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Technology operations leadership
IT Manager
You stop fixing things and start being responsible for whether they get fixed.
Typical pay
$95k-$160k
How you get in
Years of IT experience plus leadership capability
Outlook
Steady across every sector
IT managers lead technical teams, budgets and vendor relationships. The promotion from engineer is a real job change — technical judgment still matters, but people, money and priorities become the work.
A day in the life
- 8:00aReview the ticket queue and overnight incidents
- 9:00aOne-on-ones with team members
- 11:00aVendor negotiation on a licensing renewal
- 1:00pLunch
- 2:00pBudget planning and capital requests
- 4:00pEscalation from a department head about a recurring issue
How to get in
Engineer to manager
Duration
5-10 years
Cost
$0
Credential
None — track record
- Build deep technical experience in systems, network or support
- Take a team lead or senior role and start mentoring
- Learn budgeting, vendor management and project planning
- Move to IT manager, usually within your own organization
Degree plus certifications
Duration
4-6 years
Cost
$40,000-$150,000
Credential
Bachelor's in IS or CS, plus ITIL or PMP
- Complete an information systems or computer science degree
- Work in IT operations to build credibility with engineers
- Add ITIL for service management or PMP for project delivery
- Enter management with both technical and process grounding
MSP or consulting route
Duration
4-8 years
Cost
$0-$10,000
Credential
Vendor and service management certifications
- Work at a managed service provider serving many clients
- Learn to run technology for entire small businesses
- Move into a virtual CIO or service delivery manager role
- Broad exposure faster than any single in-house environment
What people love
- · Strong pay and organizational influence
- · Every industry needs the role
- · Path to director and CIO
- · Promotion from within is the norm
What wears people down
- · Blamed for outages you did not cause
- · Budget constraints against rising expectations
- · Hands-on technical work largely disappears
- · Caught between executives and engineers