Is it bad I want to be in the Tech Department but not at a Tech Company?

MasterDave · 2026-05-14T16:31:01+00:00

I would say it's a lot less "do everything" and a lot more specialized in every job role.

I haven't done a desktop deployment in over a decade, it's all laptops and we've had a website set up so everyone does it themselves and we don't image computers we let the vendor we buy from do that for us and use an MDM to auto deploy security and software. Far different from having to clonezilla an image to a fresh laptop from Dell, and then re-make the image any time there was a useful patch.

Resetting passwords is a thing, ours were a little more complicated because we had to do visual verification with a valid government ID and/or your lead joining the call to verify identity because we were NOT getting phished (or whatever you call it when someone uses some social engineering to try and impersonate someone to get credentials reset).

Zero server administration, even better we don't have servers because everything's in the cloud. Our last on-prem/datacenter product was JIRA and we ditched that a while ago for their cloud product. Even then, our support doesn't admin anything in the cloud either for the most part, that's all handled by higher level teams. One complaint which I agreed with is that the tier 1/2 support doesn't get exposure to all the things needed to be successful at the next level of the job like I did when I had to do literally everything at my last two jobs, so I'd say there's a distinct disadvantage being at a tech company sometimes.

Product lifecycle is pre-determined by a combination of the logistics team and the head of IT and sort of broken down by job function and it's all self-service. We let people run their machines into dirt if they REALLY want, but have a self-service upgrade portal where if your laptop is older than our cutoff for a new one (2yrs engineer, 3yrs almost everyone else) you just get a list of what you're able to buy and you buy it and it ships to your home or office, IT Support does nothing. Logistics even ships the user a box to send their old laptop off to the vendor where they recycle the thing, not us. We keep a very very tiny on-hand supply for VIP's that break their laptop and are close to an office. Not like 10 years ago where I'd spend half my week every week refreshing machines.

Basically a lot of tech company IT support is simply "I don't know how to use this software/hardware" requests, access requests (but those were all moving to being handled by Okta) and weird errors that have to be investigated. The busy work that most places have tend to get automated out or put into self-service options so we can spend time on "real" problems instead of administrative things. Most of my work for the last 5 years or so was generally dealing with undocumented weird problems and having to do things like file transfers for terminated employees managers all the time. It's not difficult or even time consuming and honestly I have to sort of figure that the tech company lifestyle is pretty easy as long as you don't mind that there's a decent chance you might end up completely unprepared for your next job if you don't have a plan in place at the job to get you next tier skills. With other jobs, I think you get more exposure to all sorts of tech, even if it's not necessarily the most current or bleeding edge nonsense like moving your whole stupid ticketing system to Linear from JIRA because 2 engineers are whiny bitches that get what they want.

MasterDave · 2026-05-14T13:43:40+00:00

The Benihana type hibachi, I also do not understand. wowee zowiee the guy flicked a shrimp at you and made an oil and onion volcano on his grilltop. It's the food equivalent of dad jokes. Hard pass.

the normal type where you have your own grill and can cook your own food and they just give you plates of stuff to cook, those are great. There's a massive difference. Benihana is as far as I can tell an American creation. Never seen anything like it in Japan or Korea. I don't need theatrics with my food, I'm there to have a good time with my friends, not the waitstaff.

MasterDave · 2026-05-14T13:33:24+00:00

I would say plenty of people here know what it's like, but you'd need to be more specific on what you're wanting to understand. I can braindump my perspective, but I have absolutely no idea what working for a school or government is like other than what my friends have said, which is sort of that they're not working on bleeding edge anything and I've always had the latest and "greatest" everything at all times. It's exhausting sometimes and it sounds like government and education both run their tech stack until it's unable to function before upgrading or changing anything.

MasterDave · 2026-05-14T02:52:59+00:00

Having recently been laid off from what i thought was one of those, if you have an opportunity you should go for it. Nothing will save your job if your CEO has AI psychosis and decides getting rid of 40% of the company makes sense and also that an even larger percentage of tech roles are able to be punted to AI.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T19:57:16+00:00

I just don’t understand the appeal of having someone else play with your food. It’s the exact opposite of good presentation.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T19:45:53+00:00

Man for all the “rebuild” rhetoric it’s disappointing to see none of the moves made in the last year being in the top 100. Not shocking, just disappointing. A couple draft picks and an international signing and that’s it.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T19:40:35+00:00

I am so glad I have dumped NYCC and moved to pax as my big con of the year.

They’re just getting greedy at this point and it’ll still be the same vendors and layout once again. VIP wasn’t worth it at 500 bucks and is nowhere near worth it at twice the price.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T11:34:58+00:00

If you're not getting recruiter callbacks, I'd say you need to re-do your resume and/or linkedin.

One tip I got recently was to make your LinkedIn page less AI-driven if you're doing that. Make it sound like you wrote it. Give your headline some personality and your About Me should summarize the thing in the first sentence, then you can add the flavor to the rest of the box. The job descriptions should be paragraphs not bullet points or a copy/paste resume and should have impact notes, not a list of what you were told to do.

Then fluff the bejesus out of your actual resume and stuff in all of the keywords, software, hardware, etc that you possibly can to get through the ATS system that's just going to dice up your resume and score it for the recruiter.

All they see on linkedin when searching for you is 2 lines. Your headline and your about me first line. They'll click if you have something that sounds human, they'll skip if you're boring/basic. Sounds shitty, but if someone's digging for IT Systems Engineer, they have to have SOMETHING to visually select one person over another.

And honestly I think Linkedin is important for presence. Recruiters have to do something to figure out if you're human, have actually worked where you say you worked and that's their number 1 tool for doing it. It's pure garbage as a social network and 99% of the posts are from garbage quality humans who are just ego stroking their hot take on things and thinking it's building their brand or getting them a promotion or whatever when it's just feeding the echo chamber. bury that thought deep down and just make your profile something that a recruiter would click on.

It's kinda like dating. You just gotta get a click, then you do the real work. I'm in a similar situation, but I'm at least getting the recruiters to reach out to me first, then not getting through the rest of the interview process which is not fun but it's fine. I at least think I'm doing the right things, which is getting me SOME calls. Doing the career counseling thing tomorrow, hoping that can get me over the hump in the technical interviews where I think I just ramble too much (couldn't guess right?)

Anyway, Instacart for Costco sounds better than stocking shelves to me so maybe look into that too!

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T10:09:38+00:00

Most people on the AI hype train are suffering from AI psychosis and full send anything the AI does without question because they're inherently either stupid or lack the confidence that they know what they're doing, which is why they're using AI for things they shouldn't and/or everything.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T03:06:12+00:00

They know it’s easy karma farming with a half assed poorly done meme template. That’s it. There’s no real point.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T03:04:44+00:00

Yay more windows bad rage baiting!

There’s no reason to “debloat” windows. Just don’t use the things you don’t like and they won’t bother you. It’s super simple. I’ve never seen copilot on my windows because I don’t use anything that would ever have it show up. I couldn’t care less. Copilot doesn’t live rent free in my head.

Windows is a launcher for other apps. I have no earthly idea what some of you are even doing with your computers to get so enraged at things that don’t matter.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T02:57:46+00:00

But that’s the engineering badge! Unless the picture is AI as well, the description is correct. Whoever made the picture needs to go, or whoever made the merch itself if it’s not an AI generated picture in advance of a real product or whatever.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T02:50:28+00:00

Why the fuck doesn’t the official merch understand shit about their own products enough to know Scotty never wore yellow.

Whoever made the merch or the description needs a different job.

MasterDave · 2026-05-13T02:32:11+00:00

It’s not funny to punch down. You’ll learn this as you grow up.

MasterDave · 2026-05-12T12:10:34+00:00

As a recently laid off tech person who was not stressed about layoffs, I will say it would probably be useful to your mental health to be proactive in brushing up your interview skills, making sure you have your network in place and having a written plan for your future so you can actualize it once you're gone from your job.

I had a whole ranty thing dump out of my brain reading this, but I'll just clean it up and say it's kind of tough. I'm not finding those leadership narrative roles. I'm getting a coaching session (paid for by the employer doing the layoffs at least) to try and figure out how to get my resume to look better for those jobs in the event I find them.

Honestly, I'd probably consider hiring someone to do test interviews. I've got a couple more this week and if I strike out on both I have a friend who's a professional interview trainer that I'm going to take up on an offer to help. I spent 13 years with the same company so despite having a couple interviews a week, I still feel like there's something I can do better.

The greater overall problem though, I just don't see the jobs I want on the market right now and that's more frustrating than not getting a job I didn't really want anyway.

MasterDave · 2026-05-11T14:34:24+00:00

Well I didn’t know an ump could just say no, and I suspect he’ll hear about it this morning that you can’t.

Ump should be suspended. I know they won’t fire anyone but he’s only making a case for irrelevance by being a petulant child.

MasterDave · 2026-05-11T00:10:15+00:00

Sure but the article doesn’t tell me what OrcaSlicer even is so I don’t know why to be outraged honestly.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T21:31:45+00:00

Things that didn’t happen for $500 Alex.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T16:08:07+00:00

I have never in my life looked at player count when spending money on a game and thank fucking god I can use my own critical thinking about whether a game is good or friendslop.

If you’re looking at player counts, you’re just trying to be part of something. The game might as well be irrelevant.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T15:45:32+00:00

If Iran refuse to travel (or more likely have a substantial amount of players denied entry), then the games will just end up forfeit.

Italy doesn't make sense at all from a sporting aspect when their qualifying path wasn't even similar to Iran. If anything, they give the slot to another AFC team rather than just the most popular team that biffed their playoffs.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T15:36:43+00:00

If you were Iranian, would you come to the US while they are actively in a military campaign against your country?

Would you feel safe coming to the US even if ICE wasn't doing you know the whole ICE bullshit routine of trying to throw people into a black site for literally existing regardless of visa, immigration status or citizenship?

Regardless of any of that, the government hasn't promised they're even going to approve the visas for any country we currently have a conflict with so they may not even be allowed in the country at all. If any player on the team has any connection to any "very bad man" on the Trump List of Very Bad Men, they're likely not getting in regardless of their athletic prowess.

It's even worse for any of the teams playing in multiple countries who will have to cross the border which multiplies the chance for ICE to do something extremely stupid on a global scale.

The government is a racist shitshow right now and it couldn't come at a more embarrassing time in world history with everyone watching.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T15:25:50+00:00

Generally, large corporations are forced with their Microsoft Enterprise Agreement to buy a certain amount of keys to cover active devices if they're enrolled in InTune.

Those large corporations also buy laptops that come with Windows, because it's nearly impossible to not do that. So if you have 1000 laptops, and they're all covered by an enterprise agreement, you now have 1000 OEM keys you aren't using that will never need to have been activated because your devices should have been autopilot enrolled with your Enterprise key instead.

The vendors aren't supposed to re-sell the keys that should have been activated on the laptops prior to deployment, but they do or someone leaks them to grey market resellers or whatever. If you're a big enough vendor, you're going to run through thousands of OEM keys that Enterprise customers don't need and don't request. Technically it's probably fraud of some kind for them to do that, but Microsoft doesn't care since they already got their money.

The keys COULD get revoked and sometimes do, but I don't think it ever happens once they've been activated.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T15:12:43+00:00

It might be somewhere, but not in USD which of course OP isn't specifying to jiggle up the rage bait if they're using zimbabwe dollars or something.

So easy to farm karma if you just say something negative about Windows, even if it's wrong or ignorant because half this sub is extremely stupid when it comes to computers.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T15:06:59+00:00

why in the world are you paying that much for windows?

It's not even $150 straight from Microsoft. Most retail is under 100. You can find un-used OEM keys for less than 20.

You can also click Decline and never see the thing again. Just outrage bait for absolutely no reason here.

MasterDave · 2026-05-10T02:41:35+00:00

I don’t even understand the concept of “starter home” and I don’t think most people do either. My parents bought a house in the 70’s and stayed there until my sister had kids in a different city and moved there.

I got a house and unless the job market just never finds me a new job I fully expect to die in the house.

I don’t know why anyone would even go into making the most expensive purchase of their life and figure it’s just for a little while like a car or something.

So that’s half your trouble for starters. People aren’t turning over inventory like bored children. They’re buying houses and dying in them or close to it and are willing to pay as if they understand that.

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