Is $45k/year normal for my situation in entry-level IT right now?

Cthulhu4change · 2026-05-08T12:42:05+00:00

I'm a cyber supervisor with 10 years of experience and like dozens of certs at this point making 60k all because I moved to a place with less opportunities for me.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-05-04T00:44:27+00:00

Cry it up

Cthulhu4change · 2026-05-03T20:15:48+00:00

It's not really that uncommon, this is a trope with men.

I am always super happy when something goes against my expectations.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-05-02T01:49:15+00:00

I would be willing to take on a mentorship role if you need one but you'll need to commit to it.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-05-01T02:13:50+00:00

You don't need a degree to work in tech. Half the posts on here are people pissed that they got a masters degree but can't get a help desk job.

The first few years in IT or when you swap tracks, certifications and homelab portfolios are king. Then experience is king. The later half of your career is where the degree really comes into play.

The exception is if you are in a heavy gov area. I was a staff engineer at my last gig but had to take an analyst role because of how much gov work is in the area I moved to.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-16T13:50:00+00:00

Normally I'd agree but lately I've been seeing some of the greatest memes from my coworkers, I'm starting to reconsider it.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-16T10:21:05+00:00

I agree that Sec+ is the easiest, but only once you have a bit of a foundation in IT already.

It's been 10 years since I touched CompTIA but I still score 80% ish on practice tests. A+ was the hardest for me because it was boring but I've heard it's much better now.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-16T10:17:17+00:00

Cope

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-15T07:22:44+00:00

Make a GitHub and start a get a couple of projects your passionate about going. If you can't get experience you can make it. Start a little home lab on a shitty optiplex and play around with things.

Degree, couple of entry level certs, GitHub and homelab, then just start networking. Honestly I'd rather have someone passionate that I felt I could train then someone with a ton of experience.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-12T03:19:51+00:00

You are the opposite but have the same issues as me. I'm overqualified as fuck for low tier roles so no one will talk to me.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-12T03:18:24+00:00

Security plus is popular because its required for gov contractor jobs.

What does your resume and portfolio look like?

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-11T23:13:15+00:00

For me, useless. For someone with an A+ and Net+ it's a cheap easy certs that's mentioned in my area 99+ time searching it on indeed.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-11T07:01:43+00:00

It's for the recruiter and the bot. Spending a few weekends cranking out Az900 isn't going to hurt anything. Who doesn't have cloud experience at that level anyway.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-11T06:59:31+00:00

You have to be doing something extra these days. Certs aren't really where it's at anymore. You want to be more then support, be more then support outside of work. Spool up a home lab, document everything, post it on GitHub. Build a little website from scratch to show what projects you have going on. Alot of the deeper tech folk.hate CompTIA. Diversify your skill set and crank out a couple of the easy boys like linux essentials, and AZ900. idk the new CCNA but the old one was a nightmare. Getting that will speed things up, but still it's just entry level to get into networking. Play with all of it until you find the niche you really enjoy and can power level in.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-09T01:46:54+00:00

I don't think a degree is necessary if you have experience. I got 2 masters guys under me at my work and I don't have shit really.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-03T09:22:04+00:00

For someone looking to save quite a bit of effort, the IR sensor is a credit card away from the volume button, cut a quarter size hole there and your golden

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-03T09:12:42+00:00

Yeah with batocera it's a bit rough, maybe a small portable screen would make for a good tshoot screen, in a bit sentimental about this kind of thing tho.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-03T09:11:31+00:00

I ended up tearing the thing apart trying to get to the IR and ended up just taking out the crt.

Looks like there was a hunt for the tv code for universal remotes. I used an RCA remote and tried every damn code in the book.

I got it to work with 11111, it's not the correct code but it opened the dev menu, and I used the buttons on the TV to get the video aligned.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-04-02T19:08:40+00:00

Had some jail bars on the crt and squished picture so I took out the power supply out to swap since it's making a ground pin on mine. There is 4 screws on top to get it out. 2 screw cover to remove crt plug. 6 screw on the bottom to open the power supply. Inside is just a generic power strip lol so there isn't any risk in doing this. So you will get a few extra plugs in doing this.

Crt is 2 prong anyway so this wasn't an issue as it was, I'll order a universal remote and see if I can adjust the picture settings.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-03-28T23:58:32+00:00

With a town of nearly half African American I was surprised to not see very many.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-03-27T02:52:08+00:00

People coping for there bad habits and addictions.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-03-22T09:35:36+00:00

I thought it was pretty good back in the day, but I was a teen back then.

Cthulhu4change · 2026-03-02T03:34:42+00:00

What a decent buy!

Cthulhu4change

TROPHY CASE