🎯 THE TOP TWEET — What I'd Focus On If I Were Making Under $100KMy most popular tweet this week outlined what I'd prioritize if I were earning under $100K in IT. Four things:
And if you have zero experience? Get into IT first. Help desk, desktop support, whatever gets you started. Then build from there. The mistake I'd avoid is spending years collecting certifications without making a career move. Pick the job you want. Then figure out what you're missing. 📖 THE FEATURED READ — Zero to $100KHow I'd Build My IT Career All Over Again I started out delivering pizzas. I got suspended from university. Then I Googled how to make six figures without a degree. That search eventually led me into IT. Five years later, I'd broken six figures. Looking back, there are things I'd repeat. And plenty I'd do differently. The biggest lesson? Your career should be built around opportunities, not an endless list of things to learn. I would identify the positions I wanted, study people already doing those jobs, and work backward. Then I'd get skilled enough to qualify for the next opportunity. Not spend years preparing for a job I never applied to. Read: Zero to $100K — How I'd Build My IT Career All Over Again 🎧 ON THE PODCAST — How to Hedge Against AI Replacing Your IT JobThere's a lot of uncertainty about what AI will mean for IT careers. I've been thinking about this as I plan my own next career move. And I've come to one conclusion. I don't need to abandon my IT specialty to become an AI engineer. I've spent years developing experience in networking, security, and identity. That knowledge is still useful. But AI is changing how much work someone with that knowledge can accomplish. For example, I'm building an enterprise IT lab over 30 days. I can describe what I want through a voice note. My AI agent helps build the environment, test the configurations, and document the results. Work that used to take days can now take considerably less time. And that changes what I'm capable of exploring. The bigger threat might not be AI replacing you. It's someone with less experience using AI to become more useful than you. That's why I'm learning to use it now. ▶ Watch: How to Hedge Against AI Replacing Your IT Job 🧠 FOOD FOR THOUGHT — The Common ThreadThere's a principle behind all three pieces of content this week. Become useful at something companies value. Then find ways to become more useful. If you're trying to reach your first $100K, that might mean building foundational skills and choosing a specialization. If you're already experienced, it might mean applying for jobs that value what you already know. And with AI, it might mean learning to accomplish more work with the expertise you've spent years developing. But there's another important point. Don't confuse learning with career progress. You can spend years studying and still find yourself in the same position. At some point, you have to use what you've learned. Build something. Apply for the job. Solve a problem. Get feedback from the market. Then figure out your next move. 📚 THIS WEEK'S RESOURCE — The Six-Figure IAM Career Playbook54 pages | $9 one-time If you're considering your next IT specialization, identity and access management is worth investigating. It's the field I've spent years working in, and it's been an important part of my own salary progression. You might already have relevant experience if you've worked with:
I wrote The Six-Figure IAM Career Playbook to explain how that experience connects to IAM career opportunities. It covers which capabilities to develop, how to demonstrate your knowledge, and how to position yourself for more specialized work. The idea is simple. Understand the career path before spending months preparing for it. → Get The Six-Figure IAM Career Playbook — $9 That's it for this week's brief. Yours truly, |
CyberAndChill Brief #4: What I'd Focus On to Get Ahead in IT
Originally published on CyberAndChill.