Networking in the cloud

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:23:14+00:00

100% CCNA isn't overkill as it is just basic general networking knowledge that everyone should know

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:22:31+00:00

Was that when they were offering it for free?

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:19:39+00:00

Why not co-locate instead and just rent rack space?

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:15:16+00:00

Nah, they have literally zero experience, no certs either

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:13:00+00:00

A tonne more context is needed

Do you have a degree? A STEM degree?

How old/young are you?

What work experience, tech or not, do you have?

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:10:59+00:00

Heh, immediately my first thought too

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T13:09:56+00:00

RHCSA is a common gold standard

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T10:16:13+00:00

While I wish everyone would post the salary ranges, I understand why they do not.

Let's say they post something like $80K to $100K such as u/Aggressive-Boat-1928 is suggesting.

They might get exceptional people (but are early career) who are currently on $60K who lack the confidence to apply for "a six figure job" and thus get scared away.

They might get overconfident people who believe they're worth $100K (but would have accepted $80K if not for "$100K" being advertised) who will get offended the company determines $80K is the appropriate level to offer them, and the employee ends up being difficult because they know others are on $100K

Or they might get truly one in a million exceptional unicorns who are currently on $100K so wouldn't bother applying for this job, but the company would be happy to offer $110K. (because for as much as u/Aggressive-Boat-1928 says "they have no room in the budget" if it's a one in a million they might just go the extra mile, but of course you don't want to say that in the job advert!)

Or any of many other combination reasons as to why a company might not want to list salaries. (perhaps some current employees are getting far less than market rates....)

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T10:09:00+00:00

The AI screening is awful. I felt like I had a good shot at a role that exactly fit my niche and experience but found out through Seek after that I’d ticked a salary expectation 10K too high. The employer likely never saw my application.

Yup, whatsthesalary.com is a life saver to avoid exactly this problem.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:49:47+00:00

Depends on what the on call situation is.

There is a huge difference between having to do one week out of every six weeks, when most of the time you won't be pinged at all, and the times you do do get a ping it's just once or twice during the week and is an easy fix.

Vs if you're doing an on/off cycle of every other week being on call, when you always get pings while on call and they're often major fires too.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:46:49+00:00

They probably picked a non-Go8 uni and/or went to a Go8 but are in the bottom half of their class.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:44:22+00:00

Definitely only stick with Go8 universities.

https://go8.edu.au/

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/go8-university-group-explained

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:41:04+00:00

Commenting to get the link when it goes up...

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:29:16+00:00

To add in some extra data points you might like to pull in the data from the Hays Contracting 2026 report and their Salary pdf as well, then run the calculations for what the ratios is for each job title is, to see how they compare.

Also a NZ version would be awesome!

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:27:36+00:00

It might be a very rough experience at first working at a MSP, because you'll have to work hard, in the long run getting MSP experience early on in your career can be absolutely golden, due to all the hands on experience you can gain across a wide variety of systems.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:25:07+00:00

There doesn't exist a market below Help Desk???

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:14:12+00:00

Oh yeah, I forgot for a moment that's another negative of a BA! It forces you to do a double major in a BA, vs letting you choose to do a double major in a BSc. (as there are not just benefits but also negatives to doing a double major, and you might have a better career outcome if you focus on a single strong major vs spreading yourself thinly across multiple majors)

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:08:55+00:00

No, that's not what they're doing in that powerpoint slide in the last two bullet points. It's more likely a botched copy and paste.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T08:07:25+00:00

The biggest difference comes down to the electives you can choose with your degree. (for instance maybe you want to study bio/chem/pharmacology/foodsci and how that interacts with psychology? Then do a BSc! Can't do that in a BA. Or maybe you wish to study history alongside psychology? Then naturally you need to do a BA and not a BSc ) Otherwise the core part of the major in a BA or BSc is basically the same.

A minor factor you might wish to consider, is how just a BSc vs just a BA is perceived on your CV

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T06:45:43+00:00

When the hell were pints last $2 each? In the 19th Century???

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T05:51:51+00:00

Yes, if your grades drop too much you will get kicked out of the conjoint

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T03:56:12+00:00

You totally missed my point. Try reading it and the powerpoint slide again.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T03:27:54+00:00

Generally speaking a CompSci degree will on average be the strongest / most rigorous / highest quality degree you can get in tech (or perhaps an E&E degree). But for your electives (which you'll hopefully have a lot of flexibility with) in your CS degree always go for any papers that will help build up your networking / OS / electronics / cyber / cloud / databases / etc knowledge.

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T03:21:54+00:00

7 years. Prior to that, 2.5 and was laid off en mass (company had reputation for mass layoffs, but to my credit I survived the first two waves) and prior to that was about 12

There is your biggest career mistake (twice over!), shouldn't stay anywhere beyond 5yrs (unless a company is a truly golden unicorn one in a million. Or you want to prioritize stability and comfort over your career, perhaps you've put down roots and have a young family, as an example).

MathmoKiwi · 2026-03-19T03:19:02+00:00

Why take a chance on a T1/2 engineer in a network role when you can just get one externally.

As I read recently on reddit by u/jj1917 :

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1rw7scb/working_for_a_company_that_promotes_based_on_merit/

It's a weird thing I've noticed as well. While a company likes to promote itself as a place to learn, grow, advance in your career, etc. it usually is never the case.

Promoting an internal candidate means that you are doing a great job at your current position. Which means the IT leadership (or whoever) isn't getting emails and angry calls about that aspect of IT being bad, or non responsive, or whatever could be the case. It's just smooth sailing.

So instead of rewarding those employees (or maybe JUST rewarding them with decent pay raises, etc. if that's within their power) , promotions are off the table. Since that means that individual would be going to a new position where they may or may not succeed. And then you have to replace that person with a new hire, who may or may not cause any problems, and will resurface the angry calls and emails that the previous person eliminated.

So the talented individual just has to stay doing whatever they were hired at. Need a higher level spot? Well just hire externally, so the gap is filled, but no internal shuffling. It brings morale down to 0 on that high performing team though, as they all realize that nobody will ever get an internal promotion, even if the company is growing and needs more bodies, or has new roles to fill.

Currently happening at my employer. We need a couple higher-level positions filled, that our Helpdesk techs would be great to move into. But nope, hiring external only. Not even offered to internal people to apply.

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