Anyone else here in IT or a tech related field?

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I've heard the joke that half the people in Silicon Valley are on the spectrum, idk how true that is. I got my AA in IT, but didn't get any job offers in the field until I got my A+ and MCP certifications. I'm still working on my Network+ and trying to teach myself coding. Been at the same entry level job for 4 years as the sole tech at a school, it's a mix of help desk, inventory/project management and junior admin responsibilities. Every school has one tech, and we all report to the IT department, and also our principals, so it's like I have two bosses. I have to deal with teachers as users but also students, even in not IT related responsibilities. I have crossing guard and cafeteria duty posts (which I hate) as well as managing social media and our TV studio.

They say initiation in the IT field means dealing with users and "other duties as assigned" first and then you can earn your stripes as an admin and mostly work with just computers and other techs. Before this I was a student and an intern in a computer repair shop/school where I was working mostly on computers with other techs, I really miss that. Now I only see other techs during workshops and yearly meetings, and that's gone because of the pandemic.

I have really bad imposter syndrome and can't seem to find direction or figure out how to advance, or maybe I'm afraid to. It took me years to even get a job and then it was just odd jobs until I found an actual career if you can call this that.

Last edited by usagibryan on 20 Jul 2020, 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've been in IT my entire professional career, currently doing web development for a company in MA. I suspect a lot of folks here are in IT.

<-- MSEE for about 40 years.

Software developer for one and a half years now. I'm non-diagnosed but I do very much suspect I am somewhere on the spectrum.

You guys are veterans, that's really cool. Do you remember 10BASE5 ethernet cables and vampire taps that supposedly went into the ceiling? Or bus topologies where the cables had terminators at the ends? The CompTIA exams cover things that are obselete, I don't know why, but I still find them interesting.



How did you teach yourself coding? What languages do you know?

I'm non-diagnosed too, I don't know if I'm on the spectrum or if I just have OCD and have social anxiety/awkwardness.

Of course! During the 80's I was on the hardware side of things and did network installations all over the US. Had to have terminators at the end or it wouldn't work.

I remember 20mA current-loop TTY networks.  Whatever you typed on one terminal was printed out on all the rest.

I had a very particular path. I enrolled in a soft dev bootcamp made specifically for soldiers exiting the military.

Before I had gone into the bootcamp I did lots of C# tutorials, most of which came from microsoft. That taught me a lot but the majority of my knowledge came from class. Theres a lot of things that structured education teaches you that you won't get from just building programs, especially if your like me and want to understand how stuff works .

As far as languages goes, I do C#,classic ASP, SQL, javascript, jquery, and html. Now I wouldnt say I know them all equally, I only know C# fairly well, the rest I struggle with here and there.

So with the whole diagnosis thing, I don't think it really matters if you have it or not, but if you can relate to the stuff people post here and it helps you then you are probably in the right spot. At least thats how I am taking it right now.

Same boat, and my inability to read social situations has become a real issue.

Yup, most of my professional work has been in IT..... trying to get hired again into IT at the moment (if covid would stop being an issue )

I have a AS and a BS degree and I do tier 3 app support i have no certs went the degree route.
I am NT I see some people in the spectrum but they mostly have jobs that don't involve having to deal with people every day.

I used to do contract work for the Forest Service. Worked in a call center providing technical support. Then after that, I was in the private sector working at a local university's helpdesk. I ended up leaving IT because of the way techs are treated by upper management. The lowest on the totem pole don't matter at all and have no say in the company's decision making. We were told to meet service level requirements and ask no questions.

I grew up faffing about with computers and radios.
300-1200 baud dial ups and token ring over coax.
CB, amateur radio and listening to radio scanners for recreation.
Career wise I went down the medical path.
No regrets as I find my work very interesting but IT and radio comms still feature heavily in my life.