Ask HN: Anybody who left IT?
This is anecdotal, I would like to tell you the story of a friend who did just that, as I myself actually work in Site Reliability which really seems to be the new IT 2.0 (certainly not helpdesk, though I&#x27;ve done that too and I used to manage it as part of a team until recently)<p>It goes a little something like this:<p>My friend had over 10 years of experience in IT, and for what it&#x27;s worth never even intended to get into the field, it&#x27;s simply a job he could have that adjusted well enough with his school hours. He wanted to be a Math Teacher. Anyways, after getting through school he realizes that any job he takes will likely pay less than his IT job. He had gotten his hands on certificates in networking, red hat and others during his career and managed to have a lucrative post as a IT senior manager at a large Bank. Stable if underwhelming and not much room for advancement. Then he realized one day, he told me he realized it in a meeting he was in having to do with I want to say doing an overhaul of some of their networking: Therr was more money in being the outside firm they contract to handle these things and train staff then there was in staying on and helping consulting&#x2F;services firms in his current role.<p>You see, his insight was that he could get away with making more lucrative amounts of money in contracts with large institutions or companies which often, for various reasons, depend on IT services firms to handle their deployments. He also noted that a lot of these companies don&#x27;t specialize in high quality mission critical deployments. Accenture is a big IT firm that mostly highest in his opinion cheaply and doesn&#x27;t attract top talent and a lot of these guys don&#x27;t have an ongoing training arm.<p>So he founded a company that focuses squarely on filling a niche: he mostly contracts services with non-Technical firms like Banks, Hospitals, Governemnt institutions and agencies etc. and he does 3 things:<p>By focusing only on highly critical or inftrastiricre that needs massive changes to rollout or other such opportunities, he doesn&#x27;t go for low rent contracts. Instead he focuses on delivering high margin services for niches like rolling out tech solutions for high speed trading for hedge funds or critical infrastructure deployments for banks hospitals etc.<p>He secondly trains existing or ramping up IT staff in the things his company actually sets up, it&#x27;s part of the services contract. This training arm even does just training now and does well. Big companies often contradict out their training for new technologies and his love of teaching really shines.<p>The third thing he does I find most remarkable: he sets it up often where his company can exit doing business. His goal isn&#x27;t to milk services contracts but to empower organizations to do it themselves over time. You would think this would be a losing strategy but it isn&#x27;t. It allows him to keep the company small and garners a lot of respect from people who make these decisions. A lot of the big IT firms want to keep you on as long as possible because the contracts are more lucrative that way. He inverts this and it has garnered some respect. Which in turn creates a lot of referral and repeat business.<p>Now granted he left his jo with a list of good solid contacts to get up and moving and had a clear vision. Did he leave IT per say? No. He did become his own boss and successfully does well for himself and his small company does well over all.<p>The one thing he told me which me or may not be still true is he wishes he would have become the IT firm to VC firms and startups. A lot of startups have massive challenges to scaling infrastructure properly and could do a lot through just good training and having a guide. I don&#x27;t know if this is still an area of opportunity but I remember having an at length conversation in regards to trying to become the go to devices firms that VCs and or startups could call in to help themselves or in the case of VCs the businesses they provide support to a leg up on this<p>*For privacy reasons I&#x27;m not going to reveal names.