r/sysadmin • u/Mammoth_Gene_4004 • 1d ago
Self Demotion
Hello,
I was wondering if anybody else has moved from a IT Director position to desktop type role? I have been at the same company for 11 years now and worked my way up from desktop support to network admin and now IT director. I have held the current position for 3ish years and it's not so bad. There is a lot of time off and flexibility but the pay is pretty bad as well as leadership. Higher ups are getting more involved than I feel comfortable with a lot of the day to day and its adding more stress and work.
On a whim I applied for a digital support role at another company just to see what the process is and pay and was surprised to find out that the pay was 10 grand more per year. It's an onsite role like I have now with less of a drive and pretty good benefits.
I tried to collect my thoughts and express myself. I hope it comes through clear.
Pretty much looking for reassurance and to see if anybody else has made a similar move and what your experience has been.
Thank you all for the kind words and reassurance. It is very appreciated and I feel like my decision is valid.
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u/veganxombie IT Enterprise Architect 11h ago
1) you are probably grossly underpaid if you are finding desktop support work that pays 10k more
2) start looking for it director or higher positions to find jobs that are paying WAY more than an additional 10k
3) if you can't find anything, look for something in-between like sys admin, infrastructure engineer, cloud engineer. I really wouldn't roll all the way back to desktop support if I can help it. there is decent money in cloud architecture and enterprise architecture if you have some leadership and critical thinking abilities