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.

Comments

Where did all the money go

[jandjmh]

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,

Re: Where did all the money go

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe his wife is into shoes

Re:Where did all the money go

[ip_freely_2000]

You beat me to it, parent. I don't know how anyone only has three months of savings after a run like that.

Re:Where did all the money go

[Gr8Apes]

Yeah, I'm sorry, no pity here - you're making over 210K / year, and you don't have at least 2 years run rate and a hefty retirement savings account you can fall back on? Sounds like you majorly failed at money management 101 - spend less than you earn and put at least 20% away in savings. BTW, that 20% is for people at an average salary, in your case, no matter where you live, you should be dropping at least 40% into savings, and likely more.

Re:Where did all the money go

[Ihlosi]

You need investing advice more than career advice.

After making 210k/yr and living expenses, OP does not seem to have anything left to invest. Budgeting advice should be a priority.

Re:Where did all the money go

[dryeo]

Perhaps he lives in somewhere like Vancouver and bought a house. $200,000 a year is hardly enough to live on, little well save money.

Re:Where did all the money go

[tlambert]

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,

I totally agree.

I am more or less "retired", unless someone comes to me with exceedingly interesting work to do, I read, I paint, I draw, I write, I tinker, I vacation, I angel invest, I patent even more stuff, I spend time with smart people, I participate in interesting forums, and I learn more stuff, taking college courses if I have to, etc..

$4M in savings is more than enough to throw off the $200K+ a year (that's at only 5%) you are currently earning, and as long as you are conscious of cash flow, this just grows over time.

People who spend all they make are people who never had to eat Cream-O-Wheat with weevils in it, and live on Top Ramen, and Mac and Cheese, and Little Caesar's Pizza, when they were younger. Learn some freaking financial discipline. Come back and "Ask Slashdot" in another 10 years.

Re: Where did all the money go

[Buck Feta]

He said 210k per year, but he didn't say dollars... perhaps he makes 210,000 pesos, yen, or roubles per year?

Re: Where did all the money go

[Ulric]

I'd mod you -1 redundant if I had mod points.

Re:Where did all the money go

[Grishnakh]

It's simple:
He's married.

Re: Where did all the money go

[cthulhu11]

Maybe his bat-shit crazy abusive ex bled him dry. Maybe one of his kids has special needs. Plus he obviously lives in NYC or the Silly Valley where housing leeches $5k/mo or more. You don't don't his situation, you don't know that he doesn't have half a million in a 401k that he can't touch in any viable way until retirement. Think before you judge.

Re: Where did all the money go

[Gr8Apes]

You should never short-change your emergency fund, and at 200K+ a year, sorry, I don't care where you live. I and my friends have lived on a lot less in various portions of the country that you're naming. Granted, it's not always where you *want* to live, but it is way way way beneath the means of someone earning 6 figures. Otherwise waitresses, busboys, doormen and fast food workers would all be earning well into 6 figures. He's living far beyond his means if his stated circumstances are true. And the old quote "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" holds here too. Live like you earn 100K in his case, and his finances will be fine in short order.

Re:Where did all the money go

[gunner_von_diamond]

People who spend all they make are people who never had to eat Cream-O-Wheat with weevils in it, and live on Top Ramen, and Mac and Cheese, and Little Caesar's Pizza, when they were younger.

I still eat Little Caesar's Pizza and Mac and Cheese because it's awesome. It's nice to be able to do that because I want to, not because I have to like back in college! I do agree, his issue is clearly one of financial discipline, not a "career choice".

Re:Where did all the money go

[gunner_von_diamond]

I was always taught that any type of bonus should be treated like "free money" and saved immediately, not spent or counted towards your yearly income. I bet if OP would just save his bonuses and not use those as a basis for his "normal" income, he could easily achieve much more than a 3 month cushion.

save?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:save?

[ArmoredDragon]

A big screen TV is no longer a rich man's luxury. The best displays are about $2,000. If you pay more, either you're paying for a brand, or you are buying a jumbo screen that's 65" or higher. Which even then, it isn't going to exceed $10,000 unless either you buy snake oil shit (think the 'monster cable' of TVs) or you buy something that's so big it can't even fit into the living room of a typical mansion.

The rich man's luxury these days depends on the kind of rich man you are. Some like coke and sex parties, some like menageries, some like exotic car collections, some like Learjets, some like live-in sushi chefs, and some like to own one of every kind of weapon in existence.

John Mcafee for example loves coke and sex parties.

Re:save?

[Anonymous Coward]

John Mcafee for example loves coke and sex parties.

Coke and sex parties are great.

Re:save?

[bleckywelcky]

As always, it depends on the area. Plenty of the big name areas these days are nearly poverty levels, even making $100k. Houses could easily be $1 mil + for something meager, with rents running $2.5k - $3.0k + a month. I know for absolutely certain that even the suburbs of the SF Bay and NYC would put a family of 3 in the ghetto at $40k. However, at $210k and "barely making it", you're looking at a much smaller area ... pretty close to downtown SF, NYC, LA, etc. Still, at $210k, buying a meager 3/2 1500 sq ft house in the burbs for $1 mil puts you at a loan equal to 5x income. And that is cutting it tight.

Re:save?

[SecurityTheatre]

Nobody making $210k lives in downtown LA. :-) Just sayin'. :-D

Re:save?

[sound vision]

Is there another kind of party?

Re:save?

[dj245]

A big screen TV is no longer a rich man's luxury. The best displays are about $2,000. If you pay more, either you're paying for a brand, or you are buying a jumbo screen that's 65" or higher. Which even then, it isn't going to exceed $10,000 unless either you buy snake oil shit (think the 'monster cable' of TVs) or you buy something that's so big it can't even fit into the living room of a typical mansion.

The rich man's luxury these days depends on the kind of rich man you are. Some like coke and sex parties, some like menageries, some like exotic car collections, some like Learjets, some like live-in sushi chefs, and some like to own one of every kind of weapon in existence.

John Mcafee for example loves coke and sex parties.

That's the way it always has been. The rich aren't satisfied with consumer goods and never have been. Here's just a couple examples from the 1920s. Drugs and underaged girls aren't a recent invention.

Re: save?

[Dynedain]

Have you been to downtown LA recently with the multi-million dollar condos and lifts?

Re: save?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemon parties are my favourite

Re:save?

[Alioth]

I earn about a 1/3rd of this person, live in a country more expensive to live in than the United States, and I own a light aircraft, yet I have enough money saved that I could live over a year at my current spending rate. OK, so I don't have children, but believe me an aircraft is as expensive to own as children.

Re: save?

[cthulhu11]

A Sharp 60" is less than a grand. Forget the 3D bullshit, yellow pixels, and 240hz refresh bullshit that serves only to sell into a saturated market. For real pissing away of $, skip the meat, tobacco, booze, weed, and other drugs.

It can be done... but what are you ready after??

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Networking

[ezdiy]

> vswitch, ip balancer gear etc

But this is just tiny fraction of stuff done, mainly low tier last mile or local company DC. NOCs of big internet companies and ISPs operate with far bigger assortment of gear and technology. HW/SW tasks tend to be more intertwined plus ton of stuff which can go wrong and speed of troubleshooting is important.

Redundancy solves hardware problems, but unfortunately human errors tend to be more costly in networks - by their nature these are usually far less compartmentalized than "software" when looked at from bird's view. Put simply, incompetent operator can do far more damage.

Finally, OP makes it sound like all it takes is just CCIE and not being an immigrant. But the cert is just an entry pass and netops job market is is several magnitudes smaller, so there are proportionally less H1B workers doing it.
I'd not recommend to OP doing this, unless he can get through CCIE fairly effortlessly just by using years of experience. That being said, basic programming skills is a must for such a job to get familiar with internal tooling used at any given place (eg here he'd need ability to parse bash,php,python,ruby at minimum).

You're spending too much money

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:You're spending too much money

[Akaihiryuu]

That's what I would say too. I make $42k/year right now (although I am single with no children), and after 1.5 years of that I have enough saved to be able to go without work for a year if it's necessary.

Re:You're spending too much money

[ILongForDarkness]

People create necessities from themselves. In my experience people in his pay bracket "must pay" for their kids to have private educations at 20-40k a pop per kid, must have luxury cars less than 3 years old etc. Money goes quick if you insist on creating expenses like that for yourself.

Multiple Problems Here

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Multiple Problems Here

[tlambert]

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.

Actually, no. I routinely get 2X that offers.

And yes, he freaking needs to budget.

The problem is that "delayed gratification" is no longer a concept these days.

Re:Multiple Problems Here

[tlambert]

The best are 'software engineers' (heh) that write in a language that does garbage collection who think they know something about operating systems.

OMFG do NOT get me started on GC or this conversation will never end. Explicit memory management for people who know what the hell they are doing for $100, Alex!

Re:Multiple Problems Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Top of the industry is more like ~500-750k in pay/bonus and another 300-500k in options. I am in this range, but you have to work for a major company and live in very specific areas.

Re:Multiple Problems Here

[ctronsys]

C++? What do I look like, a garbage collector? =]

First world problems...

[sydneyfong]

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?

Re:First world problems...

[ThorGod]

When you put it like that, it sounds like the person might have outside pressures impacting his professional affairs.

Re:First world problems...

[tlambert]

When you put it like that, it sounds like the person might have outside pressures impacting his professional affairs.

Hookers and DICE?

Um...210k? And 3 months?

[bradley13]

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...

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[dgatwood]

Even with 3 kids, you do not need 5000 square feet of house.

That actually depends a lot on the people involved. As a single person with no kids, I'm finding ~1,800 square feet to be woefully insufficient for my needs. When I do woodworking projects, I have to either lose my master bathroom or my kitchen, and sometimes both, because I don't have a proper wood shop. My drum kit, weight bench, and grand piano take up almost the entire living room, so I don't have a proper living room. My filing cabinet, sewing table, printer table (for a printer the size of an office refrigerator), and Christmas tree (too big for any of my closets) ensure that I don't have a proper dining room, either—just the breakfast nook in the kitchen. My bedroom has essentially no available floor space, between the bed, dresser, two bedside tables, and a treadmill, with the exception of the main walking path into the room. My guest bedroom is completely filled with the bed, one tall dresser, and a small bedside table. I'd like to add another bookcase, but there's no space left in my house unless I put it on the front porch.

Basically, I've done the math, and to be comfortable, I need a minimum of 400 square feet for a wood shop, 200 square feet of closet space for the tree, at least 200 square feet of dedicated space for exercise equipment, and ideally a music room with another 400 square feet or so, for a total of 1,200 additional square feet, or 3,000 square feet total. If I got married, and if my wife had similarly space-demanding hobbies, and if we had three kids, even after you deduplicate the kitchen, bathrooms, and shared living space, we would still need well over 6,000 square feet. So 5,000 square feet for a family of 5 is not excessive. If anything, I'd find it kind of cramped.

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...

Or move to a location where you can afford a decent-sized house. Five thousand square feet is not a mansion. I believe that the current lower bound is 8,000 square feet.

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[SecurityTheatre]

To be honest, he's probably either in New York or San Francisco, based on his salary as a developer. A 2 bedroom apartment in both places costs about $2,500/mo. $1,000/mo will get you a shabby one-room bachelor thing in SF and a below-ground parking spot in NYC.

But, $3k/mo will get a decent 3br apartment just across the water, so I guess it is a matter of priorities.

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[SecurityTheatre]

You have basically an entire music studio in your house (a drum kit, grand piano, etc), a workshop (sewing kit, wood shop, etc), an industrial printer (why?), a gym, as well as space for storage... And since your christmas tree doesn't fit (my family used to put a table in storage to make room for the tree), you are *UNCOMFORTABLE*?

Your requirements for being comfortable are substantially different than 95% of the world.

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was supposed to be sarcastic, right?

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

When I was a kid, 250k was considered a "millionaire". These were the Dr. Evil "One...million...dollars" / Six Million Dollar Man days.

My how things have changed. I need to move to a place with rent control, apparently.

Re: Um...210k? And 3 months?

[Malc]

I felt lucky to be able to afford 670 sq. ft. Including a second bedroom for me and my wife, and only be 50 mins from the office. This is London. Your life sounds so bloody easy and spoilt. Sympathy for you = 0.

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[Alioth]

This will sound holier-than-thou, but insufficient for your wants, not needs. I'm sure you can with a small amount of effort think of a way of not needing a full size grand piano (I have a fantastic stage piano that sounds awesome, which I can just about lift myself and take to gigs), or a personal gym. You're living better than a king, and you're complaining about it!

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[dgatwood]

I'm not complaining. I'm simply saying that you shouldn't assume that everyone's space needs are the same. Could I survive without the drum kit? Sure. The piano? Probably not for very long. For me, music is a crucial emotional outlet that I do, in fact, very much need. I'd probably sell one of my legs before I'd sell my piano. I've owned it for two decades, and it is very much a part of me.

But the more important question is whether that space could somehow be converted to another use that would fulfill one of my other desires. The answer, of course, is no. There's no practical way to turn my living room into a wood shop, because that pretty much requires a dust-proof floor, which carpeting is not. And it is highly incompatible with any other use of the room because of the dust involved.

I try to do the dustiest work outside, but with me being at work all day, I have very limited daylight hours in which to do so. As a result, the lack of a dedicated wood shop triples or quadruples the number of days that any given project requires, because I basically get to a point where I can't go any further without making some major wood cut, and then I'm stuck waiting until the next day that I get home before dark, which may be two or three days away.

What makes me uncomfortable is when those projects cause me to either lose the use of my main bathroom or kitchen for weeks at a time. Yes, it is, strictly speaking, a want, in that I want to be able to do woodworking projects, and that my survival is not dependent upon my ability to do them. However, because I am unable to do these things usably in the space available, I do need more space if I hope to do these things in any non-insane manner. And that was my point—that one should not assume that other people don't have valid reasons for wanting more space merely because you don't. :-)

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[dgatwood]

This is California. All the garages in the region have long since been converted into bedrooms, and very few houses have basements. :-)

Re:Um...210k? And 3 months?

[dgatwood]

The industrial printer because I have a side business doing book publishing. I've found no print shops in the area that can handle one-off large-format printing for doing proofs of hardcover dust jackets, hence the only way to usefully get books out the door was to buy a giant beast.

As for the exercise equipment, most days of the week, I work until the early evening, then have musical rehearsals that keep me up for several more hours. Having that equipment in my house is the only way I have a prayer of getting any exercise at all.

Re: Um...210k? And 3 months?

[dgatwood]

See that's the thing, you chose to live in London. You could have taken a job somewhere with cheaper housing, but for you, being in London was more important than having more space. It's a tradeoff. For me, having more space is more important, because many of the things I do (both for fun and to make money) require a lot of space on an ongoing basis. This is why I don't live in a city that's so big that a postage-stamp-sized piece of land costs ten thousand bucks. :-)

Either way, you kind of missed my point, which is that it isn't necessarily true that a family of 5 can't derive significant usability benefits from having 5,000 square feet. Whether the extra space is wasted or not depends highly on what sorts of activities the family wants to do when they aren't at work/school, and whether they can readily achieve those goals in less space.

wow, no lie

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:wow, no lie

[bleckywelcky]

> 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.

Actually, that's not true. Half that is $105k. Rent in the SF Bay for a 2 bed / 2 bath apartment within 30 minutes of that $105k job is going to costs you minimum $2.5k a month, more likely even $3k. So that's $36k a year, after tax. Your marginal rate at $105k is likely the 28% bracket. So $50k * 72% = $36k means it costs you $50k of your pre-tax income to pay for rent. Take the other $50k, chop off another 7.65% for OASDI / Med taxes = another $8k. State income tax will run another 5% ish, so another $5k. Suddenly your $105k has been dropped down to around $40k for the basic set of rent and taxes. And that's before you've even had a chance to pay for anything else - food, utilities, car, insurance, etc. And before you've put anything into savings.

I remember thinking back in the early 2000s that the "6 figure income" was the pinnacle of climbing out of the middle class into the start of the upper class. But the sad reality today is that with monetary inflation, demand inflation for living expenses, globalization, etc ... $100k is barely middle class anymore across many of the major metro areas in the United States. In the minor metro areas across the country, where populations in a 20 mile radius are under say 50k, you can still survive quite nicely on an $80k-ish income. But in major metro areas, especially with a family, that is not true anymore.

Re:wow, no lie

[drinkypoo]

I'm not suggesting that you can live high on the hog. Although what I would suggest is not having three kids if you don't have some kind of financial security lined up. After just one unplanned child I'd be off to the snip snip.

Re:wow, no lie

[davester666]

1. Way to mix the numbers up. You managed to work the numbers both ways, multiplying up to make an expense include taxes, while also dividing salary down to remove taxes, making the numbers really confusing
2. You cut his salary in half, then at the end claim there isn't much left to save. The half you cut is "savings".
3. 40k a year for the rest [food, utilities, car, etc] isn't crazy cheap. You don't have to scrimp every penny just to get by. Sure, you don't get to fly to EuroDisney for 3 weeks each year, but you totally can get by with that. If you want to.

Re: wow, no lie

[Anonymous Coward]

With accounting skills like that, you should totally run for Congress.

Re: wow, no lie

[cthulhu11]

There's something to that. After my son's diagnosis I got snipped partly for this reason.

I went the other way.

[GrantRobertson]

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.

Re:I went the other way.

[dancomfort]

A very important point about the skill set. As a network support person, I considered my self the digital equipment of a plumber. No one noticed me if I did my job well, but all hell would break loose if I screwed up!

They is also very little creativity. Most networks are already designed, so the job is basically maintenance, with none of they day by day rewards of finishing a piece of software.

Re:I went the other way.

[Shadow99_1]

I'd go further and say Networking is hardly immune to H1B's either... The networking departments at all the big companies (fortune 500) in my area are 90% H1B imports rather than 'native born' Americans. On applications for new networking jobs here the last 3 years have added a line asking if I would need sponsorship to stay in the US if I worked for them and it seems to coincide with the trend of the big companies not to hire Americans. I live between Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh (those cities make a handy triangle where I've worked) and it's become chronic here.

So yes, I'd suggest he goes for being the CIO. Companies tend to not outsource executives, so he's much safer there if he can successfully break into a market filled by business people.

Re:I went the other way.

[rthille]

Not to mention that the software that the company I work for is writing (NFV stuff) will put networking professionals out of jobs before too long...

Don't go into networking

[pikine]

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.

Re:Don't go into networking

[ruir]

Networking goes far much more beyond dealing with cables and designing the data network. Far much more. Otherwise you are doing it wrong.

Re:Don't go into networking

[pikine]

I think you're intentionally conflating networking with something else (which you failed to specify exactly what is "much more"), just to show the world what a smart alec you are. But we are talking about a very specific profession, so please kindly stay on topic. The fact the OP mentioned CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) should give you a clue. Get a clue, pal!

Re:Don't go into networking

[ruir]

I am a network admin, but I should think if I should answer to an idiot. I am not wasting my time.

50K a year will buy a lot of BEER!!

[ChadSmith4920]

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.

You are 20 years too late

[wyattstorch516]

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.

Re:You are 20 years too late

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

At my location, I think there are around maybe 8 people working as actual "network engineers" that are at our physical site. There's always someone there 24/7/365, sometimes 2-3. I work over nights, so I don't know how many people are there normally during the day now but I know the team size. I think though that we have far more than any other shop on average; we support thousands of servers, multiple networks, multiple data centers, and have the SABRE mainframes in our basement. There are also teams in other places that support other "legacy" networks, like airlines that my main client bought out. At the actual data centers (there's one right down the road) there might be one on-site tech, they usually rotate 8 hours and are "on call". The server admins are mostly overseas already.

Maybe

[Anonymous Psychopath]

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.

Re:Maybe

[maestroX]

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.

Switch wives, really.

Re:Maybe

[dlingman]

Maybe that's the problem - that he HAS switched wives - a few times...

Re:Maybe

[sound vision]

They don't know anything about your situation and aren't qualified to comment.

I thought the point of "Ask Slashdot" was to explain your situation and invite people to comment?

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Psychopath]

It is. I don't see many comments addressing his question, just a bunch of posts about how he can't manage his finances without really having much context. There's even a comment about how he needs a new wife, for fuck's sake. We don't even know he's a he, right?

Perhaps he has his savings tied up in a 401k, IRA, and college funds for his kids. Perhaps he's purchased investment properties. Perhaps he's trying to accelerate his retirement. There are a number of valid reasons why he could have three months cash flow. Could be he's bad with his money too, who knows.

Re:Maybe

[Joey Vegetables]

I'm sure the wife comment was made in jest. However, my wife - whom I love dearly and would not trade for anything - is not great at managing money, for a variety of reasons. She therefore manages to commit us to spending most of my paycheck, which, being in a very low-cost area, is probably comparable to the OP's. I have tried in vain to explain to her that a salary that's twice as much as most of our employed friends' (leaving aside the fact that many of them are unemployed) should go a lot further than it does, and would, if not for all the stupid iPad games and restaurant meals and expensive gifts and parties and the like. If it were up to me, I'd pay off our debts first, live frugally until then, save several YEARS' cushion, and *then* start being more willing to spend on things that are not true necessities. But, like me, not everyone is able to do that without causing serious difficulty in their marriages.

Remember these words:

[Culture20]

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.

What makes you think that?

[SecurityTheatre]

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.

Re:What makes you think that?

[wyattstorch516]

Your numbers on the multiple CCIE holders are off quite a bit.The count is over 3500 and growing. Not to take away from your other points but I think it shows that the field is much more heavily saturated then some people think.

http://d2pvz33nyw2w7z.cloudfro...

Re:What makes you think that?

[nehumanuscrede]

THIS. Lots of THIS.

Folks like to toss around the idea that Cisco Certifications are just dead simple and after reading a book or two, you can waltz in take the test and bazinga! Thou art certified.

In their defense, once upon a time this was true. However, today's certifications are much tougher to obtain and you really need to know what you're doing before you attempt the test. ( Tests are about $300 a pop by the way )

I'm currently working on CCNP R&S and there is a TON of information you have to be able to recall on demand. To top it off, Cisco updated the CCNP level certification in January of this year so it includes quite a few things that were previously reserved for the CCIE curriculum. ( You'll find much of what used to be on the CCNP certifications have bled down into the CCNA. )

If memory serves me correctly, there are about ~2000 pages of material you need to know for the CCNA. Ditto for the CCNP and we're just talking the Core Routing and Switching Certs. Not the Voice, Security, Wireless, Data Center, etc. etc.

The stuff you get to learn isn't common sense material either. There is so much information it can be overwhelming and it all tends to bleed together after a while.

Cisco expects you to have detailed knowledge of the tech down to the point where you know the minute details as well as the ability to configure and troubleshoot them when things don't work as they should.

Most Cisco certifications are good for three years. The exception being the CCIE which are good for two.

It's unlikely you're going to find CCIE financial compensation to be anywhere near what you're currently making. I've certainly never met one making $200k+ There is a newer certification known as CCAR ( Cisco Certified Architect ) but I've yet to meet one. Pretty much going to be the God of Networking to reach this level.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to be the rain cloud but rather pointing out some of the realities of what you're facing. I have to go with some of the other posters here in that while it's good you're trying to plan ahead, you really should be able to set aside massive amounts of cash at your current pay level. If you can't, you are spending far more than you should be.

You really need to sit down, figure out where your money is going and get that squared away before you do anything else.

Go ahead and start working on the certifications, but be prepared for the mountain of information you're about to face off against.

If you can dedicate a lot of time to studying and lab practice ( yup, go buy some Cisco gear and build yourself a lab. . . you'll need it ) you might can pull a CCIE certification in 2-3 years unless you're some sort of Network Savant who dreams about routing protocols and Wan technologies. . . :D

You seem to be wasting money...

[gweihir]

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.

both?

[mr.npp]

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.

Re:both?

[AK Marc]

Because SDN isn't real. Alcatel-Lucent is selling SDN that's a router with features. Turn on VPN and configure with a central server? That's SDN.

But don't tell the advocates that's been around for 20+ years. They get angry. SDN is the future, despite being indistinguishable from the stacked switches I worked on 20+ years ago, or the provisioning server that remotely re-configured the entire network in a single keystroke, also 20+ years old.

The "original" SDN was from the early VM days, where you needed a way to control communication between servers, and made a software switch, but that's a new term for an old idea, and so far, I haven't seen anything in SDN that's "new", other than some UI improvements on 20+ year old ideas.

Re:both?

[gweihir]

That is risky. From a security POV, SDN is an absolute nightmare. And while that has been clear to actual security experts for a long time, it seems to get harder to ignore for management in the recent past. My point is that we could actually see a regression back to "one cable, one logical network link", because other things are unable to give you a perimeter or any kind of zone-separation.

Of course, SDN could turn out to be secure and even NSA-proof, but who really believes that?

From Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:From Experience

[jshazen]

I want to echo this, as it's my situation, too. I was a software guy for 5 years, then went off to learn networking and security stuff, because I thought I'd be a better programmer. Got stuck in networking because it was easy, and my eye for detail made me valuable. But, networking, unless you're doing something really complex, gets boring. I'm now taking advantage of my networking/operations skills by automating operations tasks. It's a heck of a lot more fun than daily care-and-feeding of routers and switches (or even network design).

People seem to like to call this "DevOps", but it's really operations automation engineering. If networking interests you, I'd find the networking guys at your company, and get to know where their process is painful, and help them figure out how to get rid of the pain. Working closely with another team should make you less likely to be outsourceable.

Networking is like plumbing: mostly boring

[mveloso]

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.

start a side business

[vinn]

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.

Re:start a side business

[cowdung]

Side businesses are risky.. there are safer ways to invest that use up less of your precious time.

A salary where investments can reach millions?

[Culture20]

Brewster's Millions is not an instruction manual.

Dodging bullets...

[jtara]

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.)

Bait and Switch!

[bylund]

Thought it was switching from software engineering to twerking. Sounded like a solid idea and all.

Okay everyone, let's all post our salaries

[Rinikusu]

because we gotta show everyone how big our dicks are.

You should retire!

[MagickalMyst]

"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. :)

Re:You should retire!

[gweihir]

Sadly, it sounds like it. If so, then this person is screwed...

Can't decide if this is a troll...

[Drew617]

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.

Wrong question

[wonkey_monkey]

I'd rather know more about switching careers from software engineering to billionaire playboy super-spy. C'mon, think big!

Re:Wrong question

[Megane]

That's nothing, I can show you how to switch careers from a sales job in big box retail to billionaire playboy super-spy in just five years!

Re:Wrong question

[gweihir]

That is not nice. My guess is this guy is really good, got lucky job-wise and is working his ass off. The question is why is this amount of money not enough? That is what he needs to fix and he also needs to be prepared to have a 30-50% salary cut and be able to survive it.

Move

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Woe is you

[mjm1231]

Meanwhile, a rough estimate of your income after taxes means you're probably taking $100-$125,000 a year home.

I'd guess 125k is absolute worst case tax situation, based on this.

There are people out there that have to feed a family of 3 on $25,000 a year.

Yeah, this. You're quoting an income that puts you in the top 8% of Americans. If you're finding it hard to get by, I'm curious to know what your imagination thinks average wage earners do to survive.

Re:Woe is you

[mjm1231]

Oops, left out a link in above post. Re: tax costs: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ke...

$210K is an insane salary for a Software Engineer

[Anonymous Coward]

$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.

Danger Zone

[koan]

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.

Rufkm?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Rufkm?

[ruir]

Better yet, get someone of trust from your family that helds your paycheck hostage and to which you will have to explain why you need money until you grow up and learn how to manage it.

OK...

[tlambert]

Just got asked about helping with the Fukushima cleanup. I'm in, in case anyone cares.

Re:Woe is you

[gweihir]

If that where the case, then the only thing he could do is to hope to keep his current high salary as long as possible. A switch is not going to get him what he earns now for a long time, if ever.

Situation Management

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

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.

Re:Situation Management

[ruir]

You lost me at the joke of an MS cert. Really. What I can add is that at the moment, people with dev skills+networking+Linux are very hot in the market.

The guy is crazy

[PerlPunk]

You want to switch a software engineering job paying you 210K / year?

ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY????

Register what you spend

[ruir]

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.

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

Budget by the year and not for the immediate. That several coffee a day habit could translate very well between 1000k-5000k thousand a year depending where you live and where you drink it. Save some vices only for the weekend. Be careful with eating out, it could well translate between 20k to 100k per year easily. And when I told to jot down the expenses it to carry a smart app or paper with you and jot down everything to the single penny.

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

About letting go drinking buddies, this goes without saying. I enjoyed a lot the companion of someone that was more calmer and more socially apt than me. A lot. But the man and their circle of very amicable friends, they downed a bottle per night, per guy of whiskey, plus the grub that went down to "settle" it, every single day of the week. I had to let it go. Being an expat in a foreign, hot country was not easy, and I was no stranger to have a drink at the end of the night. He made a hell a lot of difference, however it was not a sustainable life in many ways. If you need to let go this kind of people, fake an health fad (I turned vegan), fake a minor disease and a need for a diet...whatever. But do it. Also your body will thank you. With 30 years the impact of abuse in a body is not yet noticeable.

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

What is also the quality of your suits? I was no stranger to good suits (around 1.5k-2k with inflation in place), nowadays I get by with more modest clothing. Do not get into herd/peer pressure mentality of buying 4x4 for field activities, boats or planes. It is a trap, and the maintenance is very steep. If you absolutely insist on that, buy models and join a club that do some races or activities one time per month.

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

Forget me for intruding again. Many people, and yourself are missing the obvious. You obviously and if you are lucky do not need a disaster for things to go wrong. Your kids wont stay that age forever. Let them grow, and you will start going into debt. And I am ignoring here inflation.

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

I bet you hire people to clean your house, nannies, dunno what more. Habits wont change overnight and will probably stress out the marriage. Hire a housekeeper, fire the rest. You will save money.

Re:Register what you spend

[Chelloveck]

That several coffee a day habit could translate very well between 1000k-5000k thousand a year depending where you live and where you drink it.

I know trendy coffee places are expensive, but no matter where you are $1 billion a year is a serious habit!

Re:Register what you spend

[ruir]

;) yep, I noticed the error after I wrote, but nonetheless counted on people noticing it was 1k.

Re:Woe is you

[ruir]

cocaine? spoken like a truly poor guy. I tell you, once you earn past a comfortable sum of money it is to blew it away when you do not stop a moment to think how much you are spending, and how much being left in the bank. More so when you have a partner in the same kind of mentality. Between two SINGLE persons, it is quite easy to blew 5k-10k at least without even a blink. I once got into that mentality into the honeymoon phase with an ex, but fortunately got into my senses a few months down the lane, and tried to reason with her - and guess what, she was not receptive. Guess what, it was maybe the main reason we called off the marriage. And once you put the kids also in the equation, I do not have even an ideia. And there are three of them. Given honestly the clueness of the guy, I would not be barely surprised if he is making 200k year and getting into debt.

How about actually answering the question?

[ahpeterson]

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.

Words fail me, so I'll paraphrase...

[Chelloveck]

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.

People, grow up

[behrooz0az]

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.

Re: Betteridge Says

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it! The real answer to the realization that you probably won't be able to earn $210k/yr forever is to save, invest, and lower expenses. You should also know that achieving a CCIE would be an unprecedented disruption in your personal and professional life and that of your family. I started on the path to CCIE but my wife asked me to quit when she contracted a major illness. I'm glad I did. But I saw how the CCIE track impacted friends of mine. Also, in my opinion, if you go into networking you will probably be working harder in general than you do today. It of course depends on your personality, software engineering sounds much more methodical and solitary than the often chaotic and stressful realm of advanced infrastructure internetworking. But if you're ready for a huge new learning curve and and the disruption that comes with it, if you think you'll enjoy figuring out what the heck is going on with some unstable and neglected tangle of OSPF routes and MPLS tunnels, then maybe it will be a breath of fresh air for you. Of course management within software engineering is your other option for maintaining the high salary. You could perhaps be the guy hiring and supervising the H1B visa workers. Again, it depends on your personality. I was in management for 4 or 5 years and I'd rather chew off my own foot than spend another minute dealing with the kind of people who populate the upper executive ranks. But again, it depends on what you are comfortable with and willing to put up with. I guess my only other comment is that despite decades of disruptive turmoil from things like offshoring, H1B, and downsizing, there still seem to be loads of software engineering and development jobs in the Western world. But I can't imagine that the salaries won't eventually be driven downward by foreign competition. There is, however, at least one guy still pulling down $210k/yr. So enjoy it while you can, but definitely save your f**k-you-money!

Like others...

[servant]

Sorry to re-iterate the now obvious. Learn to live on much less. Yes, it is hard to do. ... After your 3 or 6 months of living expenses stashed away in T-bills or cash equivalents you can get to on a moments notice, another 6 months in 'emergency' funds. ... Then stash all the left over nickles into investments. If you don't know what to do for investments, you could get over 50K available in cash, get with a money manager (I found Fidelity Professional Asset Management good, but there are others that are good. Just vet them first. ... I have found the expense more than worth the service, and that is after years of DIY.)
.

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.

Have to agree with those re not switching

[WillAffleckUW]

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).

Not a terrible idea

[KapUSMC]

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.

Re: Betteridge Says

[monkeyzoo]

Seriously... dude, you are doing something very wrong if you make $210K/yr and can't live more than 3 months without that salary.
And 3 kids and high cost-of-living area are no justifications. You need to learn personal financial skills before anything else!