineers and the really good ones pay in the $120-$150k range (sometimes higher depending on the company). That's net ~6k a month after taxes where $900-$1200 gets you 4 bed/3 bath. 20% of your salary for housing is downright cheap. If you have 10 years experience and have senior developer (managing other developers) experience, you can easily ask for $120k and they won't bat an eye.
$210K is an insane salary for a Software Engineer even with Bonus. Most CEOs and many doctors don't earn as much. Check out http://www1.salary.com/Software-Engineer-I-salary.html or any similar site. Median pay for a Software Engineer is $62,670. Half earn less than that. Median salary for a Plant General Manager is $166K. You are in the top 0.001% of pay in your profession, and you want to leave it for "greener pastures". You could not be earning that salary if your job could really be headed to guest workers on H1B visas.
You either have nothing to fear or your employer or your employer is an investment bank that is so terminally stupid it will go bankrupt soon.
I cannot afford to be jobless for more than 3 months if I do get laid-off
That's really all that caught my eye, and a host of questions pop up in my mind about this statement and what it really means.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I live in a city of 1 million plus people and there is a 3M city 60 miles away. My combined household income is about $210K, and I live next door to a Neurosurgeon, a man who owns 7 Taco Bell restaurants, a few Dairy Queens, and a luxury spa, and a man who is president of a solid mid-cap corporation. Pull your head out of your ass. You can live in midtown manhattan on $210K. "Manhattan's median annual household income is $66,739, while Brooklyn's is a mere $44,850. Its less fashionable neighbor, Queens, outearns Brooklyn at $54,373 per year." Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/01/new_york_city_census_data_manhattan_and_brooklyn_are_much_poorer_than_you.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/realestate/what-is-middle-class-in-manhattan.html?_r=0 "A $70,000 annual income is middle class for a family of four, according to the median response in a recent Pew Research Center survey..."
... It's a helluva drug. Perhaps start doing a cheaper one? Or give your nose a break? Also, banging sluts in hotel rooms on "business trips," isn't gonna be a money saver.
Too many. Consider getting rid of one, for starters. Ask yourself who is your least favorite offspring and how much you would miss it.
Interesting question. I myself am getting ready to make the move from programmer to DBA. H1Bs are a big part of it but the real issue is that I've had enough of being expected to do "teamwork" with petulant knuckleheads. If I already know the technology and can deliver a better solution in 3 weeks, why the hell should I be dragged along on their magical 3-year journey of discovery to the lost city of Mediocrity? Why was I asked so many fucking questions at interview time if what you really wanted was someone who'd check their brain at the door? There don't seem to be teams of DBAs nor do they have that idiotic fad framework religious zealotry that crushes my soul as a programmer. Besides, it's not like I can't scratch that programming itch at home...
So you are thinking of taking a much lower wage position? Step 1: reduce your monthly expenses to match what that new job would be. Step 2: Save the difference. Step 3: Realize if you do this for 10 years you could retire and live off the interest. If you do get canned that nest egg will easily support you while you change careers.
It is a starting salary for 'good' software engineers in nyc for some companies and it is about right for a mid level senior in sf. The problem is that between the insane real estate and taxing in those communist utopias, you are making less than any other major metro at half that.
You make 210k a YEAR after bonus and threw the "I have three mouths to feed" card? I don't care where you live or what your circumstantial excuse is, that is a lot of money. I think you should get an accountant to manage your paychecks as-is.
I agree with your sentiment about the $210k being an insane salary for software coder. Having said that, I witness first-hand how many months/years your average code-monkey takes to complete simple software projects. If you figure a project that should have been completed in 1 month and ends up taking more than a year to complete, getting one of those fancy $210k/year software "engineers" sounds like it might be a wise decision after all.
Just got asked about helping with the Fukushima cleanup. I'm in, in case anyone cares.
See subject: When the "going was good" over the timeframe 1994- LATE 2008 as a pro on both fronts, to do so (& since you seem "pretty well equipped" + experienced & I imagine you KNOW what I mean, per your narrative - before 'offshoring/outsourcing', it paid WELL to "make the move" from techie->network tech->network admin->programmer-analyst->software-engineer & your payrate even shows it).
Nowadays? Yea, going the REVERSE is a better choice (even with SDN & remote access to servers) since you can't "offshore every server" & SOMEONE has to be there to physically reboot them or replace parts (extend that same idea to networking equipment like hubs/routers/switches etc. - et al).
APK
P.S.=> HOW to do it? Man, I haven't worked in the field since late 2008 iirc, & got out to start my OWN business (& I thank God I did, beating what's happening to you guys out there now - I got lucky, & so far since then, it's been successful thank God, again) - but, I'd say get the certs needed & go for it man: You'll do GREAT due to your understanding of "things software" & OS + networking (that comes with the territory of coding since you know & I KNOW you're often made a full-rights admin while say, setting up database engines + webservers & rights to end users via ACL & DB login lists etc. security-wise + more, so you're MORE than "3/4 of the way there" imo & experience 1994-2009 almost as a pro on BOTH fronts, but, "doing it in reverse" as opposed to what YOU'RE AFTER nowadays (my way? It was "the right way" BACK THEN/WHEN... now? It'd be yours for the reasons I noted above - good luck, hope what I said helps))... apk
First, I think you may be opting to switch careers for the wrong reasons. Instead of trying to pick / choose a career because of the amount of money you could potentially make, try choosing something you LOVE doing instead.
1) You might find you absolutely hate being a Cisco network engineer. They are a different breed.
2) While it's true that economically the core software development may be moving offshore (this is economics), someone still needs to manage these teams.
3) There is tremendous growth now in Cloud / Dockers / DevOps / Mobile - the point being that you are always honing your skills, keep learning new things.
As long as you stay current with the latest trends and offer value to today's employers, you will have a job.
Ignore all those posts who berate you for potentially not keeping a large-enough nest egg. They are simply naive and don't realize in their narrow world that there are a BILLION BILLION more possible issues that people don't take into account. (I have a personal commitment to care for a terminally ill loved one).
Lesson 1 here = please don't judge.
Lesson 2 here = Choose a career doing something you love, it will never seem like work.
Lesson 3 = Keep a sensible budget and try to live within your means when possible.
Peace out.
What a frigging hilarious article! How many nerds can you make upset with one post?
Finance nerds - "OMG! Can't you save?!?!"
Underpaid nerds - "OMG! I make less than that and can feed a family of 10!"
Network nerds - "OMG! Moving to Networking isn't as trivial as you make it seem!"
etc, etc, etc
Can you feel the rage of nerds? Seems to be planned to trigger the reactions ... good job Timmy and Dice. Makes me think Slashdot is equivalent to those trash newspapers in the aisle of the supermarket.
...moving very slowly and winning footraces with smug satisfaction.
I would'n even get out of bed for that money. What kind of shit do you code?
You should think about instead of going all the way to CCIE, go for a lower level Cisco. We support hundreds of physical servers, two data centers, and (I think) 8 SABRE mainframes; yet we have maybe 8-10 network engineers who are FTE employees. Better yet might be to branch out into an MS cert, and a VMWare cert or three. My location does a tremendous amount of virtual servers, like 20-50 blades on a rack with 10-15 VMs each. I haven't seen any of the virtual networking yet, but that really isn't within my job scope unless it has some severe issues...it's probably in there too. Yet some networking, combined with virtualization...toss in some ITIL, policy management, project management and you could leverage your current skill set and find a new niche. I've seen situation management positions at Goldmans starting at $250k for ITSM analysts positions, even a few around $300k...so you know if you where seriously looking you could find even higher pay.
Since you already code, learning the ITIL process should be pretty easy. The VmWare you can practice in your home lab (you DO have a home lab, right? Cause if your going cisco you'll need one LOL) I never know what issues will crop up, sometimes it's a server with bad hardware, switch sup card going out, someone pushed a bad script that jacks up some Oracle databases, etc. It's also a path into management if you want, since you really get a chance to network with vendors, programmers, network engineers, clients, etc and have to really flow with the severity and get stuff fixed. ITIL is also a world-wide standard, many corps are moving to it to manage change.
You want to switch a software engineering job paying you 210K / year?
ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY????
Now that I come to think of it, the salary is so rare and the circumstance so odd (3 months savings to being out on the street), I would say that this is a troll article. Not genuine.
Man you seriously need to control your fixed income expenses. It is very easy to get lost in the day to day grind, and toast it all in eating out and bars every single day, cigs, coffees, small vices. Sport cars and all of that. You have to start controlling your OWN expenses. Since your are married, both of you need to control it. I propose a small experience. Get a smartphone app, or a sheet of paper, a xls, whatever suits you, and jot down the expenses of the next 30 days. Then analyze it with your wife and see where you can improve. Cut back while it makes a difference. Get advice from someone more conscious in the family. Often also are buddies with the same lack of self-restraint that down you with them. Do not delude yourself, you have to let go these people for the sake of your own.
You realize you linked to the salary for Software Engineer I, right? As in... someone with zero experience. Try Software Engineer V, at least. Then you need to take into account that he's likely not in Kansas City but in somewhere like San Francisco or New York. Median salary in SF for Software Engineer V is apparently $156k, according to salary.com.
Some put aside some monthly sum for their personal rainy days into hidden private accounts. Blacks and asians are known for "lending" money to the family. You cannot afford both, specially the later.
I must have misread the question because I could have sworn he wasn't asking for advice on how to budget his money.
I actually did the opposite of what you did. Granted it was 15 years ago, but I was in core infrastructure networking and went into software. Not for any reasons of job security, but because I really wanted to get into some of the value that the network was delivering.
However, since then a really interesting thing has happened. SDN has made the network into much more than the sorts of things a CCIE would do. There will still be jobs for network engineers in the traditional sense, but what you may want to explore is how you can use your software skills to help networks run better, because SDN is allowing networks to do things that OSPF, BGP and MPLS can only dream of. Getting an understanding of infrastructure networking (both from the LAN and WAN side) will only make you a better software engineer, and being a software engineer will also make you a better network engineer. To quote Wayne Gretzky (who was famously quoted by Steve Jobs), go where the puck will be, not where it is.
Dear Slashdot,
I have a sweet high-paying job that might not last forever. Rather than risk losing it at some unknown time in the future and having to take a pay cut with a new job, should I just switch careers now and guarantee that I take a huge pay cut right away? PS., I'm barely scraping by now. I couldn't possibly support my family on less than the almost quarter million a year that I'm making now.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Seriously, I couldn't find more than a handful of comments giving actual usable advice.
I'd get a real financial advisor, these guys are not worth asking life questions from.
Yes downvote me all you want, You all know it's true.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
.
I told my kids to give away 10% (biblical yes, but I have found it helped me not to focus to much on money as the reason for life - life is for living, money is a tool, like a screwdriver or a hammer, to make life easier), save 20% (ROTH, IRA, 401K, with 1/3 tax paid, 2/3 tax deferred), save another 10% for short term savings (vacations, new car - pay cash, car insurance, house down payment, etc), live on the rest. If there is any left over, put it in short term savings. Don't take money out of IRAs or 401Ks for life expenses even as loans.
All this is very fatherly advice, but it helped once I figured it out, it helped me and my family greatly. I hope you find what is best for you and yours.
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
He said he was making 210k--After Bonus--now. So he may not have been making it for the last 10 years and maybe his pre-bonus salary is like 165-170, with the bonus being not entirely predictable. Plus folks, you don't know what special needs there are in family, and the fact that he said he can't be more than 3 months without working doesn't mean he would be dead broke then. Just means that's what feels safe and reasonable to him. Apparently there are a lot of sour grapes here.
Many companies now have their software engineers do everything - all the networking, sys admin, DB admin, etc. No job is safe.
Software Engineer I would be for a software engineer right out of college. The OP said he has 10 years of experience.
Combine the two worlds and get into Software Defined Networking!! :-)
You might also want to look at DevOps....those two areas are hot!
Good luck man.
You should be maxing out your retirement investment (not in more than 10 percent company stock, 90 percent in a low cost index fund or ETF like Total Stock Market or S&P 500 or mid cap. And downsizing your expenses. Never have more than half of your assets in your house.
But, sure, pick up network certifications on the side, that's a good move.
A friend of mine is starting a Software Engineering internship, she's your eventual replacement (and is an American).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
First off.... Wow, most of this thread is useless (not that I'm shocked). He doesn't state specifics on finances. I would say I can't "afford" to be out of work for more than 3 months too. In reality I put a ton of money away for retirement and kids college, and could probably make it a few years without working, but with my current retirement plans, I couldn't "afford" more time that either. It really doesn't give specifics on the financials and everyone is just speculating wildly. For the real question he asked... I switched from software to network engineering about a decade ago, because my then employer (the USMC) told me to, so there really wasn't an option. I found it interesting, and after transitioning to the private sector stayed on the networking side. While you can make that amount of money, you are starting in a new field lacking relevant experience. The 150k+ jobs are almost exclusively working in sales engineering, ISP, or a senior engineer at a very large enterprise. Even with a CCIE (which isn't exactly a small undertaking) the only position that you would likely get hired into is the sales side, the other two will likely require a large amount of work experience as well. The sales side is easier, because to be a Cisco requires certified personnel to receive "gold" and "silver" partner levels. A couple of side notes... Outsourcing and H1-B's are every bit as prevalent for network engineers as software engineers. They may not be bringing a ton of people in for 45k cable monkey jobs, but for the gusy in the 6 figure range... You betcha.. They are all over the place. And the potential for other onshore outsourcing is possible to. Verizon, AT&T, and BT take on huge clients every day that are outsourcing their networking. I think the best way ahead.... If networking interests you... You could stick with software and migrate toward one of the SDN platforms... Cisco ACI or VNX and hope its VHS and not Betamax... Or even worse, laserdisc and never gets adoption.
This guys belongs in a circus, making that kind of money and thinking he can just waltz in as a CCIE he needs his head checked, expecially when he will have to jump down to a measly 50k as a junior.
probably an ass hat troll