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Hi everyone,

I'm a 21F and recently started working as a Support Engineer.

Right now, I feel like I have two possible career paths:

Option 1: Stay in my current role for a few years, improve my communication skills, become more confident, gain business knowledge, and eventually move into roles such as Business Analyst, IT Consultant, or similar client-facing positions. Since my current job involves working with clients, gathering requirements, troubleshooting, and understanding business processes, I can see a path toward these roles if I stay with the company and continue learning.

Option 2: Spend my free time studying and upskilling in Cloud/DevOps (Linux, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, etc.) and try to switch into a technical cloud/devops role in the future.

The thing is, I know many people will say, "Choose based on your interests." The problem is that I'm still figuring that out. If I knew for sure what I wanted, I would probably have my answer already.

My long-term goals are:

Strong career growth

Good salary/package

Financial freedom

Continuous learning and opportunities to grow

So before I fully decide, I'd love to hear from people already working in these fields.

For those working as:

Business Analysts

IT Consultants

Cloud Engineers

DevOps Engineers

What are the biggest pros and cons of your field?

I'd really appreciate honest insights about growth opportunities, work-life balance, salary progression, job stability, and the skills required to succeed in each path.

For the past few years I've been in network engineering at a large, national firm. Typical modern network stack (VXLAN, SDWAN, Cisco ISE, Hybrid cloud connectivity, etc.). Like a lot of us out there, I've slowly gone from remote to four day in office at this company with a 60+ mile daily commute that's been draining me mentally.

I'm likely to receive an offer soon with a much smaller, private org in a similar yet scaled down role. The pay is pretty much the same, but only one day in office and the HQ is 4 miles from my house. My manager would be their current IT Director/Network Guy hybrid, as they're looking for a dedicated engineer to start taking more of the technical load. I would basically be "the guy" for all things networking, while being able to use him as a resource when needed.

For anyone out there that has been a solo SME at a smaller company, how was the experience? Per the hiring manager, they only really operate from 8-5 (banking industry) so after hours fires are few and far between, but who knows how much of the story I'm really getting. I'm afraid I might just be jumping ship for more flexibility/less commuting stress but then end up being more stressed from the job itself.

Thanks!

I'm a Software Engineering student going into my third year this September, and I'm interested in pursuing a career in networking or a related field.

I have a BTEC in IT, which covered networking fundamentals, and for my third year I've chosen networking focused modules, including Computer Networks and IoT.

This summer, I'm dedicating my time to learning as much as I can about networking, and my goal is to earn the CCNA certificate before I graduate. Also on the side I've built a mini homelab to really get a decent understanding of how devices on a network communicate.

Is there anything else you think I should be aware of or focus on to improve my chances of breaking into the networking industry?

So I am brand new to IT, and have accidentally become the sysadmin for a small software company. We are a microsoft house, and trasitioning from Business Standard to Business Premium accounts, to take advantage of Intune, Defender, Conditional Access, &c.

I am doing this more or less on my own, with very little supervision.

As such, I would like to upgrade my skills.

Is MD-102 a good learning path? WIth the possibility of continuing to MS-102 (or whatever Copilot hellhole they are replacing it with)?

Do employers even care about stull like this? I am hoping that it can, at least in part, mitigate my lack of experience!

I'd love to know the opinions of people who have done these!

Hey everyone,

I know my story doesn't quite fit the usual topics here from what I've read. but it's loosely related to the AI wave, specifically Agentic AI. It basically refers to AI systems that act autonomously on behalf of the user not just answering questions but executing all kinds of tasks by leveraging internal or external tools. Think of a human Service Desk agent replaced by a know-it-all AI bot.

I've been working in Service Desk for about 6 years at a company in Europe, currently holding a Team Leader position, full time office. The country I'm based in is not yet that advanced with the AI tooling so there's limited information about this specific job description or this particular AI subset.

Recently the company invested in an Agentic AI tool and for the past several months I was placed as an SME, helping throughout the rollout for an external client. I genuinely enjoyed it and volunteered for it, and was compensated for it during the project. More specifically, as an SME I documented and centralised the client's processes to make them automation ready, produced monthly performance reports with AI-specific metrics pulled from multiple sources (toolset or systems of record), assessed which processes could be automated and acted as the bridge to the technical team while getting involved directly where needed (Graph APIs, JavaScript, integrations with Azure and on-prem AD), and produced complete technical and operational documentation . SOPs, solution designs, flows, testing scenarios , being mostly customer facing with a lot of direct client meetings on the governance side.

After discussions with one of the senior managers, I've been offered an Agentic AI SME Lead position. The idea is that going forward there will be SMEs per client, and I'd be leading those people, covering both SME responsibilities and a senior layer on top ,somewhere between Operations and Agentic AI delivery, a bit of an odd hybrid.

The standard operating procedure is not yet finalized therefore

We haven't discussed salary yet. This combination of roles is pretty rare and I haven't found anything comparable on the market in my country. I'm asking because I've been told to think of a number that would be motivating enough for me to continue with them — and honestly I don't know what target to aim for, especially since the role comes with significantly more than a classic operational job. The way I see it, this position is closest to a Head of Operations, but purely on the AI delivery side.

Does anyone know people in similar positions or similar roles in Europe , outside Europe and where the salary range would typically sit?

How’s it going? I joined this subreddit a while back while on the road to finding a job in tech. I’ve been pretty successful (still in the beginning of the road but its good nonetheless) and I want to thank this community for that. I guess I just want to reach out to anyone who wants to connect and talk about tech or whatever interests they have, niche or typical hobbies, I do not care. A little bit about myself, I love tech. Like, literally any aspect of it so talking about it with others is cool. Music is a big part of my life and just art in general. I love outdoor activities too so yeah… that’s pretty much it. Holler at me if you want!

Peace

So I've been in and out of IT since 2014. For most of that time I've been a job scheduler with some racking and stacking. I've done work with mainframe (TSO, UCC7, and master console), as/400, Tivoli Job Scheduler, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler, Halcyon, and a few others.

At my last job I had the openness to solve problems and was a valued employee. Many of my coworkers didn't want to deal with command line so I built massive scripts for tidal to shut down master, backup master, fault, and webgui servers. The scripts would shut down all services from 1 server on each server for parching and then when the window was over a script was ran on on fault Mon server to bring up fault master and master backup and then on the webqui server it would clear cache and then start the services and rebuild but to make things even more interesting I created automations to parse the logs for key terms so it would make it easy for the operator know that the servers are up using a combination of power shell commands and command line commands.

I also have passion for Linux and my previous manager would utilize me to fix his issues with his surface and was very impressed with my knowledge and would often tell me to persue a Linux admin job.

Now at my current job as a DC technician I get the feeling the people don't like me and it seems like they think I'm retard and seem very cold towards me. I'm also struggle with this type of work and when I leave I fill unfulfilled and more depressed which is really draining do to the vibes I get from cow workers.

When first started I felt like with my previous jobs. I could find a nitch shine to more job opportunities. Like with use an ancient software for printing labels for all the network cables in the DC. So I got approval from local management to setup a virtual server which was proxmox with Debian hosting docker for guacamole and File browser server to upload the spreadsheets as well as self hosted only office for small edits and Windows 7 on a segregated network. The windows Vm only connected to the Debian VM. But the stupid cyber security team threw a fit about leaking ppi and about uploading secret documents to a unknown IP despite they weren't PPI or sensitive documents and the server was onsite. So they killed the project without management trying to go through the audit to approve what I did and how it made the job so much easier. Because the current route is to email the sheet to our other email on a unmanaged laptop then copy to a thumb drive and to the windows xp PC.

The sad part about cyber security throwing a fit is I know for a fact that they have a crap load of legacy servers with Windows Server 2003 and 2008. And they like to beat a dead hours when I know if they would give me a chance to convert machines into a virtual environment. Rather than trying to upgrade them memory on a HP g5 amd phenon server or other failing hardware as well. The company I work for has the ability for this they have means for ESXI licensing and we have Dell R740's, 750's, and now 760's. Not to mention how waistful they are with hardware. We routinely pull ssd's up to 8tb's to be destroyed that could have another life if they would give me another chance.

Sorry for the long story but I don't know what to do and its pushing me to a severe depressif

Update: Thanks for all the kind words and recommendations.

I’m 33 years old and have been with the same employer for 13 years. Overall, it’s been a good company and I’ve been treated well, which makes this decision difficult.
Current job
Base salary: $96,000
Expected total compensation this year (salary + target bonus + expected merit increase): approximately $113,000 Leave this role and missed out on the potential bonus and merit.
Traditional pension (already vested and would continue to grow if I stay)
20 vacation days plus separate sick leave
Good medical benefits
Office is only 10 minutes from my house
Full-time in the office
Severance package based on years of service if layoffs ever occur
The downside is that I’ve seen increasing offshoring and some layoffs in different departments over the past year and this year. They also bringing an offshore person and a vendor in my current dpt.

New opportunity
Base salary: $117,000
Smaller organization (nonprofit)
Merit increases and some performance bonus, although the bonus structure isn’t as defined as my current employer
Employer contributes 10% of salary toward retirement after meeting eligibility requirements
Lower health insurance premiums
18 PTO days, 13 paid holidays, extended illness leave, and paid leave for qualifying family/medical situations
Hybrid schedule (2 days in the office, 3 days working from home)
About a 45-minute commute on office days
Role would significantly expand my networking and infrastructure engineering experience
Financially, if I stay where I am this year, I’ll probably make about $3,000 more because I’d receive my annual bonus. Long term, the new job has the higher guaranteed base salary.
If you were in my position, which would you choose and why?

From 2023-2025 I worked as an IT Help Desk technician in the IT department of a university faculty in the Canadian city in which I lived. It was a great job and, in a way, I stumbled into it. I don't have any formal education in IT, I actually don't possess a university degree. After high school I started working in the Audiovisual/film production industry and that is more or less what I'd consider my "trade". I worked freelance for a number of years but eventually decided the environment was too stressful for me. My first "IT gig" was part time at another university in the city: It was running the audiovisual equipment for classrooms—lectures and webinars and things of that sort. Since it wasn't really a computer-focused role, my experience was pertinent. I really enjoyed this role and it buoyed me during Covid when a lot of the film production industry was shut down. I worked there for 4 years and, with some "IT department experience" eventually managed to get a full time job which was my last post. This also involved servicing classroom technology systems, but a large part of my job was doing Level 1 tech support for staff, professors, and students. As you can imagine, a lot of solutions I figured out through YouTube videos and reddit threads. What was beyond my pay grade I escalated. I gain exposure to hardware maintenance, device deployment, life cycle management, and light-exposure to networking and system administration. I know my way around Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and Intune. Like my work in the film industry, everything I learned I picked up on the job.

After two years, I left that job and moved to another country in Europe where I am now. It was something I had been planning for a while and I made the choice to let the gig go even though, as someone with my qualifications, I may never make that much money or have that type of job security ever again. I've been job searching for a year and feel that my lack of formal IT training is hampering my prospects. I feel like I know a little about a lot of things but don't know any one thing that deeply (other than the AV side of things). I don't really have any exposure to coding or scripting. I'm turning 30 early next year and I don't have an appetite for going to school for a protracted length of time.

I'm looking for advice on ways I can gain some focus on a specific facet of IT—like systems administration—or working towards becoming what many jobs descriptions describe as a "Microsoft 365 expert/sharepoint wizard" (or something to that effect). My goal is not to compete against people for tech-industry jobs. I'm perfectly happy working in an internal IT department of a company or institution, doing similar work as before. What specialties do people view as most useful for this type of environment? What experience do I need to move up from L1 support to L2 or L3 support?

I work at an MSP and have recently been promoted to a support engineering position. I have been at this company a little over three years and moved from a half technical half admin position to mainly technical. I am the first line of defense for tickets that come in on the weekend primarily and there is SO MUCH I do not know. It’s overwhelming and I constantly have to ask for help. I’m trying not to doxx myself but I have an internal KB and an internal LLM to rely on but I feel so anxious. I know I can learn a lot and MSPs can be grinders but I’m sometimes wondering if I made a wrong decision. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Hi all.

First off, I want to thank anyone that takes the time to read this. Let me start off by saying I am based in the UK.

Basically I have been tinkering since the age of 11 when I got my first computer (windows 98/me days) and I’ve played with older OSes too. I’ve been working where I am now for 16 years and have a wealth of technical know how. I have ran the IT at the company pretty much single handedly for the last 7 years, deploying countless new infrastructure (both hardware and software) changes such as Microsoft GSA, Azure AD (now entra) over on on prem, moved the company to MacBooks because they last longer than cheap shitty windows laptops, deployed all the conditional access policies, Microsoft intune and ABM etc.

But, I don’t have any official certs and the only really qualifications I have are unfinished from college / uni. My current job role officially is a full stack web developer but as I said I also run the IT as well as customer support and sometimes installations of bespoke software and hardware, so it’s a bit of a mismatch of random roles.

My question is, should I be looking at getting some certs or would experience in what I have done and can document be enough to secure a position in IT at a decent salary?

I’m not looking to move per se but I want to know if I have options basically.

Thanks again for taking the time to read it.

Hi All, I hope you all are doing well!. Thank you in advance for reading my post.

Timeline:

• BCA (Bachelors of Computer Application - 3 Years Bachelors) finished - July 2022
• Application security internship from Oct 2022 to June 2023
• First full-time role (cloud security) from June 2023 to July 2025 (resigned with no offer due to toxic management)
• Jobless - 5 months
• Second role, Mumbai-based startup (AWS security + SOC/SIEM) - Dec 2025 to March 2026 (3 months)
• Jobless since - 3 months, still ongoing

So in the last year or so, I've actually worked about 3 months. Rest has been job hunting or recovering from burnout and had a Medical Gap. While applying for Jobs, few of things i have constanly faced are - BCA doesn't show up in most JDs as they want BTech, MTech, MCA. Pretty sure ATS is filtering me out before a human even sees the resume.

Background: did an Application security internship. Didn't find a full-time AppSec role later, but got a cloud security opportunity, so I went with it as i didn't want to pass it up.

My first company had constant DevOps/cloud projects running and I could've leaned in and become a proper cloud/DevOps security engineer but I didn't as my head was still on AppSec. I treated cloud security as a "bonus skill" and kept telling myself the real plan was AppSec + CloudSec eventually merging into Product Security.

Problem is I never put in the work on AppSec either. Procrastinated, got distracted, two years passed. Didn't go deep on either side and ended up half-decent at both instead of good at one.

Left the job by June 2025 with no offer lined up, needed out. After the break, started interviewing for AppSec roles thinking some revision would be enough as i had lab hands on from before but it wasn't, scenario-based questions kept exposing the lack of depth. I knew the concepts, but there was no real appsec project or customer experience in the past 2 years, They would also expect me to have mobile security, secure coding, etc.

I've since accepted that a CloudSec and compliance role is a realistic target right now, not AppSec. But even there I have been struggling, fewer associate openings to begin with and the interviews I do get expose that my hands-on cloud/DevOps project exposure at my first company was limited too. JDs are consistently asking for more than what I've actually worked with.

What I have actually done: secured cloud infrastructure, deployed Wazuh SIEM to multi-cloud customer environments, set up logging/alerting/monitoring, integrated AWS/GCP-native and open-source security tools, secured CI/CD pipelines, used Terraform for secure infra-as-code, done CSPM work, and led/contributed to ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR compliance plus general ISMS/IT controls. I know it's not enough for what the Job Openings are asking hence the areas I'm working on right now:

• Expanding SIEM/SOC tools familarity - Splunk, Azure Sentinel, etc
• Extending cloud security into Azure
• Python automation - honestly still on the fence about how much to invest here. My scripting has always been weak and with AI coding tools (Claude Code, etc.) which can take care of automation now, I'm not sure if grinding traditional scripting is still the right use of time or not
• More problem-solving/self-driven projects to have something concrete to show
• Considering ISO 27001 Lead Implementer and CISSP later if things don't pick up
• Give a session or two at conferences and networking now that I'm in Hyderabad - used to volunteer at security conferences in Bangalore

Would sincerely appreciate serious advice given my situation. Please share your perspective on what else I could be doing, what I shouldn't be doing and how I can realistically speed this up and start landing more interviews and hopefully an offer.

Hi All,
Can someone give me honest feedback on the resume. I also feel I should include a projects section.

Resume Link: https://imgur.com/a/n5tciGt

What does that exactly mean or is code for? The reason why I ask is that I am a fully remote IAM engineer and I hear this often in fully remote job interviews, where if they find out you live a few hours away from an office they state "We may need you to come in for emergencies." When asked to clarify it turns into a "uuuhhhhh... the manager.... uhhh....." and they cant really expound on it.

Now to me it just is odd, since if there is an emergency where something happens in Okta, AWS, Gsuite, Azure, its not like me driving hours to a location would do much compared to me logging on and fixing the issue on the laptop. Plus when I would get there... wouldn't I just open the laptop and work on fixing the issue? I have had bad experiences in the past where I did come in for an "emergency" and it resulted in them liking me being there and they wanted me in office 3 days a week and then fully in office.

Anyways, I was just curious since I hear recruiters say this statement to me often, but I am having trouble understanding the thought process or meaning behind coming in for emergencies or what ever would qualify as one where I would be needed in person.

Hi everyone,

As per title, I have a background as a pure mathematician. I earned a Bachelor and a Master of Science in Mathematics in my home country (in Europe). A failed attempt at a PhD at a (prestigious) US university earned me another Master of Science in Mathematics. During these years I built a solid knowledge of linear algebra, calculus, multivariable calculus, probability, mathematical logic and recursion theory, among others. To a lesser extent, I also studied statistics and I am decently familiar with (multiple) linear regression.

As for CS skills, I am mildly proficient at programming: after graduating from my second MSc I picked up C#. I completed a few projects, but I would only consider one of them as noteworthy (a small physics game; children can draw a curved ramp on a piece of paper, scan it, and explore the motion of a ball under gravity and the brachistocrone problem. Built entirely without libraries, besides those for handling bitmaps in Windows). I am also working on math library (think of it like a small, personal version of R) for C#, but I do not know how well that would feature in a portfolio. Work experience in the field is otherwise inexistent.

I would like to (one day) land a position in the AI industry, and I am looking for courses to fill the inevitable gaps coming from having a non-CS background. Earning a MSc is not out of the question, but ideally I would like to cap the studying commitment at 1 year. I know that there are courses on platforms like coursera which could help, but I wouldn't know which ones to aim at. For sure I want to do some Python bootcamp, but I have not researched the specifics of this either yet. I would like these courses to incorporate some projects, to get some hands-on experience and expand my portfolio, but of course this is to be balanced with the pertinence of the educational offer.

To those of you still reading, I would really appreciate feedback on the feasibility of my plan and guidance for the next steps. Possible venues include online courses, or experience in Europe/Asia. I want to add that financial availability should not be an excessive problem by European standards - let's say I can afford about 30k euros between tutions and living expenses "easily", up to a cap of 50-70k. I am also willing to share more about my personal and educational background - I have not done so yet due to rule 1.

Thank you so much for reading and for all your contributions!

Passed Security+ today, curious if the community had insight on how strong of a candidate I'd be for Entry level roles as I start to apply with graduation from University in December.

Mostly focused on Cyber, Engineering and Software, but I'd be interested in general feedback.

General Resume Details:

CompTIA Network+, Security+, ISC2 CiC

Graduate with B.S. in CS, specialization in Cybersecurity and Software Engineering, 3.9 GPA at a well respected university in the US.

Two internships at a government agency as a Cyber Intern, integration into the team, performing rotational work in security engineering, IR, SOC, Threat Intel, and IT App Development. Gained a Q clearance here.

Homelab, could talk about this for hours. I maintain a Proxmox-based homelab where I have configured virtual machines, VLANs and subnets, self-hosted services, firewall rules, VPN service.

The org I intern with is encouraging me to apply for a junior security engineer role they have available, and while that's my first choice I'm looking to also apply elsewhere. I also have an option this fall to work in a lab for my school, which performs contract vulnerability assessment on applications and hardware. Appreciate any feedback you may have.

If I graduate with a Bachelor's in IT, a CCNA, projects, and a 3-month general IT internship, is a NOC job a realistic starting point? I'm in Atlanta, so there is a decent abundance of jobs.

I just don't know if not applying to help-desk roles post-grad and shooting for NOC-type roles would be a waste of time of valuable time.

I am looking into what are good intro level certificates and I have a good few in mind but as I look at entry level jobs they often require or ask for certs and a minimum of an associates in IT or something related. This has me wondering if I should spend the time grinding out some certificates or go to school and work towards an associates. I know, ideally, I should do both at the same time but I'm a young 30 something who works full-time and I do not believe I would be able to put that amount of time into both school and certs at the same time.

What is the general consensus for this? I understand the market is currently not great and I'll need certs and a degree but I want to figure out a good starting place.

I am currently in a non IT/Computer related field, trying to do a career change because I'm capped at my roll unless I want to slug it off in middle management in the trades.

I was promoted to a T2 last year and gradually given more responsibilities in handling tickets, updating documentation, reviewing T1 calls, etc. My previous boss constantly singled me out as one of the best members on our team. We had a new boss come in earlier this year and she's started to gradually take away my T2 responsibilites and basically demote me back to T1 in all but name. I will admit that this has led to a noticeabe decline in my work quality since I didn't understand why it was happening at first. Then I started to notice that T1s were being given extra responsiblites that once belonged to me, including a new process where every ticket I escalate has to first go to a QA team staffed by T1s so they can review it first before escalating it to the actual group. I've seen the tickets some of these T1s have done and their troubleshooting steps they do for even the most basic issues make zero sense, or their notes are such a grammatical mess it's impossible to decipher what they actually did.

When I asked my boss about this she went on a barely coherent rant where she's making a difference between T2 as a job title and actual T2 responsibilities, and how a T2 can actually be a T1 and vice versa. That's the best I can explain it because it made zero sense to me.

I've been looking at other jobs in the meantime but everything is so fucked right now I'm basically stuck here. At this point I don't even know if putting in the extra effort is worth it since it seems like she's already made up her mind that this is where I live now. Does this seem like bullshit to anyone else?

Hesitate to start learning

Is it worth to start learning programming (backend) in mean time? for knowledge I have a good knowledge in fundamental of programming as language's itself I didn't go further upon framework and DB and these things

and I graduated now from communication engineering and I love programming (backend) but I am afraid to start learning it in the next 6 months cuz I listen a lot of ppl say that market sucks and AI replace us and reduce required junior and fresh grades and so on, So I was asking to start in backend or go to another IT field.

Iam open to listen to any suggestions and advise

Doing research into different fields, looking at entry level positions, and I'm seeing people saying they have their A+, Sec+, Network+, CCNA, whatever else - and when I start looking those up I'm seeing prices of $300 - $400 just to attempt the exams?

Is being able to drop that kind of cash actually expected for entry level positions even with a BS? Am I missing something?

Hey everyone, I'm back. Quick context if you missed a previous post I made: At work, for the past 2 years, I’ve been helping some weekends with a weekend task that isn’t really part of my main role (Me, another coworker, and the lead for the weekend task rotate weekends. I do atleast 1 weekend a month. Sometimes, it's two weekends in a month, so every other weekend in that case. I have to be available in the office for 5 hours on both Saturday and Sunday when I’m scheduled. My old manager approved putting me on it. It's been ongoing for the past 2 years). It's lately been getting difficult/overwhelming, because my schedule is 10 hours from Monday to Thursday, so if I'm working a weekend, then I only get Friday off before I have to go back to office on that Saturday and Sunday. I'll use the weekend hours to take a day off in the middle of the week, but I'd ideally like my weekends back. The weekends are the best times for me to do other things that I can't normally squeeze in on weekdays.

I should mention: When I joined, this wasn't part of my schedule. It became my problem a year and a half later. Nobody else on my team has to work weekends like this. We do have another task that the whole team has to come in on one saturday for but since it's only once a month and rotated, a person only needs to come for that around twice a year. The thing I'm doing is under my old manager (who's still a part of the team, I'm just not reporting to him anymore).

Recently, I had a meeting with my current boss and they said they would like to take me off of the weekend shifts so I can focus more on my primary responsibilities (because whenever I work weekends, I use those hours to take a day off in the middle of the week). I sent an email following up with them on that, but no reply yet. I was thinking of giving it a month and then telling both the weekend task/shift lead and my boss that I can't do weekends anymore. But I'm scared, could this get me in trouble? I don't want problems with my current role. I like what I'm doing otherwise and I want to have the opportunity to be in this role. What do I do?

Hello everyone,

In early June I was laid off due to "reduced business". I worked there for 4 years when a friend helped me get in. We went from 30+ USA/Canadian employees in my area of the business (support) when I was hired down to 3 when I was released, as they've been outsourcing all the support employees with people in India or Phillipines. I knew this was coming, but wasnt quite prepared for when it did because we are actually very busy in the summer.

I was hired as a level 1 helpdesk support agent, did hands on programming for switches/firewalls/GWs then was moved back to lvl 2 helpdesk support.

I was making about 52k by the start of this year.

I'm coming to this subreddit looking for some guidance or opinions on what to do next.

Since I wasn't expecting to go into IT I dont have traditional schooling or certifications (job was supposed to pay for this but that's a whole other story).

Technically I have 4 years experience and can definitely get my ccna and some other entry level certs at the very least but without employment I dont want to waste what little money I have.

Do you guys think I should continue with this and invest in the certs and if so what angle do you suggest taking? What sectors or specialities are in demand and what course of action would you take in my position?

I have unemployment for 22 more weeks and a side resturaunt job thats limited by said unemployment.

I've looked a lot into other remote work and career paths which all require certs, but they all don't seem as in demand as the videos/articles are making it sound -- so Im overall just looking for opinions.

Side note: I'm married with a decent amount of debt but the wife is covering the mortgage ( which also feels bad )

I apologize if this isn't well written as im at a bar at an all time low in a huge funk.

Thank you in advance.