Growing Along With Your Company

By Mathew Schwartz | August 2008

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Change is tough. That's especially true for IT employees in a growing business.

For starters, smaller companies prioritize tactical requirements, like keeping systems running and meeting service-level agreements. Larger companies emphasize long-term strategies, such as dismantling business and technology silos or creating more formal processes and procedures.

Moving from one model to the other isn't easy. "The challenge IT shops have as they grow is to use their additional capabilities to remain agile and close to customers while implementing more rigor," say Forrester Research Analyst Marc Cecere.

Furthermore, cultures often clash in growing companies. The atmosphere tends to become more formal, hierarchies more apparent, technology workers used to juggling multiple tasks are assigned more fixed roles, and the whole raison d’être driving IT evolves from "providing services" to "reducing operating costs and generating business value."

All of this change can challenge your sanity. But there are upsides. In general, the larger the organization, the more room it offers for advancement within your existing field, in a new specialty or as an IT manager. Also, larger organizations tend to allocate more funds to ongoing education, which helps you keep your skills current. Finally, employees who really "get it" when it comes to helping a business grow will learn invaluable skills while improving their job security by making themselves known - and considered essential - to upper managers and other business types.

How exactly can you help your company while gaining new skills and furthering your IT career? Read on.

Changeability Beats Scalability

Jon Collins, a service director at UK-based research firm Freeform Dynamics, recommends branching out. "'Cross-skilling' and just having the ability to see things outside your own technical domain is a very useful capability," he says. "For example if you're a security engineer, learn networking. If you're a networking engineer, learn security. If you're a database guy, understand more about the applications that support it."

Leon Kappelman, a professor of information systems at the University of North Texas, says a crucial skill will be your ability to manage change. "Sure, big guys have more resources to hire folks. So many of them may see dealing with growth as a scale issue. But size may not always matter, especially when it's about different skill needs."

Instead, the important thing is to understand how to reconcile business goals and logic with technical changes, Kappelman says. "It's like the difference between just knowing how to fix a pipe versus knowing how to plumb an entire house," he explains. "A good plumber can learn how to work with a new pipe material. But designing the plumbing for the new addition and engineering its integration with the existing plumbing systems? That is the critical skill in a time of change, whether strategic or tactical, human or technical."

Befriend a Business Person

Hiring managers think so, too. "They'll talk about being able to connect the logical and the physical," says Kappelman. "What does that mean? It means I can talk to the business people and the geeks, that I can translate the technical into business words."

What's the best way for a tech staffer to learn to "talk business?" Simple, says Collins. "A lot of that just comes from peer-to-peer relationships. It doesn't have to be trying to get a seat in the boardroom."

Why Data Center Experts Are Sexy

Adding cross-skilling and awareness of business needs to your repertoire can be rewarding. For example, the New York Times reports data center experts - typically mechanical or electrical engineers by training - have seen their salaries rise an average 20 percent over the last two years. Those with experience can command six-figure salaries, and even new employees with only a two-year college degree may start at $100,000 per year. Historically, the position was never glamorous or so well-paid.

What changed? The nature of the data center itself. As companies grow and data centers expand, electricity costs are skyrocketing, footprints are reaching physical limits, heat is wreaking havoc with equipment, pushing companies in the direction opposite of "green." Successfully balancing all of these challenges requires someone who can do more than swap out rack-mounted equipment.

Don’t Master Everything

At the same time, succeeding in IT doesn't require a Ph.D. in systems theory. In fact, "it's dangerous to suggest that everyone should be business people now, or that everyone should have an understanding of a broad range of things," cautions Collins. "The real, practical advice would be to really just stretch in a direction that's comfortable, but outside your traditional skill set."

With that in mind (and with apologies to JFK) now may be the time to ask not what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company. Because as it grows, so do your career opportunities.

Mathew Schwartz writes about business and technology from Pennsylvania.

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