New certifications? Where to go from here?
TLDR - Slowly worked my way up in IT from workstudy in college to tier 3 desktop support but now I'm topped out. Can only move up from here by branching out to programming type roles, server admin roles, or management roles. What are the next steps for these options?
Sorry if this is a little long. I have always been into IT and math, excelling in those things in high school. In my 3rd year of college I started out with a workstudy in the IT helpdesk of the college, during this time I got my A+ certification. After about a year I was hired on full time into the IT department there doing essentially the same thing. A year after that (shortly after I got my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science) a position became available as a tier 1 helpdesk support at the local hospital. I worked there 2 years and hated it, literally every single call (even paper jams) was considered to be a life and death emergency...I even got called in on Christmas day to repair the printer at the ER check-in desk. They were only using one of the four check-in desks and could have just moved to another desk, but no...they made me come in and fix it.
Anyway, I had probably been looking for a new job for the last year and found a job that was for the state government. It was a relatively small location so they didn't have separate helpdesk, networking guy, etc there were just two generic "IT Guys"...one of which was the job I got.
About another year and a half later a position came open at the main public university in my area as a tier 3 desktop support. I have been in this role for 3.5 years and am still there now. Every one of these "jumps" has been to better and better jobs. I make a decent bit above average for my area, the benefits are great, and I really like my job. However they only give 1-2% raises each year and there are no positions doing what I do higher than the one I have now.
In order to keep moving up, I would either need to get more into the programming side (they do a lot of drupal), or the system administration side (some Windows server administration, some Linux server administration, some VMware, etc) or I can move into a more management role.
I wouldn't mind a job like my bosses, where he still does some IT support but a lot of what he does is manages all of the tier 3 people like me (does evaluations, works on relaying known issues/fixes, tries to find fixes for known issues that have not yet been resolved, and passes stuff up the chain that he can't do. However even entry level management jobs want some supervision experience and I have never been "over" anyone in any of my roles. Like I am higher up the ladder than the tier 1 and tier 2 support people but I don't have any supervisory role.
I have also looked into the system administration side. A lot of the users I support work off-campus so I have played around a bit with Azure Active Directory and would kind of like to learn more about that and possibly move into a role doing that...but as of now the university does have Azure up and running but it isn't really used. Most off-campus employees just have standalone computers and local user accounts and aren't part of the university network at all.
Anyway, what would you do if you were in my position? The direction I have the least interest in going is towards the programming side, but that's the one that seems to have the most opportunities. Is there a certification I can work towards to make up for a lack of supervisory experience in future management positions? What would be your first recommendation for certification if I went in the direction of server administration?
Thanks in advance for any advice anyone has!
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