IT jobs: development vs. operations

[oldbird]

As per title, which one is more stressful with unpredictable working hours and/or unpredictable ad-hoc requests coming in everyday that demands immediate actions/answers, quick-thinking improvisations and response within 1 or 2 hours.

Would like to hear from anyone who are kind enough to share their experience. Thanks.

Career prospects/progression and salary are not my top priorities. Willing to give them up for a stable repetitive job without too much nasty surprises waiting in office each day.

Originally Posted by oldbird

As per title, which one is more stressful with unpredictable working hours and/or unpredictable ad-hoc requests coming in everyday that demands immediate actions/answers, quick-thinking improvisations and response within 1 or 2 hours.

Would like to hear from anyone who are kind enough to share their experience. Thanks.

Career prospects/progression and salary are not my top priorities. Willing to give them up for a stable repetitive job without too much nasty surprises waiting in office each day.

If stable and repetitive job regardless of pay is what you want, why not just stick with some general administration job in the public sector?

To me its very silly to join an industry that is supposed to the forefront of technological advancement and filled with cheap labour from India and Philippines undercutting each other and expect to just sit around and do the same thing everyday till end of times.

[oldbird]

Just to share my personal view. Correct me if I am wrong.

IT development

(1) Working hours can vary. Overtime and crunches needed for last minute user requirements/changes or use of unfamiliar technology. However, on normal days, people in development role can better plan and schedule their activities unless fire-fighting.
(2) Decisions/requests may not be time-critical or need to be made on the spot immediately. Development teams are given time (a day to a week) to research on a requirement and possible options before returning to user to propose the recommended implementation details.
(3) Usually no need to work shift. Irregular hours only happen during deployment or on-site testing of new systems.

IT operations

(1) Working hours can be erratic due to system maintenance, patching during off-office hours (weekends and early mornings 12am - 4am).
(2) Due to some 24x7 round the clock operations, personnel need to work in shifts.
(3) Common for ad-hoc requests for information, status updates or restoration of failed critical services. However for stable systems, very little required and life is peaceful. High stress for swift system troubleshooting and recovery.

Originally Posted by oldbird

Just to share my personal view. Correct me if I am wrong.

IT development

(1) Working hours can vary. Overtime and crunches needed for last minute user requirements/changes or use of unfamiliar technology. However, on normal days, people in development role can better plan and schedule their activities unless fire-fighting.
(2) Decisions/requests may not be time-critical or need to be made on the spot immediately. Development teams are given time (a day to a week) to research on a requirement and possible options before returning to user to propose the recommended implementation details.
(3) Usually no need to work shift. Irregular hours only happen during deployment or on-site testing of new systems.

IT operations

(1) Working hours can be erratic due to system maintenance, patching during off-office hours (weekends and early mornings 12am - 4am).
(2) Due to some 24x7 round the clock operations, personnel need to work in shifts.
(3) Common for ad-hoc requests for information, status updates or restoration of failed critical services. However for stable systems, very little required and life is peaceful. High stress for swift system troubleshooting and recovery.

You are making sweeping generalizations hoping to seek confirmation that IT development is good for you. It varies with company, industry, actual job / projects and your boss & management.

Bottom line is IT is not the place to just sit around go through repeat motion every day, you will be eaten by the FTs in no time with this sort of attitude. Better do something else.

[oldbird]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If stable and repetitive job regardless of pay is what you want, why not just stick with some general administration job in the public sector?

To me its very silly to join an industry that is supposed to the forefront of technological advancement and filled with cheap labour from India and Philippines undercutting each other and expect to just sit around and do the same thing everyday till end of times.

Public sector seldom if ever consider graduates for general admin positions, especially those of engineering/IT background. They usually do not have the general admin experience.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You are making sweeping generalizations hoping to seek confirmation that IT development is good for you. It varies with company, industry, actual job / projects and your boss & management.

Bottom line is IT is not the place to just sit around go through repeat motion every day, you will be eaten by the FTs in no time with this sort of attitude. Better do something else.

I am listing down the pros and cons as I see it. Just to see if this is indeed the typical case as experienced by other IT professionals. I wish to set my expectations right.

I pointed out that IT operations can be quite OK if the system/SOP are stable and I do not object to working on weekends/off office hours, as long as the number of working hours do not go crazy. Not that it is all bad, and IT development is all good.

Btw, it appears that you have some virulent hatred for foreigners for whatever reason. Every reply of yours, you have to bring them in. Did they put you out of job or got you fired?

Originally Posted by oldbird

Public sector seldom if ever consider graduates for general admin positions, especially those of engineering/IT background. They usually do not have the general admin experience.

What are you talking about? Most ministry level jobs are administrative and paper writing in nature. So many of such jobs in carres.gov and you cannot even find one which is repetitive, stable enough for you?

I am listing down the pros and cons as I see it. Just to see if this is indeed the typical case as experienced by other IT professionals. I wish to set my expectations right.

I pointed out that IT operations can be quite OK if the system/SOP are stable and I do not object to working on weekends/off office hours, as long as the number of working hours do not go crazy. Not that it is all bad, and IT development is all good.

The problem with this sort of mentality is most experienced workers will tell you, its your boss and colleagues and company culture that makes the difference. It isn't about whether you are ops or development. You can't make sweeping statements on the characteristic of 1 department vs another.

Btw, it appears that you have some virulent hatred for foreigners for whatever reason. Every reply of yours, you have to bring them in. Did they put you out of job or got you fired?

It is not about virulent hatred, your lack of experience is showing that you don't seem to understand the situation in the IT field. It is by far the industry with the highest number of foreigners, that's a fact and nothing to do with personal hatred.

These foreigners are mainly from India and Philippines and most of them have post graduate masters or PHD (credible or not is another story). If you want stable standard work, this will by definition mean some sort of service centre, helpdesk support or process outsourcing work. You will be crushed by them in no time because 1) you are the minority in office 2) they are cheaper 3) they have better paper qualifications 4) they are mobile and can easily relocate to a cheaper country

As a local if you want to do well in IT, you have to either move into large scale enterprise project management, business partnering, niche specialist or engineering sales/BD. These are definitely not the places that you can expect to sit back, relax one corner, work life balance and go through motion doing repetitive process everyday.

In summary, either buck up and change your attitude or go find general work in a stable organization. Don't be an idiot who gets retrenched at 30 years old due to lack of competitiveness and ironically becoming the one with "virulent hatred" for foreigners.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What are you talking about? Most ministry level jobs are administrative and paper writing in nature. So many of such jobs in carres.gov and you cannot even find one which is repetitive, stable enough for you?

If one is not a scholar, probably won't get even a chance to write paper. Writing paper is an art in the civil service, and it takes skills to do it well. One can send in his resume to apply for policy writing, and it goes straight into the waste basket. That's reality and don't make it sound as if anyone who bothers to apply for a "paper writing" job can get it easily. Do you think the civil service hires anyone who applies because paper writing is a simple brain dead job?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The problem with this sort of mentality is most experienced workers will tell you, its your boss and colleagues and company culture that makes the difference. It isn't about whether you are ops or development. You can't make sweeping statements on the characteristic of 1 department vs another.

Understood. This is the most helpful paragraph yet. Either way can be heaven or hell depending on the environment. Then again, don't mind me asking if you're an IT professional who has been there and done that?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It is not about virulent hatred, your lack of experience is showing that you don't seem to understand the situation in the IT field. It is by far the industry with the highest number of foreigners, that's a fact and nothing to do with personal hatred.

These foreigners are mainly from India and Philippines and most of them have post graduate masters or PHD (credible or not is another story). If you want stable standard work, this will by definition mean some sort of service centre, helpdesk support or process outsourcing work. You will be crushed by them in no time because 1) you are the minority in office 2) they are cheaper 3) they have better paper qualifications 4) they are mobile and can easily relocate to a cheaper country

As a local if you want to do well in IT, you have to either move into large scale enterprise project management, business partnering, niche specialist or engineering sales/BD. These are definitely not the places that you can expect to sit back, relax one corner, work life balance and go through motion doing repetitive process everyday.

In summary, either buck up and change your attitude or go find general work in a stable organization. Don't be an idiot who gets retrenched at 30 years old due to lack of competitiveness and ironically becoming the one with "virulent hatred" for foreigners.

I believe anonymity online entitles one to use strong languages and politeness goes out of the window. Seriously, you may need anger management.

to the poster above, most degree level civil service job require you to write paper or memo. how come you think only scholars writer papers?

as for the rest i find the advices given quite accurate, dunno why the poster keep thinking people are just being angry. sounds more like you just want to hear what you want to hear.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

to the poster above, most degree level civil service job require you to write paper or memo. how come you think only scholars writer papers?

Depends on what kind of "papers." If we include any emails, memos or documents composed by any working level people, sure. Then almost all white collar professionals would be writing papers.

What I want to say is inside the bureaucracy, only certain high level personnel are entitled to write certain high level papers. Not the usual monthly reports or project documents that everyone churns out.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

as for the rest i find the advices given quite accurate, dunno why the poster keep thinking people are just being angry. sounds more like you just want to hear what you want to hear.

Well, when you see the vocabulary being used, and the tones in his/her replies, normal people can tell.

Anyway the thread is about IT development and IT operations, not about civil service "paper writing" jobs.

The trend is for both IT ops and programming jobs to be offshored or outsourced. Don’t talk about work life balance, I think even if you work 80 hours a week also hard to keep the job. Try networking in the banking industry, at least get into the back office and then apply to transfer to other safer places within IT.