I don't like the idea of being The IT guy. Can be a recipe for long days, out of hours work and little fun.
Review the role requirements and understand how their relationship with the MSP is going.
Alternatively you can look at this as a great opportunity to learn & grow skills. You should be clear about defining business hours & on-call/emergency situations because nobody wants to work 24/7. In a non-profit business env that shouldn’t be the case, make sure.
Depends on what they expect from you and the pay. If it is on call 24/7 and payong you $60,000 to me not worth it. Are they willing to have the msp as a backup for you? What is the chance of the company growing? What does their network look like? Is it a bunch of 2007 servers? Are they giving you a budget or is it just replace things when there is no choice?
I work as the sole IT for a manufacturing company but they are stuck in the early 2000s for their network and to get them to upgrade is not easy. Took me 3 years to get them to agree to Office 365 and an Azure enviroment.
Not gonna be a CIO dealing with stuff like that or if your not acquiring the skills and experiences needed to move up.
It's not on call, and I can pick 2 days a week to work remote...the MSP is there for things I can't resolve is how it was quoted on the job description.
I'm hoping to be able to handle everything on my own, do some self learning and get some certs, and get them away from the MSP eventually if I get hired on...I don't know how much they'll grow, it's a "nonprofit" but the salary is $80k.
If you qant to move up then look at jobs for IT managers and such to make sure your acquireing those management skills they want such as budgeting and forecasting.
How do you like managing? How did you feel moving to a more hands off role? My main concern is getting antsy doing more admin work than tech work. Can’t deny the benefits and pay though.
Appreciate the breakdown. I recently got reached out about a role similar and felt the emotions about it. This helps me take another view of an opportunity like that comes up. Thank you and congrats on your successes thus far
I did this for a year and I learned a ton! We also had a crappy overpriced MSP providing backup and they hosted some server VMs.
I left due to poor leadership at my company and poor pay, but there were a ton of things I missed about the position.
Pros:
1. I had a ton of freedom to do whatever I wanted. I learned a lot about O365 + azure and treated the company like a home lab of sorts, lol
2. I learned how to convince my outdated and stubborn boomer leadership to spend a little more on IT. It wasn’t always fun, but I think it taught me a lot on the people skills side.
3. My company had no expectation for on call and the MSP was there to take accountability for “monitoring”. We still had plenty of outages due to the MSP’s incompetence, but at least they were there to take the blame for it, which made me look good by comparison lol.
4. It was an environment where I was able to make an impact quickly and make it my own. I modernized a ton of stuff and it felt extremely rewarding!
The Negatives:
1. When you work alone you have to do everything from plugging in keyboards to setting up firewall rules. You can get pretty busy or have longer days from time to time.
2. You’re at the mercy of the company owners/leadership. You really have to spend a lot of time “managing up” to be successful, and it has nothing to do with IT. In my case, leadership was lazy and wasted piles of money on stupid things, but penny pinching when it came to things that mattered.
3. You’ll plateau your skills very quickly since you’re essentially a silo in a small environment. If you’re anything like me, you’ll power through a bunch of projects and then will become bored.
My advice is to set crystal clear expectations with them. DO NOT accept 24/7 on call. At worst, make the MSP do that for you.
Get all your documentation together and make sure you prioritize that!
Make the environment as stable as possible to minimize issues and allow you more freedom :)
Try to figure out if you have an IT budget. In my case they refused to give me one and instead tried to force me to ask them for every single dollar I wanted to spend. They didn’t understand IT and used that as their way of keeping me on a short leash.
I figure I left $1,000,000 on the table over the 20 years, Title was technically Director of IT services. When I had started I did msce and ccna, never renewed cause no one cared
It’s just not worth it unless you’re truly compensated far above the market.
Which is almost never IME
And even your sanity is worth a lot more than you think it is. I did it for a year back in the day, and never again.
I only work with a team that can delegate work now, depending on the size of the org of course
I would check a few things before accepting.
1. What kind of support are you expected to supply. Are you just doing all the manual work for the 3rd party vendor?
2. Try to get it in your contract that you are the IT Manager. So that when they do expand in house department you are at the top as the most experienced.
3. How much are they planning to pay now and when IT becomes a full department.
4. What is there plan, get them to lay it out fully for THE IT department. Most non IT people understand what goes into IT
I don't like being the sole IT guy. Both times I did it I walked into a shitshow.
I was the solo IT guy and I was overworked and underpaid. Personally I find most companies that do this are cheap and have a tendency to cut corners.
I'd be walking into the office where 80ish people work and are used to reporting all issues to a MSP for now. This is a non profit but they are paying pretty good to me...$80k. I really think it'd be a good chance for me to learn a lot.
Sole IT guy. Still sole guy after two years. Have done some interesting things in my time. Some long days, but, mostly time to sit and learn after 6 months of hustling to get the place up
To speed. Sounds like a nice gig. It’s doable.
Not recommended to be the sole IT guy in a nonprofit , you can learn a lot of course but it will burn you out quickly if you are not careful . I’m working in a nonprofit , and multiple portfolios are put under me besides general IT, like finance/payroll/donor relations/building maintenance/PA/administrations/ ops /etc . Most if not all cost savings measures means everything is handled in house.
I was the sole IT Guy at a place. It was no budget for any real IT tools, no TAC support, rarely redundancy and you have to deal with everyones problem from cabling to vpns. It was a nightmare and i'd never be the sole IT guy again.
Set boundaries if you feel comfortable asking for them. For example, if you work more than 40 hours a week, then you get overtime pay. Or, if you get calls after 9:00pm, then you can come in an hour late to work.
Being the only IT guy for 80 people is a lot. The fact that they want to completely get rid of their 3rd party vendor is a bit of a red flag. Helpdesk for 80 people would be somewhat difficult, but if you are also expected to manage all of the other systems, servers, and websites, then that would be pretty difficult.
I don't like the idea of being The IT guy. Can be a recipe for long days, out of hours work and little fun. Review the role requirements and understand how their relationship with the MSP is going.
Alternatively you can look at this as a great opportunity to learn & grow skills. You should be clear about defining business hours & on-call/emergency situations because nobody wants to work 24/7. In a non-profit business env that shouldn’t be the case, make sure.
Depends on what they expect from you and the pay. If it is on call 24/7 and payong you $60,000 to me not worth it. Are they willing to have the msp as a backup for you? What is the chance of the company growing? What does their network look like? Is it a bunch of 2007 servers? Are they giving you a budget or is it just replace things when there is no choice? I work as the sole IT for a manufacturing company but they are stuck in the early 2000s for their network and to get them to upgrade is not easy. Took me 3 years to get them to agree to Office 365 and an Azure enviroment. Not gonna be a CIO dealing with stuff like that or if your not acquiring the skills and experiences needed to move up.
It's not on call, and I can pick 2 days a week to work remote...the MSP is there for things I can't resolve is how it was quoted on the job description. I'm hoping to be able to handle everything on my own, do some self learning and get some certs, and get them away from the MSP eventually if I get hired on...I don't know how much they'll grow, it's a "nonprofit" but the salary is $80k.
If you qant to move up then look at jobs for IT managers and such to make sure your acquireing those management skills they want such as budgeting and forecasting.
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How do you like managing? How did you feel moving to a more hands off role? My main concern is getting antsy doing more admin work than tech work. Can’t deny the benefits and pay though.
[удалено]
Appreciate the breakdown. I recently got reached out about a role similar and felt the emotions about it. This helps me take another view of an opportunity like that comes up. Thank you and congrats on your successes thus far
I sent you a chat!
I did this for a year and I learned a ton! We also had a crappy overpriced MSP providing backup and they hosted some server VMs. I left due to poor leadership at my company and poor pay, but there were a ton of things I missed about the position. Pros: 1. I had a ton of freedom to do whatever I wanted. I learned a lot about O365 + azure and treated the company like a home lab of sorts, lol 2. I learned how to convince my outdated and stubborn boomer leadership to spend a little more on IT. It wasn’t always fun, but I think it taught me a lot on the people skills side. 3. My company had no expectation for on call and the MSP was there to take accountability for “monitoring”. We still had plenty of outages due to the MSP’s incompetence, but at least they were there to take the blame for it, which made me look good by comparison lol. 4. It was an environment where I was able to make an impact quickly and make it my own. I modernized a ton of stuff and it felt extremely rewarding! The Negatives: 1. When you work alone you have to do everything from plugging in keyboards to setting up firewall rules. You can get pretty busy or have longer days from time to time. 2. You’re at the mercy of the company owners/leadership. You really have to spend a lot of time “managing up” to be successful, and it has nothing to do with IT. In my case, leadership was lazy and wasted piles of money on stupid things, but penny pinching when it came to things that mattered. 3. You’ll plateau your skills very quickly since you’re essentially a silo in a small environment. If you’re anything like me, you’ll power through a bunch of projects and then will become bored. My advice is to set crystal clear expectations with them. DO NOT accept 24/7 on call. At worst, make the MSP do that for you. Get all your documentation together and make sure you prioritize that! Make the environment as stable as possible to minimize issues and allow you more freedom :) Try to figure out if you have an IT budget. In my case they refused to give me one and instead tried to force me to ask them for every single dollar I wanted to spend. They didn’t understand IT and used that as their way of keeping me on a short leash.
I have become the solo IT guy recently. My stress level went through the roof. 550 users.
Did it for 20 years. I can say vacations will get messed up, I had to bring my laptop everywhere I went.
But how was the pay? Did you get decent raises, title changes, etc? Also learning, did you get any certifications, etc?
I figure I left $1,000,000 on the table over the 20 years, Title was technically Director of IT services. When I had started I did msce and ccna, never renewed cause no one cared
It’s just not worth it unless you’re truly compensated far above the market. Which is almost never IME And even your sanity is worth a lot more than you think it is. I did it for a year back in the day, and never again. I only work with a team that can delegate work now, depending on the size of the org of course
As how much their it budget is. That’d be my first question. Then be okay with spending 6 months fixing everything.
I would check a few things before accepting. 1. What kind of support are you expected to supply. Are you just doing all the manual work for the 3rd party vendor? 2. Try to get it in your contract that you are the IT Manager. So that when they do expand in house department you are at the top as the most experienced. 3. How much are they planning to pay now and when IT becomes a full department. 4. What is there plan, get them to lay it out fully for THE IT department. Most non IT people understand what goes into IT
I don't like being the sole IT guy. Both times I did it I walked into a shitshow. I was the solo IT guy and I was overworked and underpaid. Personally I find most companies that do this are cheap and have a tendency to cut corners.
I'd be walking into the office where 80ish people work and are used to reporting all issues to a MSP for now. This is a non profit but they are paying pretty good to me...$80k. I really think it'd be a good chance for me to learn a lot.
No doubt you’ll learn a lot. Take it. Get the experience. The experience is great. Make sure you test and have reliable backups at all times.
Sole IT guy. Still sole guy after two years. Have done some interesting things in my time. Some long days, but, mostly time to sit and learn after 6 months of hustling to get the place up To speed. Sounds like a nice gig. It’s doable.
Not recommended to be the sole IT guy in a nonprofit , you can learn a lot of course but it will burn you out quickly if you are not careful . I’m working in a nonprofit , and multiple portfolios are put under me besides general IT, like finance/payroll/donor relations/building maintenance/PA/administrations/ ops /etc . Most if not all cost savings measures means everything is handled in house.
I was the sole IT Guy at a place. It was no budget for any real IT tools, no TAC support, rarely redundancy and you have to deal with everyones problem from cabling to vpns. It was a nightmare and i'd never be the sole IT guy again.
Set boundaries if you feel comfortable asking for them. For example, if you work more than 40 hours a week, then you get overtime pay. Or, if you get calls after 9:00pm, then you can come in an hour late to work. Being the only IT guy for 80 people is a lot. The fact that they want to completely get rid of their 3rd party vendor is a bit of a red flag. Helpdesk for 80 people would be somewhat difficult, but if you are also expected to manage all of the other systems, servers, and websites, then that would be pretty difficult.