IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Dre23]

Gotcha. Is AWS Security Speciality the most relevant Cloud Security cert, or is there another you think would be better? Only reason I am even going after the one on Amazon is because I'm already using their platform.

CCSP

 

[patscorpio]

You have to take calculus to get your degree in IT?

yup had to take pre calc, calc 1, and calc 2 for my CS degree

 

[Jekyll]

Any brehs in San Diego?

I have a couple offers on the table, 1 in SD and 1 in VA. This is my first official role outside of “Sys admin” type jobs. I’m using it as a stepping stone to better roles. I don’t have a degree.

With that being said is ~95k plus benefits and education assistance worth it in SD or would ~70k in VA be better? SD company is a well known firm and has the better sounding title(Cloud infrastructure engineer) while the VA job title could be better(Aws sys admin). Both are in the cleared dod space working for the Navy. Only reason this is even a question is because I did the paycheck calculator and the SD role only comes out to about $500 a check more take home after those wild California taxes. Looking at zillow in California is spooky shyt. I just don’t want to be struggling or barely scraping by anymore.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[JT-Money]

Any brehs in San Diego?

I have a couple offers on the table, 1 in SD and 1 in VA. This is my first official role outside of “Sys admin” type jobs. I’m using it as a stepping stone to better roles. I don’t have a degree.

With that being said is ~95k plus benefits and education assistance worth it in SD or would ~70k in VA be better? SD company is a well known firm and has the better sounding title(Cloud infrastructure engineer) while the VA job title could be better(Aws sys admin). Both are in the cleared dod space working for the Navy. Only reason this is even a question is because I did the paycheck calculator and the SD role only comes out to about $500 a check more take home after those wild California taxes. Looking at zillow in California is spooky shyt. I just don’t want to be struggling or barely scraping by anymore.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I did contract work for the Navy years ago and sucked. Just make sure these are Ashore roles over Afloat.

I never got to travel to San Diego working for the Navy. But the San Diego location seemed to make all the important decisions compared to Norfolk, VA.

I would always go for the higher salary because 70K doesn't sound like much in VA. I was making close to that amount for the Navy almost 7 years ago. Those Federal contract companies are crooks in my opinion and the reason I left. After finding out I was making way less money doing the same job as everyone else.

 

[Jekyll]

I did contract work for the Navy years ago and sucked. Just make sure these are Ashore roles over Afloat.

I never got to travel to San Diego working for the Navy. But the San Diego location seemed to make all the important decisions compared to Norfolk, VA.

I would always go for the higher salary because 70K doesn't sound like much in VA. I was making close to that amount for the Navy almost 7 years ago. Those Federal contract companies are crooks in my opinion and the reason I left. After finding out I was making way less money doing the same job as everyone else.

Good advice. I’ve heard about how shady the contracting space can be. I’m more of a beggar at this point without a degree I feel like. I got a few certs and learned alot of open source shyt and BS’d my way thru interviews like I had alot of on the job. experience. I’ve interviewed for Amazon twice and feel like they looked at me like without a degree even though the tech phone screens aren’t that hard at all. I don’t make it past recruiters for alot of places though.


With the SD company at least I can get extra for my degree. Hopefully I could come out of one of these roles with a TS and a Degree. The smaller company wanted to put me in for a TS and relocate me to a location they got in Hawaii.

 

[Jekyll]

After AWS SAA, do you think it would be good going after the AWS Security Speciality cert or Sec+?

Security+ is mainly relevant for the Dod world and not worth alot outside it. Its basically required for any tech role in DoD and having it will help you get into that space ahead of alot of people.

If I had to get one security cert, it would be CISSP. Expensive as fukk but it gets you top level DOD roles(saw one position offering over 300k for a CISSP + TS clearance) and it also has alot of worth in the private world. Its actually not that hard either. Its a wide list of topics but it only goes like an inch deep for each thing. Other security certs will have you learning alot of random BS trivia about different encryption algorithms and methodologies.

 

[JT-Money]

Good advice. I’ve heard about how shady the contracting space can be. I’m more of a beggar at this point without a degree I feel like. I got a few certs and learned alot of open source shyt and BS’d my way thru interviews like I had alot of on the job. experience. I’ve interviewed for Amazon twice and feel like they looked at me like without a degree even though the tech phone screens aren’t that hard at all. I don’t make it past recruiters for alot of places though.


With the SD company at least I can get extra for my degree. Hopefully I could come out of one of these roles with a TS and a Degree. The smaller company wanted to put me in for a TS and relocate me to a location they got in Hawaii.

I hated my time doing Federal contracting but without it I might still be stuck doing desktop support.

Once I had a few decent job titles and roles working for the Feds. Private sector companies started giving me a chance at real jobs.

The Feds generally follow proper policy and configurations unlike in the private sector. So you end up actually knowing way more about configuring technology working for the Feds. But the people are lazy and most refuse to share information for fear you'll take their job.

On the right contract the job can be a breeze. But picking the wrong type of contract like support and you could get worked harder than a slave. I ended up on a contract that supported all 340 ships and Subs. That tried to work us into an early grave before I had enough and quit.

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

Good advice. I’ve heard about how shady the contracting space can be. I’m more of a beggar at this point without a degree I feel like. I got a few certs and learned alot of open source shyt and BS’d my way thru interviews like I had alot of on the job. experience. I’ve interviewed for Amazon twice and feel like they looked at me like without a degree even though the tech phone screens aren’t that hard at all. I don’t make it past recruiters for alot of places though.


With the SD company at least I can get extra for my degree. Hopefully I could come out of one of these roles with a TS and a Degree. The smaller company wanted to put me in for a TS and relocate me to a location they got in Hawaii.

I'm cool with alot of senior level guys who been doing it for 20 years and even at their level they still go through the same shyt

the problem is flaky recruiters who know jack shyt about the industry they'rehead hunting for

1 senior level guy lost out on the job because he couldn't answer some softball A+ helpdesk ass question, even though he's been operating at tier 3 server side in the VDI space for the last 18 years. Of course he isn't going to remember, the brain doesnt retain usesless information.

That's that fukk shyt, people will bush you over dumb shyt because they can or dont know WTF they're talking about


Check this sad shyt out

I just had an MS Teams interview with this energy company 2 weeks ago and to my surprise most of the people on the interview were black, with the manager being some cac lady. But that surprise and internal, sigh of relief quickly faded as I began to read the body language and tone of the people interviewer. They asked me questions about VMware and Sys Admin shyt and I knocked it out of the park. I was talking that shyt and on my A game, but that shyt didnt mean nothing to the them, they just started moving the goalpost and no-selling my good answers and roliing they eyes and sighing like as if they were bored and already made up their mind the moment they saw me

The whole vibe was standoffish and cold. and of course they started hitting me with the obscure scenario based questions regarding shyt I clearly havent worked with in a while like printers and shyt.

fast forward >>

I didnt get the gig which I knew off rip, but fukk that shyt, it happens

It's just tiresome and depressing dealing with my own people especially in Dallas, too many of them on some swirling or interectionality, shea butter shyt. I though it was just some internet echo chamber shyt , but it's real

crazy how all my life when getting hired hinges on other black folks to make the decision, it never works out......I mean NEVER

Oh well, Something'll come through in the new year

this shyt is like fishing. I'm just waiting to snag something.

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

Security+ is mainly relevant for the Dod world and not worth alot outside it. Its basically required for any tech role in DoD and having it will help you get into that space ahead of alot of people.

If I had to get one security cert, it would be CISSP. Expensive as fukk but it gets you top level DOD roles(saw one position offering over 300k for a CISSP + TS clearance) and it also has alot of worth in the private world. Its actually not that hard either. Its a wide list of topics but it only goes like an inch deep for each thing. Other security certs will have you learning alot of random BS trivia about different encryption algorithms and methodologies.

I really dont want to get the SEC + because ,yeah it dont mean shyt

But i'm trying to get a linux role and most of them Red Hat shops seem to be government contract roles in the DMV area and require the Security + to meet the DOD 8808(?) BS and at east a Secret security clearance

Kinda tired of being in the Windows world and want to deep dive into open source, I got a RHCSA, I'll even take the pay cut if I can get a linux role. It's what I always wanted to do anyways, before the VMware shyt took off for me

 

[Jekyll]

I'm cool with alot of senior level guys who been doing it for 20 years and even at their level they still go through the same shyt

the problem is shiesty recruiters who know jack shyt about the industry their head hunting for

1 senior level guy lost out on the job because he couldn't answer some softball A+ helpdesk ass question, even though he's been operating at tier 3 server side in the VDI space for the last 18 years. Of course he isn't going to remember, the brain doesnt retain usesless information.

That's that fukk shyt, people will bush you over dumb shyt because they can or dont know WTF they're talking about


Check this sad shyt out

I just had an MS Teams interview with this energy company 2 weeks ago and to my surprise most of the people on the interview were black, with the manager being some cac lady. But that surprise and internal, sigh of relief quickly faded as I began to read the body language and tone of the people interviewer. They asked me questions about VMware and Sys Admin shyt and I knocked it out of the park. I was talking that shyt and on my A game, but that shyt didnt mean nothing to the them, they just started moving the goalpost and no-selling my good answers and roliing they eyes and sighing like as if they were bored and already made up their mind the moment they saw me

The whole vibe was standoffish and cold. and of course they started hitting me with the obscure scenario based questions regarding shyt I clearly havent worked with in a while like printers and shyt.

fast forward >>

I didnt get the gig which I knew off rip, but fukk that shyt, it happens

It's just tiresome and depressing dealing with my own people especially in Dallas, too many of them on some swirling or interectionality, shea butter shyt. I though it was just some internet echo chamber shyt , but it's real

crazy how all my life when getting hired hinges on other black folks to make the decision, it never works out......I mean NEVER

Oh well, Something'll come through in the new year

this shyt is like fishing. I'm just waiting to snag something.

shyt is crazy. Even for this SD role I just got offered there was one Asian guy that gave off hella vibes. He was real stand-offish and tried to fail me for basic shyt. One question was like, tell me about how I would connect 2 VPCs inside of AWS and gave no further detail about the specific answer he wanted. AWS of course has like 5 ways to do this and I named off like 4 of them. He then hits me with a “Sorry that was not the answer I was looking for I was looking for VPC peering”

And he was the hiring manager that ultimately made the decision to offer me the role. Luckily the other 2 on the panel were chill as fukk.

shyt is really like a dice roll.

 

[Jekyll]

I really dont want to get the SEC + because ,yeah it dont mean shyt

But i'm trying to get a linux role and most of them Red Hat shops seem to be government contract roles in the DMV area and require the Security + to meet the DOD 8808(?) BS and at east a Secret security clearance

Kinda tired of being in the Windows world and want to deep dive into open source, I got a RHCSA, I'll even take the pay cut if I can get a linux role. It's what I always wanted to do anyways, before the VMware shyt took off for me

shyt if you got a redhat cert then that probably puts you ahead of a shyt load of folks. I only know enough linux to do alot of basic devops tasks. Setup services and dependencies. Setup Apache or Nginx or NodeJS or python. Configure Ansible or Terraform or Jenkins. A little bit of Bash, networking, etc.


If RH still does that Ansible cert then that may be the one to get. Almost every upper level admin/devops job wants you to know some combination of Ansible, Jenkins and terraform. If you can learn YAML and JSON then you can master all of those pretty easily. You pretty much have to learn JSON for AWS anyway.

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

shyt is crazy. Even for this SD role I just got offered there was one Asian guy that gave off hella vibes. He was real stand-offish and tried to fail me for basic shyt. One question was like, tell me about how I would connect 2 VPCs inside of AWS and gave no further detail about the specific answer he wanted. AWS of course has like 5 ways to do this and I named off like 4 of them. He then hits me with a “Sorry that was not the answer I was looking for I was looking for VPC peering”

And he was the hiring manager that ultimately made the decision to offer me the role. Luckily the other 2 on the panel were chill as fukk.

shyt is really like a dice roll.

That's why I dont take any of this shyt that serious, It all boils down to a simple yes or no and whether they can vibe with you during interviews

I'll be good either way. If I can't get money with this company, I'll do so with the next company, a paycheck it a paycheck at the end of the day

I could care less about working for MS, Cisco, Amazon etc directly. It'll look good on my resume, for sure, But I just want to get paid, working the schedule I desire and hopefully walk away with more knowledge than what I came in with honestly

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

shyt is crazy. Even for this SD role I just got offered there was one Asian guy that gave off hella vibes. He was real stand-offish and tried to fail me for basic shyt. One question was like, tell me about how I would connect 2 VPCs inside of AWS and gave no further detail about the specific answer he wanted. AWS of course has like 5 ways to do this and I named off like 4 of them. He then hits me with a “Sorry that was not the answer I was looking for I was looking for VPC peering”

And he was the hiring manager that ultimately made the decision to offer me the role. Luckily the other 2 on the panel were chill as fukk.

shyt is really like a dice roll.

That's why I dont take any of this shyt that serious, It all boils down a simple yes or no and whether they can vibe with you during interviews

I'll be good either way. If I cant get money with this company, I'll do so with the next company, a paycheck it a paycheck

shyt if you got a redhat cert then that probably puts you ahead of a shyt load of folks. I only know enough linux to do alot of basic devops tasks. Setup services and dependencies. Setup Apache or Nginx or NodeJS or python. Configure Ansible or Terraform or Jenkins. A little bit of Bash, networking, etc.


If RH still does that Ansible cert then that may be the one to get. Almost every upper level admin/devops job wants you to know some combination of Ansible, Jenkins and terraform. If you can learn YAML and JSON then you can master all of those pretty easily. You pretty much have to learn JSON for AWS anyway.

Actually I'm working on the RHCE right now, it covers Ansible automation basics, Should be my first cert for 2021 then CKAD , after that I wanna chill out on the cert chasing

as of this moment, I possess 2 VCPs for Data Center and Desktop respectively, the CCA-V and the RHCSA, it's a well rounded cert stack,; I have more than enough certs to find a decent paying gig at this point,

I'm just ready to dive into the Linux world for the next 3 years

 

[Slic Ric]

What do you brehs that mostly take contract gigs do for Health benefits & 401K?

 

[Jekyll]

What do you brehs that mostly take contract gigs do for Health benefits & 401K?

Depends on the company. Alot of those companies offer standard benefits.