How to make IT lemonade from obsoleteist/ageist career lemons

Post date: 2021-07-28 12:35:54

I'm an IT generalist, mostly a sysadmin but I was once a coder. Closer to the end of my career than the beginning. I've given up on getting hired as an FTE and I want to put together an IT contracting practice in a more current niche than sysadmin. If you were in my situation, I'd like to hear from you about how you found yourself there and what you specifically did to pivot to success.

I'm an IT generalist, mostly a sysadmin but I was once a coder. I had to leave employment for a couple of years for personal reasons, and now that I'm back looking for work, I see the IT world has greatly changed. My contact network all bugged out into retirement the moment they heard the words devops and Kubernetes at their respective companies, so I'm now totally on the outside looking in. Doesn't help that my 60th is visible on the horizon, either.

I've given up on getting hired as an FTE and I want to put together an IT contracting practice. I can set up and run a small business, but I've never had to fight for work before, particularly in skill areas outside my sysadmin comfort zone.

What I need help on today is how to identify a niche beyond sysadmin I can be credible and profitable in, and how to proceed from there.

If you were in my situation, I'd like to hear from you about how you found yourself there and what you did to pivot to success.

My additional personal complications are 1) a far better doer than salesperson 2) onset of some physical disability, 3) no car 4) tied to my local area which is 5) South Bay/Silicon Valley. I broke out #5 because being there rather than in, say, the Midwest, is probably the big reason why my FTE search was such a struggle.

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