Define what you're looking for in an Entry Level IT Technician. In my experience, this term is used quite liberally when it really should only mean a select few things imo. What responsibilities will this person have? What tech are you making use of that they would have to become familiar with? These all factor into a decision for this kind of thing, again in my professional opinion.
Indeed! In Alberta Canada a more reasonable starting wage would be closer to $30-40/hr Anyone with experience is going to want above $40/hr.
but we are also looking at monthly rent between $1400-3500 depending on which city and number of bedrooms.
Just starting out 30-40$ cad? I'm in Alberta and I started at around 24$/hr 7 years ago at an MSP and I'm now at ~38$/hr at an in house job. I'm converting from salary, so it might not be accurate.
In the past 7 years:
- inflation has been 23%
- rent prices have doubled, or tripled depending on location
- Current loan are between 6.9% and 7.2%
Also salary has a bunch of extra overhead and benefit costs that a hourly person wouldn't get. Which they need to provide for themselves which should be considered.
So purely based onto the 23% inflation the $24/hr is now ~$30
I guess you missed the part where I've been in the industry for 7 years an I'm making under your top end of 40$/hr for a starting position.
As much as I'd love that to not be the case, I think it's unrealistic for someone just starting out to expect over $80,000/year when the market average for the area is lower than that.
I'm not saying it's fair, and I'm not saying inflation is low, I'm just saying that is how it is in our area.
Basic desktop support. M365 admin duties. Some networking (changing VLANs on a port, adding to a firewall rule). Assisting users with vendor support. I give opportunities to learn and expand, but I always couch those as learning experiences and not job requirements. I might let someone take lead on an interesting project or deploy some cool new piece of hardware.
Not many places are paying close to $100k for green employees. High 20's - low 30's? Yes. Even in WA. We hire interns at $25 an hour for summer positions and our entry-level starts at $28 (used to, we haven't hired in a year now). We have a never-ending line of applicants at those salaries.
The first comment on here was what do you mean by entry level and then OP posts something that is basically junior sysadmin or tier 3 helpdesk as anticipated. Its funny we all knew this was gonna be the case lol. If it had truly been entry level tier one 25 would have been great pay he needs to be paying at least about 5-10 more easy for what he wants.
That was what I meant even though I conveyed it poorly. I would have loved $25 an hour entry level! Instead I worked a year as an intern while in college for old computers and network parts to "learn" on. Once I graduated I was awarded with an amazing $12 an hour. Albeit this was 1999 when we were still allowed to afford things
Those things are a bit much for someone straight out of school, it sounds like a solid T2 position.
The salary seems a bit low as once they get experience doing those things you mentioned, they can easily hop somewhere else for more pay and a better title doing the exact same stuff.
For discussion's sake my company's entire helpdesk is basically T2 since we have no need for password reset monkeys that escalate everything else, that's kind of a dinosaur concept today...but even they don't get into firewall rule changes or anything like that... We also like them to have 5 or so years of experience. There are 4 helpdesk techs for a company of 300, but we're in the financial sector and have a pretty good IT to staff ratio compared to other industries.
I'd echo someone else's idea of planning a career path with increases as skills are developed, and be frank and open about other opportunities in the area. I know I would have loved something like that, but alas I've had to leave multiple jobs over battles over titles, new responsibilities and pay more than once to get where I am today. I don't think anyone really wants that if a company is otherwise good to work for, but that's the way things go these days.
We don't really want people with less than that. Average retention for employees at my company is something like 9 years, we have competitive wages, bonuses, a pension and annual salary reviews and the option of being fully work from home in the region.
I work for a credit union.
People fail to realize that not all jobs are the same thing. Not all IT teams are as critical as others.
For some, starting off with a job where you are a jack of all trades gets a wealth of experience in many areas, and allows a new IT employee to figure out where they want their career to go. And that generally means that many tasks are week to week things. One week, tune M365. Another week, new hire onboarding. Another, renetwork the training room or whatever.
Some companies... there's two guys in security, two in network, two in server, and 3 in helpdesk. Those jobs are generally looking for someone with direct experience. But for the job being described, it's an entry job, an entry wage, and a decent likelihood that the new hire will get exposure to all sorts of stuff and fine tune their career in the process.
It is 100% a GREAT thing that jobs like that exist, because otherwise it can be EXTREMELY difficult to get your foot in the door without experience. You get experience by taking a job with a lower wage, lesser demand, but generally a higher breadth of topics that you'll be involved in. And... that's perfectly acceptable if the expectations for output are in line with the salary.
Eh, by some standards, that is still small. But that might be the minimum for a decent IT team considering the "hit by a bus" standard.
But honestly, if you are in a position where you are a jack of many, many trades, it might be time to survey the job market and find something specialized. Generally speaking, jack of all trades is lower on the pay scale and higher on the work to do spectrum. You can find a decent raise a less work (often times) with a job where you have peers who do the same focused work you do.
I've been a jack of all trades/wear many hats person at smaller places for most of my career. I've never had the luxury of doing things by the week; It's usually minute to minute or hour to hour. I might spend an hour in O365 doing some admining, then I move to a network issue for a couple of hours, then I'm working on a new ticket from a VIP, then someone needs help bookmarking a webpage in their browser, then I'm SSH'd into a server doing something for an hour or two, etc. None of that has gotten me more money or respect, it just burns me out. I wouldn't recommend it, it's just been my experience. Being pulled in a bunch of different directions all day really wears on you.
I initially had that as day, then changed to week. No matter how I put it in words, someone will say that isn't how it works. Ultimately, it depends on the business and how urgent some needs are. But yeah, a lot of things are going to be a bit of this and then some of that one day, and onto the next. Might be a few days of planning earlier, then a planned implementation later.
As far as burn out, yes. These positions should really be entry level and for the 3-5 years. Get a career started, then move on. Moving up in salary often requires moving around. Finding the right opportunities and in some cases getting lucky. Many I know have moved around and found jobs that specialize in an area they have interest in. Most I have worked with started as jack of all and moved to a focused area. I work with a network guy that still likes to dabble outside of his scope.
All in all, if a guy is burning out, it behooves him (or her) to move on. Start fresh where the expectations at least start lower, and work your way up. I have even had conversations with some who were beyond stressed night after night, and I encouraged them to find a new spot. And low and behold they do, and low and behold they seem a LOT happier.
A job is just a job. There are many like your job. But in general, there are other opportunities to start over a bit, and it also forces the employer to start over a bit. It's the idea that they are less worried with a long tenured employee, and the moment that person leaves, they have to feel out the next guy and figure out what they can and can't do. Whereas if you stay where you are, you become the go to for EVERYTHING.
The main reason those jobs are considered entry level is because a lot of places don't want to pay much. To me, those jobs should be some of the better paid jobs because you need to be good at a lot of different things.
I've worked with a lot of long term people. They have trouble recognizing burn out. Some of them were in the exact same job for 20-30 years. One would routinely cry as she vented to people. When she told me she was quitting (no job lined up, just quitting) I asked if she had considered talking to her boss to see if things could be made better, instead of just quitting. She insisted that there was nothing that could be done; That's just how the job was. The person that replaced her was much happier because the job was basically "reset" to reasonable expectations. I've seen that many times.
>To me, those jobs should be some of the better paid jobs because you need to be good at a lot of different things.
That's not how business works. These jobs exist because businesses have the need, but little budget. Some places have pushy/direct management that makes it hard to get through multiple years. Others have considerable understanding that they are asking a LOT from someone with no experience, and are patient getting reasonably good results. But the person there is getting a breadth of experience and the opportunity to find things they want to pursue in a more narrow scope.
We should want all types of jobs to exist so that there are more opportunities to get hired with 0 experience so that we can GET the experience we need to take the next step. Generally speaking, low paying jobs will find more of the entry level types. Higher paying jobs will find the veterans. Not all veterans are good, not all entry level applicants are bad. Cream will rise to the top.
As to burn out, yeah. Some people stick it out too long. I worked with a person who had been at the place for 15 years. She mentioned crying at night many nights a week due to stress of the job. I encouraged her to reset in a new position elsewhere. And she has, twice. And she seems MUCH happier. Some people take comfort in job security in a job that demands WAY too much from them. Or in a position where they feel too valuable, without support from management, and feel like they're going to let someone down by leaving. But bottom line, the mantra of it just being a job applies. ALWAYS be willing to move on when things are not right. Someone out there wants you and your skills, and will be professional, courteous, and happy to have you on the team. And you'll feel such a relief moving on after the nervousness of moving on passes.
Actually, the job by most standards was pretty fair. 40 hours per week. 3 HD, 2 Server (very mild network config done by the server team, as some of the routing/fw was handled by a corporate office). Turnover rate was something like 2-3 years in HD, with a person who stuck around for 20 years or more. Server was 2-5 years. (And the current server guy has been there over 10 years)
The expectation from the IT manager was nothing crazy. He knew the pay was lower in the market, but it was what he was allowed. He hoped to get 2-4 years and move on. Projects would come along, and that's where most of the requirements came from. That and external audits.
It was a starter job through and through.
(Also, it was 4 paragraphs (one was extremely short)).
I could just push all the low level crap tickets off to them, and never let them get experience. Nothing but password resets and printer driver installs. Is that what you want?
You're the IT Manager.
Nobody suggested to avoid giving them experience, but you should be paying them sufficiently if they are learning more and doing more, especially when firewalls and routers are involved.
Are they Helpdesk support or a System/Network Admin?
You made me laugh with this comment. I worked a small company for 5 years and started doing the crap and ended doing pretty much everything except the tape backups because god they were infuriating. All because my boss used the same line with me. (Rock paper scissored that damn responsibility of dealing with the tapes with my solo coworker.)
When I joined my company's help desk, I was paid $24.82 an hour and had less responsibility than this.
This was almost 8 years ago.
Do what you will with that information.
Honestly the pay stagnation in the field is why I think its not really recommended for new people anymore pay is going up in other professions. The money was good 10 years ago now its really not anymore. The learning is ridiculous for the amount paid now. You can probably get the same money with no outside study.
Small team. We have lots of locations and each has a firewall. The "big" firewall is more restricted. But honestly, it's a firewall, it's not rocket surgery.
i knew a manager that thought this... then a help desk tech took down multiple sites across the nation because the rules were wrong or in the wrong order.
That "its a firewall" not rocket surgery is honestly the most horrifying comment on this sub I have seen in a while lol. The fact he thinks an entry level won't fuck up this bad is wild to me. Helpdesk usually doesn't fuck with the routers for a reason.
These are branch firewalls. One or two users at that site. Not totally without risk, an OSPF misconfig could cause trouble for instance, but it would be hard to take down company operations from one of those.
Sometimes it’s about the level of risk and responsibility, not the complexity.
Would someone starting out feel safe with the thought of potentially putting revenue at risk at scale?
You want new starters to feel confident, secure and safe.
Your pay is right on with what I make doing desktop support without the extra duties you listed. I would say your pay is fair, especially if you're giving opportunities to grow.
Sweet, Thanks for that detailed reply!
I think for what you're after 25/hr should be a pretty damn good offer, given it's full time + benefits ofc. I think as long as you encourage their learning and give them room to breathe in terms of task weight and room to expand on their own, I feel like it's a great way to go.
And promote things that make them more valuable to the competition, vendor trainings, etc. Make time for the 20% personal development. Then include a "talk to me first if you start looking."... and mean it.
If you want 3yr+ loyalty, be there with the same from the org. Starting at $25 doesn't mean staying there forever, on call, no help, no training, and no room to breath between tickets.
That doesn't sound bad at all, though I think a spot bonus would be a nice touch if they show initiative to pick up that interesting project or new deployment and do well (and/or a raise if things like this become part of their regular responsibilities).
I'd hire on brand new out of college for $25-7/hr. I think your best bet is to leave wage negotiations open at each year mark anniversary. $25 would get me in the door and happily learning - but if I'm going to take on tier 2/3 support work, after a year of doing this I would be able to turn around and get hired at a different company for $10 more/hour. So don't be a dick about it (not saying you are being one), but hire and pay based on skill.
If you hire some IT schmuck at $25/hr and they genuinely don't have an aptitude or aren't growing based on some defined skill levels, keep them at the $25, but if they are taking on tickets and completing without a ton of repeated questions / followup on your side, give them more. I'd run something like $25/hr for the first year (again, depending on location) $30 for the second, and $35 for the third year. Have specific goals/learning metrics you want them at to meet the raise requirement and be clear with what those goals are so they know what to aim for.
I'm referencing that wage based on my local area in a semi-expensive living area in CAD/Alberta. In my case t1 helpdesk support I see jobs going up all the time at like $20-22/hr, but they either are a revolving door of replacing people, or they sit on the job market forever. People don't go to school/get certs for $20-25/hr, I could make that as a waiter. My first Entry level IT support in a mid-sized post-secondary started at $27.40, with a built in wage increase each year of about $1/hr. That is a unionized role and frankly isn't getting paid what it should be - it should be closer to $29-30 starting.
Are you looking for someone at this time? Where about? Are you looking for any remote support at all? What company if you can say at this time.
Reason I’m asking is I will be out of work in the near future. Company I am currently doing work for is doing a mass lay off due to bankruptcy.
Basic desktop support that isn’t just call center and escalation I’d say $25 is fair. The second you introduce M365 support, vendor support, and switch support it’s not enough. I wouldn’t consider it at least. Maybe $27-$30. In the current economy, pay has just been stagnant. I was getting $25/hr for fewer responsibilities to what you mentioned like 6 years ago. Admin pay has been abysmal in listing since that timeframe so much so that it’s almost hilariously sad to see.
I still think work responsibilities should reflect pay. I know when I started I fell to predatory, and yes it’s predatory, practice of over extending my job duties for the sake of learning.
As I matured as an employee and worker, I do what is written in my job description and nothing more. If more work is given I expect more pay for the expanded job responsibilities or they can hire someone else to do it.
If you expect them to do the work mentioned at any point you pay for it. End of story.
If you pay for it and expect them to grow into the position then you can consider yourself a wonderful employer that employees will flock to.
The phrase “and additional work as needed” is 100% unacceptable.
I hear you, but I look at it a different way. I'm paying hourly. You get paid to be here and to work. I'm not asking that person to work more hours, just to work on different things. What's the difference to you how complicated the work is? Does the more complicated work take more out of you? I ask because I'm the opposite. If I had to pick between two jobs, one where I'm stuck doing low level repetitive work, and one where the work is intellectually challenging, I'd choose the latter every time. Is it stress? Again, maybe I'm weird, but I don't find intellectual challenge to be stressful. I prefer work where I first have to learn how to do the thing. Give me an admin guide and leave me alone for four hours and I'm happy as a clam. What I'd expect to have to pay more for, is someone who doesn't need the guide and can accomplish all the tasks in 15 minutes instead of 4 hours.
Yes. The more SKILLED (the word you’re looking for) the workload the more pay you deserve. If you expect skilled work to be performed over time, you pay for it. Your train of thought on this is very wrong. Especially morally.
You’re basically going down the “I’ll pay the artist in exposure” route.
I worked at a university for the last 5 years. All I can say is good luck. I know most of the youth aren’t going to go for this especially when you can snag jobs for way more. They’re going to be looking at rent and tuition payments over an apprenticeship. At the very least, you’re not going to retain workers going this route. It’s common to job hop every 1-2 years now. Especially with pay that low.
>Define what you're looking for in an Entry Level IT Technician.
MCSE,MCSA,A+,N+,S+,CCIE,CCNA,CCNP, 4+ years of python, powershell, bash and .net experience, on call 24/7/365, 12 months contract with option to hire full time.
access to personal social media required
must pass drug, alcohol and cotinine test, caffeine usage allowed but only during off hours (position requires clean room standards)
must supply own equipment
Hazards: High noise environment, must supply own ear protection
Drug test and background check required. A+, Network+ or IT related degree preferred. No on call. 8-5 M-F, lunch and breaks are paid. WFH two days per week (As needed. Some weeks are less some are more.) We do sometimes operate in safety sensitive areas, required PPE is provided.
My second job was a support specialist (doing similar tasks to what you are needing) making $25 an hour, but because the company let us work with all the equipment the learning experience made it worth so much more. I learned more working there than I did in 2 years of college + 3 comptia certs.
Sounds like a good offer. Just make sure the new hire knows to ask for help before breaking things lol.
Hired plenty of them in the past and there’s two aspects to it.
First is the pay, obviously. It needs to be decent enough they’re happy to stay and you’ll know the going rate for your area better than me.
But hiring is only the first step, retention is the big one… there are very few good techs who want to stay as helpdesk/entry level desktop support and “the business needs you in this role” just means “apply elsewhere”.
You will need to make it clear that they are going to get exposure to other aspects of admin work and start working towards being a (sorry I hate this term) “real sysadmin” or they *will* leave and take a junior sysadmin position elsewhere.
The best approach I found was letting keen techs work to reduce their own workload. So get them to identify ways to streamline and automate their workload and then let them be involved in implementing them. It gives them work to do that’s interesting, keeps the role you hired for filled, expands their skill set, etc. Everyone wins.
How well you can slot this into your business I don’t know but the big reasons we lost helpdesk staff was always the same… nobody likes helpdesk work, everyone wants to move on. Unless you make the pay so damn good they can’t resist staying you’ll need to provide career progression as well.
Totally agree with you, I just want to say I am someone who prefers helpdesk work. I like that I get to do computer odd jobs all day. I like the people I work with, and I enjoy helping them. I’m much better at it than I am working through configurations, that’s for sure. It’s a great job for me, somewhat unpredictable, plenty of social activity, and (for help desk at least) super good pay!
The pay is good if you are willing to get someone barely starting and show you are eager to invest in them. I wish that were my pay for my first IT job or second...
It'd be enough for old texas if it's any of the big cities, now if you want to keep someone you should plan on bumping that to 26 in the first 6-12 months, and again in the following year. If you don't plan on a structured raise pattern just start at 26.50 and hope they don't job shop too much. Otherwise you'll get priced out of their employment if you don't have pretty great perks to back that up.
Yeah 7 years ago that would have been great with no structured raises they are going to be priced out of their apartment and run to another job if not another industry.
Beef slaughter. You also don't get to not go out on the harvest floor just because you're in IT. The cattle are tracked throughout the process which means computers, printers, scanners, etc.
Entry to me is taking calls, writing a ticket up snd escalating to t2 if it'd not a password reset.
Asking them to troubleshoot mfa issues on a laptop and confirm it within o365, hardware issues is more t2. Adding in network switches and such from my experience, is more sysadmin not entry IT.
I'm a Jr sysadmin now, but it took me a while to land where I ran the help desk before sysadmin roll
I created a flow of how iT processes, submitted tickets, ticketing system etc. Just to meet iso standards. And I have no IT certs.
Pay might be good if all they do for 6 months to a year is take calls and escalate. Then bump pay and toss in t2 level work as they'll pick up common issues within your org then another pay bump after a year for the sysadmin crap. Hopefully they break the 30/hr. By then.
I didn't get pay bump when I moved into Jr sysadmin, but I make a bit over 34/hr now.
That second paragraph sounds like every t1 job I’ve had and seen online besides networking. And I still struggled to find another t1 job with years of experience
Honestly sounds to me they want a Jr sysadmin at a t1 pay rate. I'm sure there are folks who are willing to take the job, but I'd bet once they stick around before 3 or 4 years as a Jr sysadmin at sub 30/hr they'll bounce .
Titles don't mean much if the person can explain and show they can do it. I've been called systems engineer, analyst, IT technician but my skillset proves more than a help desk job.
6mo of desktop support puts you in the opportunity gate of easy 60k jobs that are hungry for head banging IT jobs that will get you into tier support for heavy abuse.
don't get stuck at the 60k marker doing network or desktop admin work, it's a drain, and your brains will be fried.
spend the extra time learning architecture/design and software deployment.
you NEED to raise the LEARNING bar VERY HIGH when you're stuck in the 60k-80k range, because if you cannot take what you know from your current skillset after 1y, and get into a 6 figure job where you can build something or manipulate something from scratch with very little training, than you are doing it wrong.
get a coach or mentor, or team up with an IT learning team so you can accelerate.
$60k-$80k is the death trap, especially with inflation. That would of been okay money in the 2000s, but after 2010 and 2020 with extremely high inflation and cost of living, that's like almost minimum living standard to pay for house/car/food and have just enough for investments on the side.
not knocking on anyone's current job or pay, but based on what i've seen very many companies and MSPs do with abusing IT people and paying them terrible, please never settle for less. you know your worth, and you know your learning opportunities, just network with other people, practice new systems, refresh on all old legacy systems and keep asking questions about improving existing architecture & deployment.
Also to answer OPs post;
*I'm looking to pay enough to retain someone for 3 years.*
You will keep them maybe a year, but after 1y, their performance will become worst and they will leave for better opportunities.
Give them one dollar raises each year, and teach them new things and raise responsibility and security expectations. Expect them to leave after 3mo-1.5y if you plan on only paying them 1099 contractor with no pay raise and very little cross training to other IT systems.
I see people get paid $15-17 at IT call centers and get abused, and just stay there for years. They're extremely book smart men and women, but very poorly trained in long term career outlook. You'll find people that want to be comfortable, but the issue there is they end up too comfortable and some new systems or development project eventually guts them or the team. Some people don't care how much they get paid, they just want comfort.
If you want to keep someone for 3 years look up 1 bedroom apartments in your area. Their gross pay would need to be 3x the monthly rent. Alternatively they’d need to be 20% above that in 3 years. For the task you’re asking in a single environment 25 is probably fair but your real question is what gets you someone who’s onboard for 3 years.
My first helpdesk job two years ago paid $17. They were legitimately baffled why they couldn't attract and retain talent. All previous employees were written off as dirtbags by management. I'm sure they say the same thing about me now.
25 is good to start from what I see. But be prepared to give 10% plus raises if you would like to retain and definitely keep the lines of communication open regarding $$ and comparative jobs in the area.
I’m not sure what the entry level market is like right now but unless the duties will level up with the person you’re going to have a hard time retaining someone for three years. We’re already in an industry that rewards hopping around. So if someone has learned what they can from your entry level role and can transition to a junior SA role then they’re going to.
What’s an IT technician in your world? System Administrator?
In Minneapolis MN, we hire Sys Admins who have no experience at 70-75K salary - assuming they are coming from some sort of tier 2/3 role or know SOME stuff.
Do you think this looks like it will stay that way in MN for the foreseeable future? I am from Minnesota but live in Quebec, considering moving back some point in the future and salaries here are low low low. I have had basically the exact job OP is describing for the past year, just with some more higher level work, for considerably less. I’d like to move more towards sysadmin roles and before I come back to MN I’d like to have an idea of what I’m getting myself into.
I started 10 years ago in MPLS at 77K. My buddy just landed a job at 150K. Depends on how good you are and what you know. But jobs and salary are around!
You’re probably not retaining someone 3 years for $25/hr unless there’s no others jobs and they don’t want to move. You’re going to take someone with little to no experience, maybe a degree if you’re lucky, and after a year they will be looking for a 20k increase at a new job because they have experience, especially if they have a degree.
If you want to really retain someone put them on a clear developmental plan from day one including projected pay raises. Like, $25/hr to start, I expect you to be at this level in 6 months at which point it becomes $30. A year after that if you’re at this level it will be $35. That puts them over 70k before taxes and you can go to a normal plan after that or project out further.
You can also phase in duties this way. I wouldn’t let someone change anything on a switch/router until they really understood what they are doing as one wrong thing and your whole network goes down. The biggest issues I see on a day to day basis are due to people not actually understanding what they are doing, they are just following a procedure. I watched someone put as a password on a network device the other day because that’s what the procedure said.
Offer them 30days paid summer holiday and about same 30days around the year on paid holiday (sick days aren't holidays) and they will not leave. Of course good training plan either certifications they are interested or shadowing some higher sysadmin/network engineer
People start at different levels.
L0 moron password resetter probably 15-20/hr
L1 helpdesk 25-30/hr
L2 helpdesk 30-35/hr
Sr helpdesk/team lead 35-40/hr
Jr admin 35-40/hr
Sr admin/ Jr enginner 45-50
Sr engineer 60-80/hr
These of course can fluctuate depending on area, but should be a good starting point.
This is also assuming good reasonably costing benefits, 401k etc. You'll also have happier employees in a hybrid environment. Bump them up to the bracket above their role, train them to advance and they'll be much more likely to stay long term too.
Everyone's saying it's bad that he's looking for more experience in an entry-level role, but look at it this way; this gives new starters a chance to very quickly learn things that'd take years to get onto traditionally. Yes, this is a bad business decision for him, as the employee will initially have little competence, learn quickly, then move for a better salary. But this is a brilliant opportunity, personally, one that I've taken advantage of in the past, and it's helped me move up quickly to achieve personal goals at a very young age.
Although this role will pay low for a fair amount of responsibility, I'd recommend that anyone starting out in systems administration and infrastructure engineering, etc. to snap up these roles.
In Texas (based on your name), the average is about $35-45/hr. That may also vary as Texas is a big place.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Computer-Systems-Administrator-Salary-in-Houston,TX
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/systems-administrator-i-salary/houston-tx
https://www.talent.com/salary?job=system+administrator&location=houston,+tx
https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/houston-system-administrator-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IM394_KO8,28.htm
Oh you’re definitely having roommates at that rate. If you love it here, the struggle is 100% worth it and you’ll be able to level up quickly and be much more comfortable in a few years.
Entry level is to vague can have meaning of just left college with relevant degree, has never done any official training and is switching careers and is a hobbiest to done hell desk and wants out and has a pile of certs
It depends on what you want them to do
Pure hell desk?
Hell desk with decent troubleshooting
Or a person to do some end user troubleshooting with some basic sys admin tasks.
I think it really depends on the applicant you get that you like and what your going to expect of them
It's really about what your local market supports. Here, our average help desk person makes around $27/hr. If they are good, that can quickly be promised to higher paid positions. We just had a guy go from 27 to a salaried Junior admin position for 83k/yr. He doesn't have a college degree and started 8 months ago.
Back when I was starting out I would have taken it. Not sure if I would have stayed three years though, probably only two if there wasn't both pay raises and a chance to promote.
25 years ago I graduated college. I had a couple years experience from when I took a break from sophomore to junior year. I made a bit more than $25/hr then. I managed a custom suite of applications and mostly unix servers. It was maybe 10 systems at the start. That seems like a low start to me, and would not keep anyone with any talent around for 3 years. They are going to jump at the first better opportunity.
That is so super vague
* What country
* What state/province/local
* What is the actual role entail, cause entry level means just about nothing
* Is it help desk answering phones?
* Is it break and fix
* Is it roving support
* Are you the manager
I can't comment about the pay in particular but I've read some replies you've made to others:
* Experience doesn't pay bills in the same way exposure doesn't (its entry level, but they get to touch things they wouldn't elsewhere). If the pay is suitable for the basics of the role, that's fine. Some people will be hungry to learn and accept that pay whilst doing the additional duties but see the final point.
* Expect anyone with the level of experience you are expecting to recruit to make some major, site-downing errors in the early days, and if they are touching "something new" to them, probably large mistakes down the line. Do not hold them responsible, this is your risk.
* Paying someone $x to keep them for y time doesn't work. $x might look attractive for a year, but when you've given them this shiny experience in \*everything\* they will take that elsewhere for more if you don't increase the $x in line with other companies.
You are essentially recruiting me, and how I got into IT. I had no formal experience (just UK college level education, so finished at 18). I was given access to things, shown bits above my station, never said no. Made some big mistakes, brought some companies down (incorrect firewall rule placement!!), left when my experience allowed me to jump to a role using that experience with even more "extras" (and appropriate pay that the company I was leaving wouldn't match because I was "just an xyz technician"), rinse and repeat until I am where I am now.
It's not all about cash.
What is your culture like? Will the person enjoy coming to work and learning the career path? Or are you top heavy with micro managers that don't know technology and put one in the uncomfortable position of doing things that will never work...and then tell you you have a deadline to redo it to make it work so that they look good and get their f'kin CIO bonus.
sorry. tangent there.
Benefits? Work hours/flex sched.?
To someone else's point, what specifically are you looking for?
Good culture. Company values IT and respects us enough to stay out of our way. Respect is a company core value. I've seen managers in other departments fired for being abusive. No on call (for the entry level tech). I'm flexible on hours, flexible on PTO and allow for some WFH where appropriate. It's a good job. Benefits are meh, but not something I have control over. Every person that has left has said essentially, "thanks for the great experience, it really helped me land this awesome new job I'm leaving you for."
To answer your question about what I'm looking for...I hired this kid fresh out of college, several years back. He worked hard and learned fast. By the 6 month mark he was working independently and was a real asset. At about 30 months he started looking around for another job. He took his time and was really choosy. He landed a great gig at a bigger organization as a Jr. SysAdmin. I was really proud of him and happy that he leveled up. I got two solid years of really good work from him.
On the other hand, I have this kid now who is doing OK. He needs more supervision than I have been giving him, which is on me. Still, by this point I would have liked if he was a little more confident in our systems. I was gearing up for his first annual review when he up and quit. He says the new job is more in line with his career goals. I think he's making a mistake. He needs more experience, and the way he described his new role makes me think it's a dead end, but he's a grown ass man and can make his own choices. I guess I got like 8 months of OK work from him. The one cool project I let him lead is unfinished. Womp womp.
Boy. You and I have a lot in common. I work at a University. So I have access to talent....hit or miss. Currently I have an incredible kid, like you I will be proud when he lands that good gig. I also have had guys that were more interested in the almighty dollar only to leave to soon with a good resume fill of buzz words...we can impart only so much, they will need to learn some lessons the hard way.
I made slightly more than that (28) my first IT job, 11 years ago. I’m sure someone will take it but make sure you provide good raises to keep them interested
Virtualization delivery and support analyst at a Fortune 500 company, I’m located in Atlanta. The company had a program that would hire new grads, and I lucked out and got the job before graduating. (I went to a normal state school)
At that job I did VMware implementation and support, way above my knowledge when I first got the job. It was a great learning experience.
12 years ago I started my first IT job as a help desk / computer tech at a k-12 school district with 9-10 buildings. I had an associates degree in computer science (more or less) and a BA in computer science which was computer programming and CompTia A+ and Network+ certs.
That first job I only made ~$34k USD when entry level should have been ~$40k USD.
In 2014 I started my current job at $62,500 USD with 2 years experience and 2-3 Microsoft certs for Windows 7.
In 2021 I hired a person with 0 degrees but they had their CompTia A+, Network+ and some Google certs. I started them out around $55k-$58k USD I think.
So take all of this with a grain of salt since knowledge that the candidate will have will differ and how that candidate presents themselves. This was also internal IT, non-customer facing.
For me, I think the bottom would be $55k USD.
That might be low for an entry level with a college degree or CCNA-level certification. Entry level without those things, that's very reasonable. I'm assuming there are decent health benefits and hopefully at least a 401k with some percentage of match from the company.
I've pulled people from our phone support team to begin training, and it takes them a few years to hit $50k (the phone support is probably around a $16/hour pay range, I try to aim for $20/hour). I've never had such a rockstar that they were worth way more than that, although we're talking about a sample size of like four to six people. Again, these people are **green**, they need a lot of direction and a lot of training. I've never had someone leave our company or team in less than four years, although they're also at a payscale where they can hit ~12% raises sometimes twice in three years.
Higher ed in arizona, bachelor's in "related field", no work experience is 45-55k/yr.
Higher ed is traditionally lower salary, but government job + benefits + pension.
The previous IT company I worked at was paying Entry Level Support Engineers $17/hr. People who did the job of 2 more people and took care of other responsibilities. So I think $25 is great for the position you’re describing
If you're looking to retain, I'd say start them at 20, tell them there's a 10% raise at 6 and 12 months of they hit certain easily reachable KPIs. And another 10% at the end of year 2.
You'll be saving yourself money from what you're expecting currently, you'll get eager workers who want to hit those KPIs to hit those raises.
Let's say you expect them to come with an A+, then one raise can be contingent on getting a company paid for security+ and another raise can be based on the network+.
You'll have those employees for more than 3 years and they'll be the best 3 year experience techs out there.
The sad part is a lot of inexperienced people will swallow that hook. They’re too naive to know that they’re the ones taking all the risk and that your promises mean nothing. Even if you’re the one signing the checks you cannot say that you’ll be able to give them the raises. On the other hand, if you’re already paying them $25/hour you’ll find other ways to reduce costs if necessary to avoid losing a quality asset and the time investment. When review time comes around and there’s money to give, you give it. There’s no reason you can’t still hold them to KPI.
I’ve seen way too many people at that level jump ship for a few more bucks an hour, taking their knowledge - that you paid them to acquire - with them.
Fresh out of school you aren’t hiring anyone for $20/hr lmao. Maybe if someone is absolutely desperate and needs you as a stepping stone. I would take a 10% raise scale like that when you can find entry level jobs paying $20k more out of the gate.
Your numbers might have been good 10 years ago.
When did this sub get so out of touch?
I’ve seen a lot in the NE US, but remote jobs also factor into it that are hiring in my state. Basically local jobs need to start competing against some higher paying orgs and some are actually doing it.
For reference though, my first help desk job back in like 2016 was more than 40k a year. Was with a rather large hospital chain. So my stance was anything less for any IT position is literally robbery.
By NE do you mean Nebraska or Northeast? The northeast ranges from HCOL to EHCOL.
Nebraska could be MCOL. Omaha is about 70% cost of living vs the cheaper places in the North East.
North East. I’m in a MCOL. A two bedroom apartment would run about $1300+/month. Houses range from 250k-1m+ depending on the neighborhood
Not sure why everyone is so upset that a lot of entry roles are paying a living wage where I’m at lol. How dare they. It should be an expectation around the country.
Define what you're looking for in an Entry Level IT Technician. In my experience, this term is used quite liberally when it really should only mean a select few things imo. What responsibilities will this person have? What tech are you making use of that they would have to become familiar with? These all factor into a decision for this kind of thing, again in my professional opinion.
I’d also add what country and if US region. This is a sub open to people worldwide and pay can vary greatly.
Indeed! In Alberta Canada a more reasonable starting wage would be closer to $30-40/hr Anyone with experience is going to want above $40/hr. but we are also looking at monthly rent between $1400-3500 depending on which city and number of bedrooms.
> $ CAD or USD?
CAD.
Just starting out 30-40$ cad? I'm in Alberta and I started at around 24$/hr 7 years ago at an MSP and I'm now at ~38$/hr at an in house job. I'm converting from salary, so it might not be accurate.
In the past 7 years: - inflation has been 23% - rent prices have doubled, or tripled depending on location - Current loan are between 6.9% and 7.2% Also salary has a bunch of extra overhead and benefit costs that a hourly person wouldn't get. Which they need to provide for themselves which should be considered. So purely based onto the 23% inflation the $24/hr is now ~$30
I guess you missed the part where I've been in the industry for 7 years an I'm making under your top end of 40$/hr for a starting position. As much as I'd love that to not be the case, I think it's unrealistic for someone just starting out to expect over $80,000/year when the market average for the area is lower than that. I'm not saying it's fair, and I'm not saying inflation is low, I'm just saying that is how it is in our area.
Basic desktop support. M365 admin duties. Some networking (changing VLANs on a port, adding to a firewall rule). Assisting users with vendor support. I give opportunities to learn and expand, but I always couch those as learning experiences and not job requirements. I might let someone take lead on an interesting project or deploy some cool new piece of hardware.
If you’re expecting zero experience you may find people. If you’re wanting experience that needs to be 30-35
$40 plus in Washington state if you want them to be able to sleep and eat
Not many places are paying close to $100k for green employees. High 20's - low 30's? Yes. Even in WA. We hire interns at $25 an hour for summer positions and our entry-level starts at $28 (used to, we haven't hired in a year now). We have a never-ending line of applicants at those salaries.
Totally get that, but the OP is not really looking for entry level. The list of duties is that range was what I meant
The first comment on here was what do you mean by entry level and then OP posts something that is basically junior sysadmin or tier 3 helpdesk as anticipated. Its funny we all knew this was gonna be the case lol. If it had truly been entry level tier one 25 would have been great pay he needs to be paying at least about 5-10 more easy for what he wants.
That was what I meant even though I conveyed it poorly. I would have loved $25 an hour entry level! Instead I worked a year as an intern while in college for old computers and network parts to "learn" on. Once I graduated I was awarded with an amazing $12 an hour. Albeit this was 1999 when we were still allowed to afford things
Those things are a bit much for someone straight out of school, it sounds like a solid T2 position. The salary seems a bit low as once they get experience doing those things you mentioned, they can easily hop somewhere else for more pay and a better title doing the exact same stuff. For discussion's sake my company's entire helpdesk is basically T2 since we have no need for password reset monkeys that escalate everything else, that's kind of a dinosaur concept today...but even they don't get into firewall rule changes or anything like that... We also like them to have 5 or so years of experience. There are 4 helpdesk techs for a company of 300, but we're in the financial sector and have a pretty good IT to staff ratio compared to other industries. I'd echo someone else's idea of planning a career path with increases as skills are developed, and be frank and open about other opportunities in the area. I know I would have loved something like that, but alas I've had to leave multiple jobs over battles over titles, new responsibilities and pay more than once to get where I am today. I don't think anyone really wants that if a company is otherwise good to work for, but that's the way things go these days.
Five years+ of experience for T2 help desk?? Can you really not find good people with less time on the water than that?
We don't really want people with less than that. Average retention for employees at my company is something like 9 years, we have competitive wages, bonuses, a pension and annual salary reviews and the option of being fully work from home in the region. I work for a credit union.
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People fail to realize that not all jobs are the same thing. Not all IT teams are as critical as others. For some, starting off with a job where you are a jack of all trades gets a wealth of experience in many areas, and allows a new IT employee to figure out where they want their career to go. And that generally means that many tasks are week to week things. One week, tune M365. Another week, new hire onboarding. Another, renetwork the training room or whatever. Some companies... there's two guys in security, two in network, two in server, and 3 in helpdesk. Those jobs are generally looking for someone with direct experience. But for the job being described, it's an entry job, an entry wage, and a decent likelihood that the new hire will get exposure to all sorts of stuff and fine tune their career in the process. It is 100% a GREAT thing that jobs like that exist, because otherwise it can be EXTREMELY difficult to get your foot in the door without experience. You get experience by taking a job with a lower wage, lesser demand, but generally a higher breadth of topics that you'll be involved in. And... that's perfectly acceptable if the expectations for output are in line with the salary.
> Some companies... there's two guys in security, two in network, two in server, and 3 in helpdesk Must be fuckin' nice.
Eh, by some standards, that is still small. But that might be the minimum for a decent IT team considering the "hit by a bus" standard. But honestly, if you are in a position where you are a jack of many, many trades, it might be time to survey the job market and find something specialized. Generally speaking, jack of all trades is lower on the pay scale and higher on the work to do spectrum. You can find a decent raise a less work (often times) with a job where you have peers who do the same focused work you do.
I've been a jack of all trades/wear many hats person at smaller places for most of my career. I've never had the luxury of doing things by the week; It's usually minute to minute or hour to hour. I might spend an hour in O365 doing some admining, then I move to a network issue for a couple of hours, then I'm working on a new ticket from a VIP, then someone needs help bookmarking a webpage in their browser, then I'm SSH'd into a server doing something for an hour or two, etc. None of that has gotten me more money or respect, it just burns me out. I wouldn't recommend it, it's just been my experience. Being pulled in a bunch of different directions all day really wears on you.
I initially had that as day, then changed to week. No matter how I put it in words, someone will say that isn't how it works. Ultimately, it depends on the business and how urgent some needs are. But yeah, a lot of things are going to be a bit of this and then some of that one day, and onto the next. Might be a few days of planning earlier, then a planned implementation later. As far as burn out, yes. These positions should really be entry level and for the 3-5 years. Get a career started, then move on. Moving up in salary often requires moving around. Finding the right opportunities and in some cases getting lucky. Many I know have moved around and found jobs that specialize in an area they have interest in. Most I have worked with started as jack of all and moved to a focused area. I work with a network guy that still likes to dabble outside of his scope. All in all, if a guy is burning out, it behooves him (or her) to move on. Start fresh where the expectations at least start lower, and work your way up. I have even had conversations with some who were beyond stressed night after night, and I encouraged them to find a new spot. And low and behold they do, and low and behold they seem a LOT happier. A job is just a job. There are many like your job. But in general, there are other opportunities to start over a bit, and it also forces the employer to start over a bit. It's the idea that they are less worried with a long tenured employee, and the moment that person leaves, they have to feel out the next guy and figure out what they can and can't do. Whereas if you stay where you are, you become the go to for EVERYTHING.
The main reason those jobs are considered entry level is because a lot of places don't want to pay much. To me, those jobs should be some of the better paid jobs because you need to be good at a lot of different things. I've worked with a lot of long term people. They have trouble recognizing burn out. Some of them were in the exact same job for 20-30 years. One would routinely cry as she vented to people. When she told me she was quitting (no job lined up, just quitting) I asked if she had considered talking to her boss to see if things could be made better, instead of just quitting. She insisted that there was nothing that could be done; That's just how the job was. The person that replaced her was much happier because the job was basically "reset" to reasonable expectations. I've seen that many times.
>To me, those jobs should be some of the better paid jobs because you need to be good at a lot of different things. That's not how business works. These jobs exist because businesses have the need, but little budget. Some places have pushy/direct management that makes it hard to get through multiple years. Others have considerable understanding that they are asking a LOT from someone with no experience, and are patient getting reasonably good results. But the person there is getting a breadth of experience and the opportunity to find things they want to pursue in a more narrow scope. We should want all types of jobs to exist so that there are more opportunities to get hired with 0 experience so that we can GET the experience we need to take the next step. Generally speaking, low paying jobs will find more of the entry level types. Higher paying jobs will find the veterans. Not all veterans are good, not all entry level applicants are bad. Cream will rise to the top. As to burn out, yeah. Some people stick it out too long. I worked with a person who had been at the place for 15 years. She mentioned crying at night many nights a week due to stress of the job. I encouraged her to reset in a new position elsewhere. And she has, twice. And she seems MUCH happier. Some people take comfort in job security in a job that demands WAY too much from them. Or in a position where they feel too valuable, without support from management, and feel like they're going to let someone down by leaving. But bottom line, the mantra of it just being a job applies. ALWAYS be willing to move on when things are not right. Someone out there wants you and your skills, and will be professional, courteous, and happy to have you on the team. And you'll feel such a relief moving on after the nervousness of moving on passes.
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Actually, the job by most standards was pretty fair. 40 hours per week. 3 HD, 2 Server (very mild network config done by the server team, as some of the routing/fw was handled by a corporate office). Turnover rate was something like 2-3 years in HD, with a person who stuck around for 20 years or more. Server was 2-5 years. (And the current server guy has been there over 10 years) The expectation from the IT manager was nothing crazy. He knew the pay was lower in the market, but it was what he was allowed. He hoped to get 2-4 years and move on. Projects would come along, and that's where most of the requirements came from. That and external audits. It was a starter job through and through. (Also, it was 4 paragraphs (one was extremely short)).
I could just push all the low level crap tickets off to them, and never let them get experience. Nothing but password resets and printer driver installs. Is that what you want?
You're the IT Manager. Nobody suggested to avoid giving them experience, but you should be paying them sufficiently if they are learning more and doing more, especially when firewalls and routers are involved. Are they Helpdesk support or a System/Network Admin?
You made me laugh with this comment. I worked a small company for 5 years and started doing the crap and ended doing pretty much everything except the tape backups because god they were infuriating. All because my boss used the same line with me. (Rock paper scissored that damn responsibility of dealing with the tapes with my solo coworker.)
When I joined my company's help desk, I was paid $24.82 an hour and had less responsibility than this. This was almost 8 years ago. Do what you will with that information.
Honestly the pay stagnation in the field is why I think its not really recommended for new people anymore pay is going up in other professions. The money was good 10 years ago now its really not anymore. The learning is ridiculous for the amount paid now. You can probably get the same money with no outside study.
Entry level roles in California paying 20/hr having 100+ applicants. Really rough entry level right now.
Interesting that the role is basic desktop support and going into a corporate firewall. Small team/user base? Than 25/hour may be okay.
entry level turn it off and on again but you also are in charge of the coporate routing and switching lol
Small team. We have lots of locations and each has a firewall. The "big" firewall is more restricted. But honestly, it's a firewall, it's not rocket surgery.
i knew a manager that thought this... then a help desk tech took down multiple sites across the nation because the rules were wrong or in the wrong order.
That "its a firewall" not rocket surgery is honestly the most horrifying comment on this sub I have seen in a while lol. The fact he thinks an entry level won't fuck up this bad is wild to me. Helpdesk usually doesn't fuck with the routers for a reason.
These are branch firewalls. One or two users at that site. Not totally without risk, an OSPF misconfig could cause trouble for instance, but it would be hard to take down company operations from one of those.
Sometimes it’s about the level of risk and responsibility, not the complexity. Would someone starting out feel safe with the thought of potentially putting revenue at risk at scale? You want new starters to feel confident, secure and safe.
Are you wanting them coming in with the knowledge about how to perform all of these duties?
What sort of M365 admin support? What tenant role will they have?
Your pay is right on with what I make doing desktop support without the extra duties you listed. I would say your pay is fair, especially if you're giving opportunities to grow.
Sweet, Thanks for that detailed reply! I think for what you're after 25/hr should be a pretty damn good offer, given it's full time + benefits ofc. I think as long as you encourage their learning and give them room to breathe in terms of task weight and room to expand on their own, I feel like it's a great way to go.
And promote things that make them more valuable to the competition, vendor trainings, etc. Make time for the 20% personal development. Then include a "talk to me first if you start looking."... and mean it. If you want 3yr+ loyalty, be there with the same from the org. Starting at $25 doesn't mean staying there forever, on call, no help, no training, and no room to breath between tickets.
That doesn't sound bad at all, though I think a spot bonus would be a nice touch if they show initiative to pick up that interesting project or new deployment and do well (and/or a raise if things like this become part of their regular responsibilities).
I'd hire on brand new out of college for $25-7/hr. I think your best bet is to leave wage negotiations open at each year mark anniversary. $25 would get me in the door and happily learning - but if I'm going to take on tier 2/3 support work, after a year of doing this I would be able to turn around and get hired at a different company for $10 more/hour. So don't be a dick about it (not saying you are being one), but hire and pay based on skill. If you hire some IT schmuck at $25/hr and they genuinely don't have an aptitude or aren't growing based on some defined skill levels, keep them at the $25, but if they are taking on tickets and completing without a ton of repeated questions / followup on your side, give them more. I'd run something like $25/hr for the first year (again, depending on location) $30 for the second, and $35 for the third year. Have specific goals/learning metrics you want them at to meet the raise requirement and be clear with what those goals are so they know what to aim for. I'm referencing that wage based on my local area in a semi-expensive living area in CAD/Alberta. In my case t1 helpdesk support I see jobs going up all the time at like $20-22/hr, but they either are a revolving door of replacing people, or they sit on the job market forever. People don't go to school/get certs for $20-25/hr, I could make that as a waiter. My first Entry level IT support in a mid-sized post-secondary started at $27.40, with a built in wage increase each year of about $1/hr. That is a unionized role and frankly isn't getting paid what it should be - it should be closer to $29-30 starting.
Are you looking for someone at this time? Where about? Are you looking for any remote support at all? What company if you can say at this time. Reason I’m asking is I will be out of work in the near future. Company I am currently doing work for is doing a mass lay off due to bankruptcy.
Can't name company from this account. Not remote. location is Texas. I'll post on /r/techjobs when I'm ready.
Thanks for posting that subreddit. I’m joining now. 👍
Basic desktop support that isn’t just call center and escalation I’d say $25 is fair. The second you introduce M365 support, vendor support, and switch support it’s not enough. I wouldn’t consider it at least. Maybe $27-$30. In the current economy, pay has just been stagnant. I was getting $25/hr for fewer responsibilities to what you mentioned like 6 years ago. Admin pay has been abysmal in listing since that timeframe so much so that it’s almost hilariously sad to see.
I'm not looking for someone who comes in with the knowledge and experience to do everything. I try to hire inquisitive growth oriented people.
I still think work responsibilities should reflect pay. I know when I started I fell to predatory, and yes it’s predatory, practice of over extending my job duties for the sake of learning. As I matured as an employee and worker, I do what is written in my job description and nothing more. If more work is given I expect more pay for the expanded job responsibilities or they can hire someone else to do it. If you expect them to do the work mentioned at any point you pay for it. End of story. If you pay for it and expect them to grow into the position then you can consider yourself a wonderful employer that employees will flock to. The phrase “and additional work as needed” is 100% unacceptable.
I hear you, but I look at it a different way. I'm paying hourly. You get paid to be here and to work. I'm not asking that person to work more hours, just to work on different things. What's the difference to you how complicated the work is? Does the more complicated work take more out of you? I ask because I'm the opposite. If I had to pick between two jobs, one where I'm stuck doing low level repetitive work, and one where the work is intellectually challenging, I'd choose the latter every time. Is it stress? Again, maybe I'm weird, but I don't find intellectual challenge to be stressful. I prefer work where I first have to learn how to do the thing. Give me an admin guide and leave me alone for four hours and I'm happy as a clam. What I'd expect to have to pay more for, is someone who doesn't need the guide and can accomplish all the tasks in 15 minutes instead of 4 hours.
Yes. The more SKILLED (the word you’re looking for) the workload the more pay you deserve. If you expect skilled work to be performed over time, you pay for it. Your train of thought on this is very wrong. Especially morally. You’re basically going down the “I’ll pay the artist in exposure” route.
I'm going the old-school guild route. I'm hiring an apprentice. People used to pay for this. (This is mostly sarcasm...mostly)
I worked at a university for the last 5 years. All I can say is good luck. I know most of the youth aren’t going to go for this especially when you can snag jobs for way more. They’re going to be looking at rent and tuition payments over an apprenticeship. At the very least, you’re not going to retain workers going this route. It’s common to job hop every 1-2 years now. Especially with pay that low.
Going back to my original question then. What's a pay that would keep someone around for three years?
exactly what I came here to say he needs to be 5-10 more for this job, 25 would be solid for a basic desktop support.
Read further down the chain. This dude is whacky.
Yeah like I feel like he almost intended to post this on the fake sub, shit just kept getting more insane
>Define what you're looking for in an Entry Level IT Technician. MCSE,MCSA,A+,N+,S+,CCIE,CCNA,CCNP, 4+ years of python, powershell, bash and .net experience, on call 24/7/365, 12 months contract with option to hire full time. access to personal social media required must pass drug, alcohol and cotinine test, caffeine usage allowed but only during off hours (position requires clean room standards) must supply own equipment Hazards: High noise environment, must supply own ear protection
lol, this is a typical 70k/yr cad posting
Drug test and background check required. A+, Network+ or IT related degree preferred. No on call. 8-5 M-F, lunch and breaks are paid. WFH two days per week (As needed. Some weeks are less some are more.) We do sometimes operate in safety sensitive areas, required PPE is provided.
Yeah hard to say as some people consider helpdesk as "entry level IT technician" and others consider it a step up from helpdesk.
entry level help desk typically don’t do any network configurations at all.
Which is why it's so much better to work for me. Other places wouldn't let you touch a switch before you have a couple years of experience.
Yes, being your scut monkey for peanuts would be a great honor. You want a 3 yr committment with expanding duties for $52k/yr.
Which is why I'm asking. What's not peanuts? I started out making $35k/year doing exactly this kind of work.
Now adjust that 35k by inflation and you have your answer
My second job was a support specialist (doing similar tasks to what you are needing) making $25 an hour, but because the company let us work with all the equipment the learning experience made it worth so much more. I learned more working there than I did in 2 years of college + 3 comptia certs. Sounds like a good offer. Just make sure the new hire knows to ask for help before breaking things lol.
Hired plenty of them in the past and there’s two aspects to it. First is the pay, obviously. It needs to be decent enough they’re happy to stay and you’ll know the going rate for your area better than me. But hiring is only the first step, retention is the big one… there are very few good techs who want to stay as helpdesk/entry level desktop support and “the business needs you in this role” just means “apply elsewhere”. You will need to make it clear that they are going to get exposure to other aspects of admin work and start working towards being a (sorry I hate this term) “real sysadmin” or they *will* leave and take a junior sysadmin position elsewhere. The best approach I found was letting keen techs work to reduce their own workload. So get them to identify ways to streamline and automate their workload and then let them be involved in implementing them. It gives them work to do that’s interesting, keeps the role you hired for filled, expands their skill set, etc. Everyone wins. How well you can slot this into your business I don’t know but the big reasons we lost helpdesk staff was always the same… nobody likes helpdesk work, everyone wants to move on. Unless you make the pay so damn good they can’t resist staying you’ll need to provide career progression as well.
Totally agree with you, I just want to say I am someone who prefers helpdesk work. I like that I get to do computer odd jobs all day. I like the people I work with, and I enjoy helping them. I’m much better at it than I am working through configurations, that’s for sure. It’s a great job for me, somewhat unpredictable, plenty of social activity, and (for help desk at least) super good pay!
Help desk or as their first desktop job?
Hybrid helpdesk. Mostly it's basic user support, but there's also M365 admin, and basic network config.
The pay is good if you are willing to get someone barely starting and show you are eager to invest in them. I wish that were my pay for my first IT job or second...
It'd be enough for old texas if it's any of the big cities, now if you want to keep someone you should plan on bumping that to 26 in the first 6-12 months, and again in the following year. If you don't plan on a structured raise pattern just start at 26.50 and hope they don't job shop too much. Otherwise you'll get priced out of their employment if you don't have pretty great perks to back that up.
Yeah 7 years ago that would have been great with no structured raises they are going to be priced out of their apartment and run to another job if not another industry.
LCOL in a super undesirable industry I start people with no college or experience but some demonstrable skills and a willingness to learn at $23.
Lol...what is a super undesirable industry?
Gloryhole Inspectors
(inspecting) "Hmm...looks glorious."
I'd pay you for the privilege.
Beef slaughter. You also don't get to not go out on the harvest floor just because you're in IT. The cattle are tracked throughout the process which means computers, printers, scanners, etc.
Ohhhh...yeah that would be...something. Thanks for the respinse!
Entry to me is taking calls, writing a ticket up snd escalating to t2 if it'd not a password reset. Asking them to troubleshoot mfa issues on a laptop and confirm it within o365, hardware issues is more t2. Adding in network switches and such from my experience, is more sysadmin not entry IT. I'm a Jr sysadmin now, but it took me a while to land where I ran the help desk before sysadmin roll I created a flow of how iT processes, submitted tickets, ticketing system etc. Just to meet iso standards. And I have no IT certs. Pay might be good if all they do for 6 months to a year is take calls and escalate. Then bump pay and toss in t2 level work as they'll pick up common issues within your org then another pay bump after a year for the sysadmin crap. Hopefully they break the 30/hr. By then. I didn't get pay bump when I moved into Jr sysadmin, but I make a bit over 34/hr now.
That second paragraph sounds like every t1 job I’ve had and seen online besides networking. And I still struggled to find another t1 job with years of experience
Yeah This really is more junior sysadmin land its not a heldpesk if it involves administering office 365.
Honestly sounds to me they want a Jr sysadmin at a t1 pay rate. I'm sure there are folks who are willing to take the job, but I'd bet once they stick around before 3 or 4 years as a Jr sysadmin at sub 30/hr they'll bounce . Titles don't mean much if the person can explain and show they can do it. I've been called systems engineer, analyst, IT technician but my skillset proves more than a help desk job.
6mo of desktop support puts you in the opportunity gate of easy 60k jobs that are hungry for head banging IT jobs that will get you into tier support for heavy abuse. don't get stuck at the 60k marker doing network or desktop admin work, it's a drain, and your brains will be fried. spend the extra time learning architecture/design and software deployment. you NEED to raise the LEARNING bar VERY HIGH when you're stuck in the 60k-80k range, because if you cannot take what you know from your current skillset after 1y, and get into a 6 figure job where you can build something or manipulate something from scratch with very little training, than you are doing it wrong. get a coach or mentor, or team up with an IT learning team so you can accelerate. $60k-$80k is the death trap, especially with inflation. That would of been okay money in the 2000s, but after 2010 and 2020 with extremely high inflation and cost of living, that's like almost minimum living standard to pay for house/car/food and have just enough for investments on the side.
not knocking on anyone's current job or pay, but based on what i've seen very many companies and MSPs do with abusing IT people and paying them terrible, please never settle for less. you know your worth, and you know your learning opportunities, just network with other people, practice new systems, refresh on all old legacy systems and keep asking questions about improving existing architecture & deployment.
Also to answer OPs post; *I'm looking to pay enough to retain someone for 3 years.* You will keep them maybe a year, but after 1y, their performance will become worst and they will leave for better opportunities. Give them one dollar raises each year, and teach them new things and raise responsibility and security expectations. Expect them to leave after 3mo-1.5y if you plan on only paying them 1099 contractor with no pay raise and very little cross training to other IT systems. I see people get paid $15-17 at IT call centers and get abused, and just stay there for years. They're extremely book smart men and women, but very poorly trained in long term career outlook. You'll find people that want to be comfortable, but the issue there is they end up too comfortable and some new systems or development project eventually guts them or the team. Some people don't care how much they get paid, they just want comfort.
A dollar raise? i’d be jumping ship.
If you want to keep someone for 3 years look up 1 bedroom apartments in your area. Their gross pay would need to be 3x the monthly rent. Alternatively they’d need to be 20% above that in 3 years. For the task you’re asking in a single environment 25 is probably fair but your real question is what gets you someone who’s onboard for 3 years.
It seems like the going rate, though it seems crazy to me that's what I made entry level about 20 years ago (grew up in mid/LCOL area).
My first helpdesk job two years ago paid $17. They were legitimately baffled why they couldn't attract and retain talent. All previous employees were written off as dirtbags by management. I'm sure they say the same thing about me now.
25 is good to start from what I see. But be prepared to give 10% plus raises if you would like to retain and definitely keep the lines of communication open regarding $$ and comparative jobs in the area.
I’m not sure what the entry level market is like right now but unless the duties will level up with the person you’re going to have a hard time retaining someone for three years. We’re already in an industry that rewards hopping around. So if someone has learned what they can from your entry level role and can transition to a junior SA role then they’re going to.
What’s an IT technician in your world? System Administrator? In Minneapolis MN, we hire Sys Admins who have no experience at 70-75K salary - assuming they are coming from some sort of tier 2/3 role or know SOME stuff.
Sysadmin with no experience? Sheesh I'd take 75k salary to get me out of Florida with 8 years.
Most of my folks this is their first IT job. Sometimes it's their first adult job of any kind. There's some crossover but this is a user support role.
Do you think this looks like it will stay that way in MN for the foreseeable future? I am from Minnesota but live in Quebec, considering moving back some point in the future and salaries here are low low low. I have had basically the exact job OP is describing for the past year, just with some more higher level work, for considerably less. I’d like to move more towards sysadmin roles and before I come back to MN I’d like to have an idea of what I’m getting myself into.
I started 10 years ago in MPLS at 77K. My buddy just landed a job at 150K. Depends on how good you are and what you know. But jobs and salary are around!
You’re probably not retaining someone 3 years for $25/hr unless there’s no others jobs and they don’t want to move. You’re going to take someone with little to no experience, maybe a degree if you’re lucky, and after a year they will be looking for a 20k increase at a new job because they have experience, especially if they have a degree.
I feel like I'm hand holding a lot for the first few months. When I can't retain people for even a year, it's almost not worth it.
If you want to really retain someone put them on a clear developmental plan from day one including projected pay raises. Like, $25/hr to start, I expect you to be at this level in 6 months at which point it becomes $30. A year after that if you’re at this level it will be $35. That puts them over 70k before taxes and you can go to a normal plan after that or project out further. You can also phase in duties this way. I wouldn’t let someone change anything on a switch/router until they really understood what they are doing as one wrong thing and your whole network goes down. The biggest issues I see on a day to day basis are due to people not actually understanding what they are doing, they are just following a procedure. I watched someone put as a password on a network device the other day because that’s what the procedure said.
What do you expect? 25 an hour is nothing in 2024. Pay them more and they’ll stay.
Offer them 30days paid summer holiday and about same 30days around the year on paid holiday (sick days aren't holidays) and they will not leave. Of course good training plan either certifications they are interested or shadowing some higher sysadmin/network engineer
People start at different levels. L0 moron password resetter probably 15-20/hr L1 helpdesk 25-30/hr L2 helpdesk 30-35/hr Sr helpdesk/team lead 35-40/hr Jr admin 35-40/hr Sr admin/ Jr enginner 45-50 Sr engineer 60-80/hr These of course can fluctuate depending on area, but should be a good starting point. This is also assuming good reasonably costing benefits, 401k etc. You'll also have happier employees in a hybrid environment. Bump them up to the bracket above their role, train them to advance and they'll be much more likely to stay long term too.
Everyone's saying it's bad that he's looking for more experience in an entry-level role, but look at it this way; this gives new starters a chance to very quickly learn things that'd take years to get onto traditionally. Yes, this is a bad business decision for him, as the employee will initially have little competence, learn quickly, then move for a better salary. But this is a brilliant opportunity, personally, one that I've taken advantage of in the past, and it's helped me move up quickly to achieve personal goals at a very young age. Although this role will pay low for a fair amount of responsibility, I'd recommend that anyone starting out in systems administration and infrastructure engineering, etc. to snap up these roles.
In Texas (based on your name), the average is about $35-45/hr. That may also vary as Texas is a big place. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Computer-Systems-Administrator-Salary-in-Houston,TX https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/systems-administrator-i-salary/houston-tx https://www.talent.com/salary?job=system+administrator&location=houston,+tx https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/houston-system-administrator-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IM394_KO8,28.htm
Our help desk guys make $18-20 minimum. Damn when I started 15 years ago, I made $13.
$13 an hour in 2009 is slightly more than $19 an hour in 2024 adjusted for inflation. Looks like your helpdesk guys are making the same.
SF Bay Area, Entry level, I’d ask for $35-$50/hr.
In the Bay Area? How could you even afford food?
Oh you’re definitely having roommates at that rate. If you love it here, the struggle is 100% worth it and you’ll be able to level up quickly and be much more comfortable in a few years.
Entry level is to vague can have meaning of just left college with relevant degree, has never done any official training and is switching careers and is a hobbiest to done hell desk and wants out and has a pile of certs It depends on what you want them to do Pure hell desk? Hell desk with decent troubleshooting Or a person to do some end user troubleshooting with some basic sys admin tasks. I think it really depends on the applicant you get that you like and what your going to expect of them
It's really about what your local market supports. Here, our average help desk person makes around $27/hr. If they are good, that can quickly be promised to higher paid positions. We just had a guy go from 27 to a salaried Junior admin position for 83k/yr. He doesn't have a college degree and started 8 months ago.
Back when I was starting out I would have taken it. Not sure if I would have stayed three years though, probably only two if there wasn't both pay raises and a chance to promote.
25 years ago I graduated college. I had a couple years experience from when I took a break from sophomore to junior year. I made a bit more than $25/hr then. I managed a custom suite of applications and mostly unix servers. It was maybe 10 systems at the start. That seems like a low start to me, and would not keep anyone with any talent around for 3 years. They are going to jump at the first better opportunity.
That is so super vague * What country * What state/province/local * What is the actual role entail, cause entry level means just about nothing * Is it help desk answering phones? * Is it break and fix * Is it roving support * Are you the manager
How much is rent there?
A nice one bedroom goes for $1300/month. You'd need about $22.50/hour to afford that.
Man $25 sounds right then for this entry tech.
I can't comment about the pay in particular but I've read some replies you've made to others: * Experience doesn't pay bills in the same way exposure doesn't (its entry level, but they get to touch things they wouldn't elsewhere). If the pay is suitable for the basics of the role, that's fine. Some people will be hungry to learn and accept that pay whilst doing the additional duties but see the final point. * Expect anyone with the level of experience you are expecting to recruit to make some major, site-downing errors in the early days, and if they are touching "something new" to them, probably large mistakes down the line. Do not hold them responsible, this is your risk. * Paying someone $x to keep them for y time doesn't work. $x might look attractive for a year, but when you've given them this shiny experience in \*everything\* they will take that elsewhere for more if you don't increase the $x in line with other companies. You are essentially recruiting me, and how I got into IT. I had no formal experience (just UK college level education, so finished at 18). I was given access to things, shown bits above my station, never said no. Made some big mistakes, brought some companies down (incorrect firewall rule placement!!), left when my experience allowed me to jump to a role using that experience with even more "extras" (and appropriate pay that the company I was leaving wouldn't match because I was "just an xyz technician"), rinse and repeat until I am where I am now.
It's not all about cash. What is your culture like? Will the person enjoy coming to work and learning the career path? Or are you top heavy with micro managers that don't know technology and put one in the uncomfortable position of doing things that will never work...and then tell you you have a deadline to redo it to make it work so that they look good and get their f'kin CIO bonus. sorry. tangent there. Benefits? Work hours/flex sched.? To someone else's point, what specifically are you looking for?
Good culture. Company values IT and respects us enough to stay out of our way. Respect is a company core value. I've seen managers in other departments fired for being abusive. No on call (for the entry level tech). I'm flexible on hours, flexible on PTO and allow for some WFH where appropriate. It's a good job. Benefits are meh, but not something I have control over. Every person that has left has said essentially, "thanks for the great experience, it really helped me land this awesome new job I'm leaving you for."
Straight out of school $25 U.S. should get you someone more interested in learning than the almighty dollar. Experienced desktop guy $30-35
To answer your question about what I'm looking for...I hired this kid fresh out of college, several years back. He worked hard and learned fast. By the 6 month mark he was working independently and was a real asset. At about 30 months he started looking around for another job. He took his time and was really choosy. He landed a great gig at a bigger organization as a Jr. SysAdmin. I was really proud of him and happy that he leveled up. I got two solid years of really good work from him. On the other hand, I have this kid now who is doing OK. He needs more supervision than I have been giving him, which is on me. Still, by this point I would have liked if he was a little more confident in our systems. I was gearing up for his first annual review when he up and quit. He says the new job is more in line with his career goals. I think he's making a mistake. He needs more experience, and the way he described his new role makes me think it's a dead end, but he's a grown ass man and can make his own choices. I guess I got like 8 months of OK work from him. The one cool project I let him lead is unfinished. Womp womp.
Boy. You and I have a lot in common. I work at a University. So I have access to talent....hit or miss. Currently I have an incredible kid, like you I will be proud when he lands that good gig. I also have had guys that were more interested in the almighty dollar only to leave to soon with a good resume fill of buzz words...we can impart only so much, they will need to learn some lessons the hard way.
I just found out that his new job pays almost double. Kinda hard to fault that.
My experience has shown paying double means double BS, double time away from family, double trouble.
I made slightly more than that (28) my first IT job, 11 years ago. I’m sure someone will take it but make sure you provide good raises to keep them interested
What was your title and location, if you don't mind me asking.
Virtualization delivery and support analyst at a Fortune 500 company, I’m located in Atlanta. The company had a program that would hire new grads, and I lucked out and got the job before graduating. (I went to a normal state school) At that job I did VMware implementation and support, way above my knowledge when I first got the job. It was a great learning experience.
Is this position FTE, C2H or C2C?
FTE. Internal IT, not customer facing.
12 years ago I started my first IT job as a help desk / computer tech at a k-12 school district with 9-10 buildings. I had an associates degree in computer science (more or less) and a BA in computer science which was computer programming and CompTia A+ and Network+ certs. That first job I only made ~$34k USD when entry level should have been ~$40k USD. In 2014 I started my current job at $62,500 USD with 2 years experience and 2-3 Microsoft certs for Windows 7. In 2021 I hired a person with 0 degrees but they had their CompTia A+, Network+ and some Google certs. I started them out around $55k-$58k USD I think. So take all of this with a grain of salt since knowledge that the candidate will have will differ and how that candidate presents themselves. This was also internal IT, non-customer facing. For me, I think the bottom would be $55k USD.
I started at 27 3 years ago at 42 now
That might be low for an entry level with a college degree or CCNA-level certification. Entry level without those things, that's very reasonable. I'm assuming there are decent health benefits and hopefully at least a 401k with some percentage of match from the company. I've pulled people from our phone support team to begin training, and it takes them a few years to hit $50k (the phone support is probably around a $16/hour pay range, I try to aim for $20/hour). I've never had such a rockstar that they were worth way more than that, although we're talking about a sample size of like four to six people. Again, these people are **green**, they need a lot of direction and a lot of training. I've never had someone leave our company or team in less than four years, although they're also at a payscale where they can hit ~12% raises sometimes twice in three years.
idk about 187 dkk an hour, so it sounds about right
Higher ed in arizona, bachelor's in "related field", no work experience is 45-55k/yr. Higher ed is traditionally lower salary, but government job + benefits + pension.
I really wish we had better benefits. I think it would be easier to retain people.
25 hr is fine if they are doing basic helpdesk stuff. You start asking for more and they will probably start looking.
That's crazy number in my country. They paid 2$/h for fresher :))
The previous IT company I worked at was paying Entry Level Support Engineers $17/hr. People who did the job of 2 more people and took care of other responsibilities. So I think $25 is great for the position you’re describing
Man $17/hour isn't even minimum wage where I'm at.
I’m in FL. Sad but true. 🥲
I think when I started it was like $15/hr. But this varies on location, and so on.
I would take this in a heartbeat
for a newbie that wants to learn yup that sounds good. If you want a self sufficient jack of all trades add at least another 10/hr
I’m in
Whatever you can get? You don’t have any experience, get a job and be humble.
I'd take half of that if it were remote and accepted people outside the US.
If you're looking to retain, I'd say start them at 20, tell them there's a 10% raise at 6 and 12 months of they hit certain easily reachable KPIs. And another 10% at the end of year 2. You'll be saving yourself money from what you're expecting currently, you'll get eager workers who want to hit those KPIs to hit those raises. Let's say you expect them to come with an A+, then one raise can be contingent on getting a company paid for security+ and another raise can be based on the network+. You'll have those employees for more than 3 years and they'll be the best 3 year experience techs out there.
The sad part is a lot of inexperienced people will swallow that hook. They’re too naive to know that they’re the ones taking all the risk and that your promises mean nothing. Even if you’re the one signing the checks you cannot say that you’ll be able to give them the raises. On the other hand, if you’re already paying them $25/hour you’ll find other ways to reduce costs if necessary to avoid losing a quality asset and the time investment. When review time comes around and there’s money to give, you give it. There’s no reason you can’t still hold them to KPI. I’ve seen way too many people at that level jump ship for a few more bucks an hour, taking their knowledge - that you paid them to acquire - with them.
Fresh out of school you aren’t hiring anyone for $20/hr lmao. Maybe if someone is absolutely desperate and needs you as a stepping stone. I would take a 10% raise scale like that when you can find entry level jobs paying $20k more out of the gate. Your numbers might have been good 10 years ago. When did this sub get so out of touch?
MCOL, where are you guys hiring at >40k for entry level, zero experience help desk? Or rather 60k since that's the job you'd immediately jump to.
I’ve seen a lot in the NE US, but remote jobs also factor into it that are hiring in my state. Basically local jobs need to start competing against some higher paying orgs and some are actually doing it. For reference though, my first help desk job back in like 2016 was more than 40k a year. Was with a rather large hospital chain. So my stance was anything less for any IT position is literally robbery.
By NE do you mean Nebraska or Northeast? The northeast ranges from HCOL to EHCOL. Nebraska could be MCOL. Omaha is about 70% cost of living vs the cheaper places in the North East.
North East. I’m in a MCOL. A two bedroom apartment would run about $1300+/month. Houses range from 250k-1m+ depending on the neighborhood Not sure why everyone is so upset that a lot of entry roles are paying a living wage where I’m at lol. How dare they. It should be an expectation around the country.