Advice needed! Final crossroad, maybe?

[GAT-X103Buster]

41yr old and obtained AWS SA cert in 2021.
I been old sch 'LEMP' full-stack and current senior IT (infra) manager but want to dive into cloud/devops role for the next 5yr at least.

Interviewers told me 'I am neither here nor there' ~ everything know a bit.
I been through a couple of interviews last month, all no news after - i think is because I have 0 hands-on on cloud/devops since I self-learnt devops tools from Udemy but CV i got declare devops (beginner)

now got a SI offer me cloud engineer role to learn on the job (a little of devops to support in-house developers) but they cannot meet my expected salary. my current is $6k and I asked $7k, he negotiated and I panicked and replied expected down to $6k. he say will get back to me.

advice needed? what if they only offer $6k, then should I jump but there is NO monetary motivation, only I like the JD. will it look bad on me if I counter for $6.5k, scare later they think I not interested, play tug-of-war.

what should I do, bros? i may not get an employer who is willing to pay manager salary grade and let me learn on the job!

You wanna dive into cloud / devops with your current knowledge and you expect higher pay?

Buddy no offence, companies have 0 reasons to offer you anything above 6k. Hell, they might even offer you lower. You don't have relevant experience and you're probably on-par with fresh grads who interned as devOps.

Either stick to IT field or take a lower pay and jump to devOps.

IT and CS are not the same thing.

Your current is 6k and you reduced your expected down to 6k in a rush.

I mean, if your current co provides you opportunities to work on devops you would still be earning 6k, you go to the SI you will be earning 6k as well... any diff?

I think you should look in the direction what is the pros and cons switching to the new company? Is it further, so need spend more time travelling, is their culture toxic, etc.

Besides, with your years of experience, you should know... will you hire a person with no practical experience on cloud/devops at 6k, and at the age of 41? I'd rather hire fresh grad and they might be cheaper.

[GAT-X103Buster]

my wife (HR) also said I silly down to 6k so fast.
no, my current company is do vendor coordination, procurement, end user support etc. nothing on programming, devops or cloud (implementation will be by vendor). current company culture is fine, got bonus etc. just that after 3 yrs, I feel I want to pick up technical skills, less of management. I don't want to be rojak, not pure infra (hardware), or pure application (software).

Noted on the salary, LoL sounds like I should consider myself lucky if they offer on par with my current... shall see.
Hope to see more feedback. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Your current is 6k and you reduced your expected down to 6k in a rush.

I mean, if your current co provides you opportunities to work on devops you would still be earning 6k, you go to the SI you will be earning 6k as well... any diff?

I think you should look in the direction what is the pros and cons switching to the new company? Is it further, so need spend more time travelling, is their culture toxic, etc.

Besides, with your years of experience, you should know... will you hire a person with no practical experience on cloud/devops at 6k, and at the age of 41? I'd rather hire fresh grad and they might be cheaper.

Originally Posted by GAT-X103Buster

my wife (HR) also said I silly down to 6k so fast.
no, my current company is do vendor coordination, procurement, end user support etc. nothing on programming, devops or cloud (implementation will be by vendor). current company culture is fine, got bonus etc. just that after 3 yrs, I feel I want to pick up technical skills, less of management. I don't want to be rojak, not pure infra (hardware), or pure application (software).

Noted on the salary, LoL sounds like I should consider myself lucky if they offer on par with my current... shall see.
Hope to see more feedback. Thank you.

since you got ntg to lose, at least still hv job, just cheong and ask for 7k

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You wanna dive into cloud / devops with your current knowledge and you expect higher pay?

Buddy no offence, companies have 0 reasons to offer you anything above 6k. Hell, they might even offer you lower. You don't have relevant experience and you're probably on-par with fresh grads who interned as devOps.

Either stick to IT field or take a lower pay and jump to devOps.

IT and CS are not the same thing.

lmao the only sensible post ITT

just think about it

1. hire 41 year old guy with ton of work experience in IT / management etc but nothing technical who is expecting 6-7k

2. hire some fresh grad, average 25 year old, above average technical skills unless this guy is some private uni dipshit, probably happy with 5k. easier to ********, easier to string along and lowball

yeah i'd rather hire the fresh grad

age discrimination is true, welcome to real world

Originally Posted by GAT-X103Buster

41yr old and obtained AWS SA cert in 2021.
I been old sch 'LEMP' full-stack and current senior IT (infra) manager but want to dive into cloud/devops role for the next 5yr at least.

Interviewers told me 'I am neither here nor there' ~ everything know a bit.
I been through a couple of interviews last month, all no news after - i think is because I have 0 hands-on on cloud/devops since I self-learnt devops tools from Udemy but CV i got declare devops (beginner)

now got a SI offer me cloud engineer role to learn on the job (a little of devops to support in-house developers) but they cannot meet my expected salary. my current is $6k and I asked $7k, he negotiated and I panicked and replied expected down to $6k. he say will get back to me.

advice needed? what if they only offer $6k, then should I jump but there is NO monetary motivation, only I like the JD. will it look bad on me if I counter for $6.5k, scare later they think I not interested, play tug-of-war.

what should I do, bros? i may not get an employer who is willing to pay manager salary grade and let me learn on the job!

I encounter someone from Manager switch to engineer.

Not easy to assign task to this kind of people cause they still have manager mindset.

u ask them work, they find a lot reason to tai chi.

Not a tech person, but I assume there is very limited transferability between what you are doing and what you want to do.

As a hiring manager, I would probably prefer to hire a fresh graduate than an old bird when your experience may not be relevant. You are kinda of in a price taker position instead of a price setter if you are bent on changing roles. Just saying what I will do based on how I interview people

thank you guys for the wake-up call, for bringing me back to reality.

it is harsh but bottom-line is hirer can opt for younger applicants with some related technical skills asking for lesser instead of me.
also from manager to engineer will be tough since I always had vendors to rely on but I really don't want to have 0 specialized skills.
in that case, I should count myself lucky if new cloud/devops role can match my current salary, right.