Second step getting serious about this (a continuation of a pervious post)

Good evening everyone!
A couple of months ago, I made a decision to again take more control of where my IT career was going. Here is that post for those that may have missed it:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1825028

Spark notes version: I've been using ESX since version 3.5, though it's never been my "main" duty professionally. I've kept my home lab up over the past few years, and also began using the Hands on Labs as well to learn about products I couldn't (still can't) afford to purchase for my own use. I decided I wanted VMWare to be more central to my career.

I got my VCA very quickly and easily. I've been studying for my VCP as much as I can in the evenings and weekends, though with my work schedule that was going much slower than I had wanted. My present employer was moving my career farther from doing "actual" IT work and down a path I was a bit resistant to - moving into Solution Architecture, with a plan to make me an Enterprise Architect in "a few years". While a valid and interesting path, it wasn't a path I wanted to be on, and honestly didn't feel ready for yet. With my VCA and decent history with vmware, I sought to get in somewhere that I could do more of what I believe I want to do.

A lot of cards came into play with my current employer - "downsizing", "budget cuts" are becoming the norm, and as an Engineer recently forced into an Architecture role I'm not yet able to fully execute on, I could see a potential for me to be "downsized". I kicked a few things into high gear, and put out feelers for a path out.

I was getting a lot of offers for jobs that didn't interest me, and a few that didn't fit me at all. Through all the sifting, one opportunity stuck out at me - a short term contract working with a well-known company, working with what I believe would fall under the medium size of vmware infrastructures. They're implementing vCAC, which I'm only familiar with in a lab setting. They have many other projects in motion for IT, some centered on VMWare others not.
I interviewed with them, under a title of "VMWare Engineer". Luckily, my experiences through the years carried me through the interview well, though obviously I'm very "light" on vCAC. Even still, they decided to bring me on board and let me show them how I can contribute - they have other experts handling the actual vCAC deployment, so I can't bung that one up, but I can learn from it!
Tonight, I accepted their written offer, and will be starting on 10/6. If I prove myself well enough, the contract will be extended, with a possibility of also being converted to FTE.

So, tomorrow I put notice in with my present employer, and will also cease my evening and weekend working, so I can put more time in on my home lab and the Hands on Labs. In two weeks I'm unlikely to learn very much, but at least I can attempt to get more useful information into my head, and then quickly apply it to a real life situation to solidify it all.

I'm very, very excited about this opportunity, and also a little nervous. I've never done a contract based role before, so that's a new experience for me. I'm also a little nervous that, even though I've worked with ESX a lot in the past, my lack of vCAC experience may hold me back. Only time will tell though, and I know I can learn quickly, so hopefully it all plays out fine in the end.

In any case, I don't know most of you at all, but I thought I'd share my little "success" story as it plays out in real time. Some of you have offered help and did in fact help me via PM in various ways. To all of you, thank you. Your thoughts helped me along. I have a LOT to learn, especially since there's so much to vmware that I haven't been exposed to, and as some of you pointed out, you can't just be a one-trick pony in this world. I'll learn what I can from this job, and continue to push myself and learn on my own time as well.

Congrats to you!!
Seems like half the battle is figuring out where you want to be, then finding a position that matches your desires.

My turn.

Excellent!

Thanks . It's been an interesting past couple of months, and I can't help but to be extremely excited by all of this. The next few months will be challenging (which I look forward to) and a big "sink or swim" time for me, I believe.

Congratulations for sure, it's always a big step to give up relative security of employment to take on a new job regardless of circumstances.

What happens though if they don't extend the contract? In practical terms you basically have to essentially start applying for other jobs the day you get to the new job. Some companies manage to turn applications around quickly, others (larger corporate employers, edu, or gov employers) manage to draw the process out for weeks.

Thuleman - it is certainly a risk. If they don't extend or convert me to FTE, then I'm out a job. Pretty much the same thing when a company decides to "downsize". I had a few contract choices available to me, and I vetted them in my own way, but one of the points I made sure to research is how often XYZ company extends or converts people. The place I'm going has a history of almost 100% of the time doing one or the other.
In the mean time, I continue to build up my rainy day fund, so if I don't get converted or extended, I'm not in a bad place. Right now I have about 4 months of living expenses saved, and by the end of the contract I'll have 7 or 8 months. Where I live, there is almost a constant need for workers in all areas, so it's unlikely that I'd go more than a month without another job or contract. It also helps to have a broad network that I try to keep up with, so if I'm in a bad spot, I can at least have something, even if not exactly what I'd want.

So yeah, going from "permanent" work (what a load of crock, by the way. I've seen enough "downsizing", "reduction in force" campaigns at every step of the way that I feel permanent employment is a myth - at least with contract you KNOW when you're done) to contract based work is perhaps a little bit of a leap. But, I don't mind being a risk taker .

If you learn things like vCAC and other similar technologies you won't be out of a job long if they end the contract without renewal. And if you learn those things they'll happily extend that contract as people with those skills are almost impossible to find. If you do get decent at it and they don't extend let me know.

Eulogy said:

I continue to build up my rainy day fund, so if I don't get converted or extended, I'm not in a bad place. Right now I have about 4 months of living expenses saved, and by the end of the contract I'll have 7 or 8 months.

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That's far more than most Americans have stashed away. Kudos to you for getting that done.

Well, finished signing the paper work for background check and what not... it's now as official as it gets. I can't wait ti; 10/6 to get into this stuff.

Congrats. I need to do some work on advancing myself as well. Got VCP 18 months ago and a new job 9 months ago, but haven't done much since then.

Well, day one on the job was pretty OK. The usual "stuff" in setting up accounts and so on. Got to dive in and start exploring around on their vCenter servers. About 128 hosts, 5 datacenters, 2500 some odd VMs. The vCAC implementation is well under way, so I won't be learning a lot about the ground-up build, but in the next couple of weeks I'll get roped in a little for the admin side of things. Finally getting exposure to SRM too though, which is nice as I haven't done much with that outside of the Hands On Labs. I should come away from this 12 weeks with quite a lot of real-life experience!

Well good luck to you. Spend part of your off time looking for new positions.

Hello everyone,
Well, my contract is over half complete now. There's some minor talks about possibly extending it, but those talks are more centering around the "we don't think we'll be able to". Shucks.
I've learned a lot, however, and for that alone I feel this was a good step still. It has been, at times, very challenging. From that though, I've learned quite a lot and have had a lot of fun as well.
Lately I've started to get my feet a little more wet with scripting. One example being - last night we were adding new datastores from a new VMAX we brought in. Without the datastores present, you cannot create a datastore cluster through the GUI though. I wanted to get as much prep done as possible, so when the change control window opened I could execute faster on it. So, a script was born. Essentially, it creates the datastore cluster via PowerCLI. Once the datastores are added, another script runs and moves those into the appropriate cluster, and then sets all the parameters we want, including the round-robin on iops. Was very cool to see it chug through.

Today we've started migrating some VMs to the vmax, which is very routine stuff. So far so good all around though.

The vCAC stuff mostly feel through - it's on a soft hold right now, and even if it does get picked up it'll be executed by vmware, and well after my contract is done. I did get to see a bit of it, mostly building up the VMs to run it and some very basic blueprints, but nothing involved.

Also have been getting a lot of UCS experience, which is something I am finding I quite enjoy. I'm actually trying to see if I can get some UCS hardware in my home lab now - though that'll be an expensive endeavor.

Lastly, I've been mucking around in vCOPs - both the standard and custom UIs. Trudging through the XML and what not is a bit clunky, but I'm starting to get the hang of it, I think. From what I've read about vRealize, it sounds like vmware has taken a lot of the frustration out of this, so I'm hoping to eventually get time in a production environment on vRO.

So much more to learn, even before I can really think about getting my VCP. But, I'm having fun learning what I can, when I can. I just hope to find another place to go to where I can continue to learn, make a good impact on business, and enjoy my job and co-workers .

Well, just in time, contract is extended through April 30, woo!

Congrats!

Eulogy said:

Well, just in time, contract is extended through April 30, woo!

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Congratulations! That's a pretty nice way to be validated.
After 7 months on contract people will start to think about whether it will make more sense (financially) to just bring you on as FTE. I recently changed jobs and found a contractor that had been working on my team for 8 months already (not project specific). There's tons of work so I am converting that position to an FTE and am about to make an offer to one of the applicants. Contracts are fine for short term work to get over some deployment or project related increase in workload, but if there's simply enough critical work to be done on a day-to-day then the company is usually better off with an FTE.

That's a case that we're starting to make to leadership. One of the difficulties is that this company is going through a sort of IT re-org right now. The team I'm on effectively lost two people (promotions), but there is no open headcount. As we're under new leadership now, we need to spend some time socializing (yay, buzzwords) the need for a body on this team doing what I do.
Personally, I'm quite enjoying it here - under both the old and new leadership. I like the team I'm on from a duties and personnel standpoint, the commute isn't too terrible, and it's somewhat challenging for me. More and more I'm finding things to script out, which is really building that skillset out pretty decently. I, of course, still have quite a long way to go before I'll call myself good or even decent at it, but I am learning quite a lot. One of the former team members was very skilled in scripting and has basically taken me under his wing, which has been very awesome.
So, I'm hoping well before this extension burns out, that something starts to happen around conversion to FTE. We'll just have to see where everything lands. In any case, I feel like I have a decent amount of experience now, as a sole responsibility, that I can likely keep on pursuing this career arc for the foreseeable future.

Thanks again everyone for you input and encouragement!

Oh man. I just looked at what the required week-long class costs for VCP5... $6k! Holy crap! I was hoping to go for that in Q1 next year, but it'll take me a good bit of time to save up the scrap for that. Youch.

You can get it for 20% off or so if you become a VMUG member which is $250/yr or so.

Oh, good to know. I'm a free VMUG member right now. I'll become a real member in January. That definitely helps!

Well, for those keeping score at home... the "to hire" part of the "contract to hire" has not panned out. They did extend me through pretty much the end of the year. However, I have found myself in the position to grab a FTE role not nearly as far from home, with decent pay/benefits.
I'll still be hands on with virtualization daily, with some other added responsibilities. It'll actually be beneficial for me to not be so laser focused, I believe - at least right now.
This contract has been a pretty awesome experience. Not only did I learn quite a lot here, but I also learned that contracts are just not "for me" after all. There are pros/cons to everything, and the pros for me just didn't hold up over time. I'll miss my diminishing team and the fat paychecks with 50 hours, and paid over time on them, and some of the challenges we're facing. But, onto something a bit more sustainable long term and with a new set of challenges .