The Experienced IT Professional’s Quandary    

By  Joseph DeSetto
Feature Author

Having 15 years of experience in the technology industry is an enviable position and a sure ticket to any number of high-paying jobs.  CIOs and other IT managers are commanding top salaries, with no end to this demand in sight.  But, can you package all this experience and still bankroll yourself if you want to remain a hands-on technical person, free from paper shuffling and politics often found in upper management?

The Peter Principle

One such man in this quandary is Lee Gandy, director of Information Technology for Ocean Apparel, Inc., a Florida-based clothing manufacturer.  He has chosen to stay at a small company in order to maintain his skills as a network administrator and AS/400 programmer while in an upper management role.

According to Gandy, "I could switch to any number of jobs at a larger shop, from network admin to project manager to developer to sales engineering.  But where am I supposed to make more money and still be able to use all the new gear?  I don't want to push paper all day, but that is what I'd have to do to keep increasing my salary."
 
Though not alone, Gandy is a classic example of the Peter Principle -- the idea that successful professionals are eventually promoted out of the position where they actually used the skills on which they built their career, to a management role with no hands-on technical involvement.  Compounding the problem is the extensive travel often required for many high-paying technical positions.  This can be difficult for people with family commitments, so the jobs are often better suited for younger, less established workers.

The Struggle to Move Up

Experienced technical people are having a difficult time staying upwardly mobile.  Several factors are involved:

• No pay for experience.  In an expensive and competitive market, employers don't want to pay extra for unnecessary skills.  For example, if a position requires four years in C++ development, 10 years spent working on CICS or COBOL might not be of value to the project.  As a result, more experienced individuals have to compete directly with relative newcomers.
  
  
• Outsourcing.  Another factor is the value a company places on technical skills.  Experienced professionals in an internal IS department may find managers quantifying their skills, considering them easily outsourced or replaced.  More so than traditional professions, a person in a specialty area with a certain number of years can be viewed as interchangeable with another person who has the same experience level.
  
  
• Currency of skills.  Unlike other careers, an employee's value can be deflated because of pressure to constantly stay updated and on the leading edge.  Because an employee's specialty often lasts only three to five years, any experience beyond that is difficult to assign a value.  It can be challenging to sell a CEO or CFO on the value of many years of experience.  The CIO or other IT manager may appreciate the additional experience, but they may not be willing or authorized to pay for it.
  
  Echoing this sentiment, Gandy laments that the value of his experience isn't always obvious to employers.  He says: "Over the years, I have developed skills that, while not directly technically related, nonetheless add to my value, such as problem solving, logical reasoning, interaction with users, industry contacts and perspective tempered by longevity.  These are skills that typically do not fit into the technical matrix that employers use to value IT positions."
  
  
• Competitive pricing.  Although people in consulting areas can increase their income through raising their billing rates, they can also lose the advantage of longer tenure.  Consulting, flex employment and contracting are more of a pure marketplace, with supply and demand for skills driving income, rather than experience in outdated technologies.  However, experienced professionals can only push their rates so far before they price themselves out of the market.  Not only can younger workers bill less for the same work, many technical positions are now easily moved overseas.

What Are the Solutions?

Steve O'Donohue, a senior staff consultant at kforce.com, said that experienced people should look for larger employers with deep pockets in the IT area.
 
Says O'Donohue, "Some of the monster firms have technical people making more than managers.  But there aren't too many of those.  The other thing he [Gandy] could do would be to create a real niche for himself, such as Oracle Express (a data modeling tool), but that would require relocating to different areas to go where the work is."
 
The other option, and the standard career path for many IT workers, is a move toward management.  IT managers can routinely make six-figure salaries and handsome bonuses, but the job is fundamentally different from the technical field.  Whereas many technical people are drawn to the industry by actual hands-on experience, management positions typically have much more emphasis on planning, budgeting, employee hiring and retention.  This role isn't ideally suited for everyone but can be the only way up.
 
Overall, advice for the most seasoned technologists is a familiar refrain.  A fast-growing and dynamic company, together with a cutting-edge and in-demand skill set, will ensure continued IT career success.

Back to articles, click here.