You in I.T? What do you then?

[k0pp0]

I understood the Citrix part of what you said!I'm currently producing a C++ library for processing Finite State Automata and another one for automatic generation of UML Object Sequence Diagrams from running code. I also write preprocessors and parsers for reverse engineering source code. I enjoy walks in the park etc.

Looked at wiki page for finite state engines. Stopped looking after about 10 seconds.

[Brad]

You grasped a full understanding of finite state machines in ten seconds from a wiki page!? We have a job for you here!

[Decider-VT]

I'm having some fun with a QA tester at the moment for our citrix published desktop build. He's incredibly thorough (or anal) and keeps pulling things out of the bag that only a seasoned windows user/geek would do and that I've forgotten to close down.

Good stuff though. Have you done anything with Loadrunner/HP Quality Center?

Ha, sounds about right. I've found some incredibly obscure stuff since I started a few months ago- one of my favourites was constructing an HTML page in CSV file that limited each line to thirty characters or less. It was like building a ship in a bottle but I managed to break a table out of a dropdown menu populated with answers from the CSV file and broke the rest of the page with a cheeky photo of a trainwreck. Bless IE, it's a tester's playground if you want to upset web developers.

I haven't worked with Loadrunner or HP Quality Centre but they're not really used here from what I've seen so far. At the moment I'm tackling automation of existing manual tests but some of them are ridiculously vague or written in very mangled English, so there's as much housekeeping as there is coding.

[randombs]

Looked at wiki page for finite state engines. Stopped looking after about 10 seconds.

[Duncan James Waugh]

Also a software engineer, like Brad mainly C++. Spent the majority of my career in smartphone OS development and now working on a 90's style FPS using the Unreal engine.

[PeteJ]

I manage the support and infrastructure team for our company, currently 8 people supporting 550ish. I've worked in the team for ten years and been the team leader for the past year, which means in twelve months I've forgotten how to do almost everything

Basically a jack of all trades, covering citrix, VMware, server and desktop support and also our legacy PABX which is about 15 years old now. My main skill gap is definitely storage and quite light on SQL databases but I'll get onto that one day.
Along with rolling out Windows 7 (yeah we're quite far behind!) and getting our workforce more mobile, I'm also working on a full datacentre replacement project for next year, which should be fun\a nightmare. Aiming for VDI + IPT throughout, so lots of new technology and headaches to enjoy!

[Garf]

I specialise in messaging technologies - been working with Exchange Server since v5, and have completed a number of designs, migrations and then managing these over the years. Also work with associated stuff like archiving products, message hygiene products and services and also a bit of storage here and there. My main concern is how Microsoft are pushing Exchange as a cloud/hybrid solution which means I may need to re-evaluate what I do in the future.

I manage the support and infrastructure team for our company, currently 8 people supporting 550ish. I've worked in the team for ten years and been the team leader for the past year, which means in twelve months I've forgotten how to do almost everything

Pete - interested to hear that - I moved jobs last year after 13 years at the same place and took on a messaging team leader role - in the last 9 months, I have had much less to do with the technical side and more (much more) of the management side - recruitment, performance reviews, budgets and so on.

I am fighting to hold onto to my technical skills, and am hoping that the Exchange 2013 project I am currently working on will help, but at some point I need to decide if giving up technical stuff is the way forward, so definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on that transition.

[k0pp0]

I specialise in messaging technologies - been working with Exchange Server since v5, and have completed a number of designs, migrations and then managing these over the years. Also work with associated stuff like archiving products, message hygiene products and services and also a bit of storage here and there. My main concern is how Microsoft are pushing Exchange as a cloud/hybrid solution which means I may need to re-evaluate what I do in the future.



Pete - interested to hear that - I moved jobs last year after 13 years at the same place and took on a messaging team leader role - in the last 9 months, I have had much less to do with the technical side and more (much more) of the management side - recruitment, performance reviews, budgets and so on.

I am fighting to hold onto to my technical skills, and am hoping that the Exchange 2013 project I am currently working on will help, but at some point I need to decide if giving up technical stuff is the way forward, so definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on that transition.

The whole move into management is one that plagues me all the time. I think I could make a relatively simple move into a managerial role (Citix shared service manager), but I'd have to completely bin off my techy skills. I've already lost a fair bit in the last 7 months or so through being bandied around a few different projects at work and having to give a lot of my old hands on work to colleagues in Slovakia and Hungary.

Difficult decision, different stresses and pressures to endure - my main concern would be with having to do vast amounts of budgetary work. bleaugh.

[k0pp0]

You grasped a full understanding of finite state machines in ten seconds from a wiki page!? We have a job for you here!

Hah! I looked. Looked some more. Brain hurty. Hurty LOTS.

[Mayhem]

Interesting noting the mentions of Citrix, as I work FOR Citrix currently... supposedly QA, job title is Senior Test Engineer, but essentially it means pretty much doing everything but programming in our team: customer and client support, bug testing, bug resolution, bug analysis, documentation, website content, liaising with the Chinese minions, liaising with ShareFile, and more.

[k0pp0]

Interesting noting the mentions of Citrix, as I work FOR Citrix currently... .

Whereabouts do you work? at the Chalfont office? Might be travelling there soon ish.

Don't worry, I won't IM you loads of Citrix questions from here on in.

Much.

[Ginger Tosser]

Currently I'm a SCCM administrator, occasionally do a bit of application packaging. Living the IT dream

[randombs]

My helpdesk job involves taking Japanese messages for help, bunging them into Google Translate and then forwarding them to the relevant US IT team when necessary. Any words I don't understand go into a groovy Excel sheet.

I need to learn C# because the plan is to have me support/create internal software within 1-2 years.

[PeteJ]

Pete - interested to hear that - I moved jobs last year after 13 years at the same place and took on a messaging team leader role - in the last 9 months, I have had much less to do with the technical side and more (much more) of the management side - recruitment, performance reviews, budgets and so on

Once upon a time I just had to focus on my own work so had the time to learn what I needed to. Now I'm accountable for the work everybody in my team does so need to spent a fair amount of time each day making sure we're moving forwards. There simply isn't the time in the day to learn everything technical and manage people\projects at the same time. My old position wasn't back filled when I moved job, so I do still operate as a infrastructure guy and still have to implement new systems and solutions, but with less time to do it, and multiple other pressure points, I am finding it quite a stressful role.

It might just be a point in time though, as mentioned earlier in the thread we're working on implementing a whole new DC so that should be a nice meaty project to get stuck into.

Currently I'm a SCCM administrator, occasionally do a bit of application packaging. Living the IT dream

A few of us spent a whole summer once doing application packaging for SCCM. What joy that was!
Do you find SCCM stupidly slow and unreliable? It's great when it works but some days it just doesn't seem to be arsed to deploy anything. We're running 2007, looking to upgrade next year.

PS - Citrix! Ugh, I really hate Citrix! We're on 6.5 which is a huge improvement over our previous 4.5, but I swear they make the whole thing needlessly complicated. Netscalers are the worst!

[Pezley]

I work in Energy Trading developing and supporting systems which allow people to trade energy. Think wallstreet but for gas, coal, power and oil.

Have just been offered a new job. Mega commute but also mega money. No idea what to do yet. The coinflip might have to start Sunday night before I have to have my decision. Best out of 57 ?!