DEV Community

Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

Posted on

What non-dev IT jobs have you had?

I haven't worked "in IT" outside of software development, and I don't even have a great idea of what the various jobs are. Anybody had one or more IT jobs outside of software development?

Top comments (75)

Collapse
 
yechielk profile image
Yechiel Kalmenson

I started out doing tech support.

From there I worked my way up to developer support (helping developers integrate with our API) which had me realize that I wasn't happy just supporting devs, I wanted to be a dev.

Collapse
 
scrabill profile image
Shannon Crabill

Oddly, I've wondered if moving into a tech support like role would be helpful in my developer career.

🤔

Collapse
 
sahuvikramp profile image
Vikram Sahu

It will surely help you if you are allowed to debug in deep.
Rather just giving pre documented answers.

:-)

Collapse
 
yechielk profile image
Yechiel Kalmenson

I definitely feel like having that background helped me in my developer career, it gives me an empathy towards the end-used that I find many devs lack.

Collapse
 
nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

Non-dev IT jobs for me were:

  • Internet technical support for Bell, a Canadian ISP. I definitely had some interesting phone calls. I’m sure anyone who has done technical support has war stories as well.
  • software installer for automotive software. Basically I’d go to garages and car dealers and install software that allowed them to order parts. It was Windows based software, so usually when things went wrong, it was a registry fix. regedit.exe forever baby! 😉
Collapse
 
eaich profile image
Eddie • Edited

My first job out of college was managing and vetting collaborative tools for use inside the company - instant messaging, live webcasting, web conferencing, eLearning, etc. Once a tool was selected, I'd develop implementation/deployment plans and documentation which required coordination with other IT depts like Security, Architecture, Help Desk, Desktop (in cases where the software had to be installed on all employee machines).

I also worked in accessibility. There was a group that hired mostly hard-of-hearing/deaf employees, so I helped deploy an application that converted text to ASL for them, and devices that allowed employees with cochlear implants to listen to live webcasts and learning modules because traditional headphones would interfere with their implants.

After that, I worked for an accounting firm managing the live webcasting tools and services internally and externally. This was the most challenging because there were so many moving parts and dependencies. For one, video was a such a huge burden on the network, so the Network team hated us =). But we'd work with them to deploy internal CDN technologies from Cisco, Riverbed, etc. I got to work directly with the executives in the company, learned about audio/video production, learned how to work under pressure and troubleshoot in real-time.

In hindsight, these experiences helped me a lot by understanding how end users use and learn new technologies that are presented to them without much choice really, and also how companies procure technologies for internal use.

Collapse
 
jacobherrington profile image
Jacob Herrington (he/him)

I interned on a hardware support/sysadmin team for one of the largest logistics companies on Earth. It was pretty difficult but really fun.

At the same company, I also interned on a "Business Intelligence" team, which was kind of like a step between working on a dev team and a data science team. A lot of web portals, SQL reports, and ETL work.

After that, I worked as a pseudo-DBA at a different logistics company.

Somewhere in between those jobs I started writing JavaScript and did some PHP and Python development for an ecommerce company (they paid $8/hr). I dropped out of college and went on to full-time software development about 8 months after that!

Collapse
 
michielnuyts profile image
Michiel Nuyts
  • Construction Worker

  • Call Center Employee (most miserable ever)
    This was definitely the worst job I ever did. But I had the option to work part-time here, I could focus on studies, started doing full-time software development not long after I took this job :)

  • Band Worker at Ford Factory (I left after a few weeks)

Collapse
 
tuwang profile image
TuWang • Edited

I have had an internship position called “IT Attestation” for three months in a public accounting firm. Unfortunately I hated every second of it because it doesn’t provide any sort of technical growth or career development path. I got the returning offer that year, but ... nah, I politely rejected, and dashed out of the door when no one is looking 🤪

Two things in the internship that killed this path for me:

  • I built a very basic web page with a random number generator that suggests lunches for the team. That’s it; it took a day. My teammates were shocked: “ wow I know you study computer science but I didn’t you can do that!?”. They might be business-style nice to me or they really have no clue how less effort that is. I immediately know I have already reached the top of technical growth in the intern, sadly.
  • The director tried to convince me to accept the offer this way: “here you have the opportunity to learn what other companies’ technical systems; isn’t that fun and challenging? I came from an engineer background. If you choose an engineer path, all that you do is to sit there, take order and focus on one thing. Don’t you find it boring?” Nah, it was bitter. As a software engineer, I got so much to deal with nowadays, with all different teams, on multiple projects. The most critical difference is: in public accounting, yes you are learning all kinds of systems but you build nothing; in software engineering we are actually creating stuff to make others’ life a bit better each day.

Saying no was a super easy decision.

Frankly speaking, it was nice to dive into my accounting/finance friends’ world a little bit. I sort of understand how/why they need to talk, work, dress and perform in certain ways. This was also learning ;)

Collapse
 
thefern profile image
Fernando B 🚀

One of my many duties was to support cisco switches, so I guess that qualifies as IT.

Anything from configuring switches to troubleshooting issues, to updating firmware, etc. Seemed pretty cool to me.

If I ever need to setup a managed switch at home, I am trained to do it lol.

By the way if anyone is interested in learning cisco stuff for free, just sign up for a free account, and then google for packet tracer labs.

netacad.com/courses/packet-tracer

Collapse
 
justsharkie profile image
/*Sharkie*/

Apparently, retail marketing is my JAM.

Currently I'm basically creating the marketing department at the store I'm at - this includes social media, graphic design, building a website, in house marketing, working on the floor... and everything changes week to week and its INSANE. But I'm good at it, and for some reason I enjoy it.

It's a weird one, for sure. But it's what I'm doing. :P

Collapse
 
eonuk profile image
eonuk • Edited

Abattoir - carrying pigs off hooks onto hooks in back of lorry, and pushing half cow carcasses on hooks down rails.

Some factory that made amongst other things wheelchairs. My temp job was sweeping floor and moving stuff.

Pie factory - putting bits of pastry into slots in a conveyer belt, injecting gell into pork pies and lifting trays from one rack to another.

After that, majority of time as a multimedia developer, technical designer and automation testing.

Collapse
 
syntaxseed profile image
SyntaxSeed (Sherri W)

I worked at one of my city's first ISPs (Internet provider). I did billing & customer service.

It was neat to be part of bringing people their first ever internet access.

But I also saw first hand how all the big companies bought up the little ones & the monopoly formed. In my case we were bought by Primus. A big payday for my boss... but not great for our customers.

Collapse
 
thebouv profile image
Anthony Bouvier • Edited

System Admin. DevOps. Manager. Network admin. Mentor. Architect. DBA.

Most of those I still do in some fashion or another; I like wearing multiple hats.

My first tech job prior to even thinking about being a dev: Help desk for a mammography clinic when I was 17. Did excel stuff, printers, scanned in xrays for them, moved physical folders of mammograms and other medical images, ran misc errands too.

Collapse
 
jonathanspeek profile image
Jonathan Speek

I started as an Operations Specialist for an ad tech company, then did support engineering, then software configuration management. All at the same company in less than 2 years. I've been a software developer ever since leaving. Looking back, it was interesting to see other pieces of the technical pie and how they fit together.

Collapse
 
itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla)

In uni, I was a part of the help desk as a work-study gig. Since it was "industry" experience, it paid minimum wage. But it was mostly troubleshooting network issues (the building was old and had very thick walls; here's your complementary ethernet cable) or hardware issues (cleaning out a Macbook that had chocolate milk spilt on it) for the other students in my dorm for 30 hours a week.

Collapse
 
vgrovestine profile image
Vincent Grovestine • Edited

I'm currently living the...er...dream?!

I started my career in backend web development; eventually settling into a tech lead role with a small web agency. Yay, ColdFusion! (Oh, how I do miss those simpler times.)

The second half of my career has been in higher-ed IT, with responsibilities so varied that I've labeled myself an "applied IT Jack-of-all-trades". I do my best to maintain a developer mindset; however, hands-on dev comprises only a tiny portion of my week-to-week taskings:

  • Traditional LAMP-stack dev; CRUD widgets; database design
  • Critique mockups from graphic designer; HTML/CSS refinement; CMS templating
  • ETL; data sync between disparate database systems; basic BI reporting
  • Web software administration and end-user support: CMS, LMS (Moodle), and other purpose-driven packages (eg. PKP Open Journal Systems, Springshare LibGuides)
  • Web content moderation, analytics/stats, and other assorted "webmaster" tasks
  • Digital signage; implementation and content prep
  • Administer shared DVCS (GitLab CE); advocate heavily for its use (a lot of folk work in isolation and don't feel that they "need" version control *grumble*)
  • Retiring in-house legacy applications; Flash content migration (using Twine+Sugarcube for some of this work); cleaning up neglected file servers
  • Web content curation; training staff on CMS software; enforcing brand and design standards
  • Consulting; distilling folks' ideas into actionable plans; translating technical concerns into plain-English for non-tech folk
  • Dabble in digital accessibility and data privacy initiatives
  • Sharepoint; issue tracking; running interference between non-tech staff and other IT units
  • I'm a desktop Linux user in a Microsoft-centric world; blessing and curse of picking apart edge-case issues with MS web products
  • But that doesn't stop folk from asking for Windows and OSX help--printer problems, One Drive and Skype being frequent problems

Now halfway through my work career, I've got the itch to return to the development world in some capacity. I've been an IT generalist for too long! :)

Collapse
 
mitchpommers profile image
Mitch Pomery (he/him)

My first job was in Fresh Produce. Stacking fruit and veg in the grocery area and preparing them for display. Use to have to just off the bottom of the iceberg lettuces because it took the bad outer leaves off and made them look a lot better for sale.

I left that job to work in an IT shop sweeping floors and cleaning bins. I eventually started doing tech work there to fill the time and admin work (balancing the books, banking, mail). After being a tech I ended up briefly (couple of months) filling the workshop manager role (making sure work got done and customers were called).

My longest non-tech job has got to be in Children's Entertainment. My aunt ran a business and needed someone to balloon twist so I helped her out one weekend. And then kept working for her for the following 7 years. Work was casual and seasonal. There would be months of no work followed by a full on weekend and then no work again. I also did bouncy castles, fairy floss and glitter tattoos. I was working for my aunt up until I moved cities earlier this year.

I worked as an offsider for my dad on his building site one year during the winter and summer uni breaks. I had to get my construction whitecard before I was allowed to start, but now can legally work on building sites! In winter we were putting up the roof trusses during a rainstorm, so were constantly getting drenched. That summer we were up to putting up the tin roof on the 40 degree days with no shade. The house was really well insulated, so even after getting only half the roof on, the inside of it was nice and cool.

I did another stint at a small grocery. They hired me to work evenings in fresh produce and work towards being the night manager, but instead gave me the morning deli shift. I didn't stay there long.