Accurate Role Description & Pay
Posted by DJSeras@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 13 comments
Hey there. First time posting here, but I have been wondering for a long time about where I am in my career/role and thought to see what the community thinks.
I am looking to see how most would classify my role based on my workload.
I work for a small MSP and wear a lot of hats.
Aside from our one engineer, I am second in line for any emergencies that arise. I am also fallback for Helpdesk if our one helpdesk technician is unavailable or overloaded.
I perform onsites every 2 or 4 weeks for a number of our customers to perform Technical Alignment, building out our documentation and auditing hardware, and having FaceTime with customer management and users.
I have top level access to most of our tools/systems and have responsibilities monitoring for server and client alerts, AV/EDR, as well as any security issues with End user accounts (compromise or phishing etc...). I handle nearly all onboarding and offboarding of end users for all customer organizations.
Nearly all current documentation is something either I built or have updated for all customers.
I am expected to participate on an as needed basis for various projects, including workstation and server or network deployments.
I developed the now standard work and KPI dashboards for Helpdesk, Centralized Services, and Technical Alignment because when I joined the team they didn't exist.
I take ticket escalations from helpdesk for issues they cannot resolve, and rarely I escalate tickets to our engineer. Most of the time tickets I escalate simply get annotated and passed back to me leaving me to figure it out instead of receiving downtraining.
I also participate in oncall. Our oncall is structured as a full week oncall every N weeks based on techs I the pool, we have 3, so I am on call every third week.
Oncall lasts from 8 AM until 9PM during weekends and from the end of business day until 9PM on weekdays.
Currently my role on paper is a tier 2 Helpdesk Technician and I make $56k/yr.
My oncall compensation is an extra 80 hours PTO a year.
Is this normal or am I getting raked over the coals?
Master-IT-All@reddit
You're a Tier 2 Technician. Tier 3, you'd be the one running the projects and occasionally helping service desk, not the other way.
Your job doesn't sound fun, that on call is fucked. I would never accept that. No amount of PTO makes up for not being able to rest for an entire week 1/3 of the time. I would break down in 2 months and never be able to work again for 10 years.
Salary, I can't say for certain if that is good for the area (location matters). But it doesn't sound good.
man__i__love__frogs@reddit
When I worked at a MSP technicians were break-fix only and there was tier 1 through 3. Then there was a projects/professional services team.
unstopablex15@reddit
depends on where you're located and how much experience you have
DJSeras@reddit (OP)
Been filling this role for nearly 4 years now. In TN in the United States.
Professionaljuggler@reddit
Our msp quietly changed my title to senior sysadmin without telling me nor giving me a corresponding raise.
40513786934@reddit
pretty typical for small MSP work. the pay is crap, but the experience is valuable. I'd apply to internal roles as jr. sys admin or even sys admin at a small company until something better comes along
mweitsen@reddit
Didn't notice you mention what state / country you're in which factors into COL and pay
GX_EN@reddit
You didn't get too deep into your knowledge of virtualization, storage, data center work, etc..
If you have solid skills there, what you described would be closer to 80K for someone with a few years under their belt in any major metro area, IMO. If not more.
sixblazingshotguns@reddit
If you're comfortable, stay with it. Sounds fine to me.
tensorfish@reddit
On paper they have you as tier 2 because tier 2 is cheaper than saying you are quietly carrying half the MSP. If you are doing escalations, onboarding and offboarding, client visits, dashboards, documentation, projects and every-third-week on call for $56k, the title and pay are both lagging the job. Turn that mess into a boring list of owned systems and client-facing responsibilities, then use it for either a raise conversation or a cleaner exit.
Calm_House8714@reddit
Knowledge Management/Manager System Admin/Engineer Identity Management/Manager.
That's how I see it. Companies, especially small ones sometimes... love to take advantage of the "we're a family here" attitude to undervalue employees.
Barious_01@reddit
You sound to me like a system admin. Definitely fight for more money. Or start finding a way to get leverage on compensation. Apply for sys admin roles and compare pay. I would think your comp should be closer to 90k with that skill set. I was undercut on title for a long time though and now am finally on track for being actual sys admin. In thr mid 80k range at tier one so I have a lot of room to grow and expect larger compensation when moving to t2/t3 as per our company structure.
rootcurios@reddit
I may have missed it, but depending on the state you're in, it certainly seems like your being raked over coals.