What should the starting pay be?

Hey everyone,

First off, sorry if I’m hitting the wrong group with this, but it felt like the most logical spot since it’s all IT-related. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how much my role is actually worth and what people are getting paid for doing basically the same thing at other companies.

So, my official title is "System Administrator," but honestly, I don't really consider myself an HBCU-level admin because my job covers pretty much every corner of IT you can think of. I’ve got my high school diploma and I’m just a couple of exams away from finishing my Associate's degree (finished year 3).

My day-to-day involves: maintaining about 40 workstations, managing servers and the network, looking after the surveillance systems, and implementing basically anything new the business needs—whether that’s setting up a new desktop or laptop, deploying a new data server, or even building custom software for specific business processes. I’m constantly coding little things to automate tasks and make life easier for everyone else. On top of that, I handle all our mobile and landline communications, which means dealing with everything from service plans to the actual handsets. I’m not sure if that’s usually included in the job description, but I also manage the internet connectivity and traffic distribution across the whole office.

Since I started, I’ve completely overhauled the entire network architecture—VPN, internal LAN, fiber optics, everything—setting it up the way it *should* be, because when I first walked in, it was a total mess. Half the company was still running on Windows XP, so I’ve managed to upgrade about 80% of the fleet so far. I also built two custom programs to streamline our time-tracking and attendance, plus a tool to automate parts of Excel for those massive reports we have to run.

Everyone at the office sees that I’m giving it my all and that I’m genuinely here to support them, because at the end of the day, my whole purpose is making their lives easier. I won't even get into how many overtime hours I put in to get everything running correctly, though I’m honestly worried the overtime isn't going to stop anytime soon.

So, my question is: What does this kind of effort and workload actually pay in other places? I’m not going to mention my current salary, because I don't want that to skew your answers.

P.S. I’m the only "tech guy" in the entire company, so there’s zero backup for me. I do absolutely everything myself. =)

Steven Chase12 said:Hey everyone,

First off, sorry if I'm drifting a bit from the main topic here, but this feels like the right spot since it's all IT-related. I'm trying to figure out how much my current role is actually valued in the market and what people doing similar work are making elsewhere.

Basically, my title is "System Administrator," but I don't really consider myself an HBCU sysadmin because I handle pretty much every IT aspect under the sun. I have my Associate's degree and I'm just a few credits shy of finishing my Bachelor's (currently finishing up year 3).

My daily grind involves: maintaining about 40 workstations, managing servers and the network, keeping the surveillance system running, and implementing whatever new tech the business needs—everything from setting up a new PC or laptop to deploying a new data server or building custom software for specific business processes. I’m constantly writing code to automate tasks and make life easier for the staff. On top of that, I manage our mobile and landline communications, which means handling everything from phone hardware to service plans. I'm also responsible for the internet connectivity and managing traffic distribution across the company, though I'm not sure if that's standard for this role.

Since I started, I've completely overhauled the entire network (VPN, LAN, fiber optics) to get it up to standard, because when I walked in, it was a total disaster. Half the office was still running on Windows XP, so I've managed to upgrade about 80% of the fleet so far. I also developed two custom programs to streamline employee time tracking and built a tool to automate some heavy lifting within Excel for our massive reports.

Everyone at the office sees that I'm giving it my all; they know I'm genuinely here to support them and make their jobs easier. I won't even go into how many late nights I've put in to get everything organized properly, but honestly, I'm worried those overtime hours aren't going away anytime soon.

So, my question is: What is this kind of effort and workload worth in other companies? I'm going to leave my current salary out of this so I don't bias your answers.

P.S. I'm the only "IT guy" in the whole company, so there's no one to lean on—I do everything myself. =)

What kind of certifications do you hold?

Caught a little downtime so I’m catching up on this... wait, are you telling me his pay actually depends on some "certificate" instead of just successfully doing the job and keeping all those systems running properly????

I'm basically doing the same thing without any programming or overtime, pulling in about $2167, plus I've got around 15 Microsoft certs under my belt (which, let's be real, adds exactly 0% to my paycheck)

Bryan Rivera83 said:I take a similar approach—no coding and zero overtime—for about $2167. I’ve even racked up some 15 Microsoft certifications, though they don't bump my paycheck by a single cent.

So, which ones did you actually go for?

MCSA, MCSA 🙏security, MCSE—back from the Server 2003 days—plus my current MCITP and MCTS certs while I'm just sitting here waiting on one last exam to wrap up this upgrade