Who am I and What do I do

    Posted on Sep 1, 2018 in Careers by Michael | Target Audience: Everyone
     careers programming networking security 

    One of the things I have discovered about working in IT for several years is that most people have no idea what I do for a living. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult trying to explain this to people, especially considering there are so many different specializations in our field. A lot of people often think that if you work in IT, you know pretty much everything about anything more complex than an Abacus, but this simply isn’t true. To elaborate on this, it is like assuming that someone who does the work on their own automobile understands how every function works on anything mechanical including submarines and stealth aircraft without having specialized training or study. Sure, concepts are somewhat consistent, but that is for the most part simply not the case. Still I find other people that think a lot of complex systems in IT are very rudimentary and simple (I personally blame Hollywood) which is also simply not true. Hopefully throughout the course of this miniseries, I will be able to debunk some of these thoughts.

    As far the specializations I mentioned, I have three main areas of expertise: programming, networking, and security. Unfortunately, these are VERY broad categories, and for those who are not very tech savvy, these likely mean nothing to them.

    This leads to why I am writing this miniseries of articles. I want to try and put into words what exactly each of these mean, at least in my career, so that friends, family, and nontechnical people can understand what it means to work in any of these categories. Additionally, for those who are looking at a career in IT, I’m hoping this will help explain some of what they can expect from working in one of these fields.

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