Introduction
My journey in the Australian IT industry didn’t start with a high-level corporate title. It started in 2008 while I was studying for my Master’s in IT at UTS.
An acquaintance was leaving his position and gave me an opportunity to take over the role. That opportunity became my first job in the Australian IT industry as an IT Support Officer.
Since then, I have spent more than a decade working in IT across two companies. Today, I work as an IT Systems Manager.
Looking back, the journey has been filled with challenges, steep learning curves, mistakes, and plenty of lessons. In this post, I want to share some of the experiences that helped shape my career and the lessons I have learned along the way.
1. The Early Days: Learning on the Fly
Starting my first IT job without previous commercial experience was intimidating.
Back in 2008, troubleshooting an IT problem wasn’t as easy as asking an AI tool for an answer. There were no ChatGPT or modern AI assistants to explain an error message in seconds.
Instead, I relied on technical books, documentation, Google searches, late-night study sessions, and, perhaps most importantly, the patience of experienced colleagues.
One thing I learned early in my career was to say yes to opportunities to learn.
Whenever a new project or unfamiliar technology came up, I tried to volunteer even when I wasn’t 100% confident that I knew how to do it.
Sometimes I would say yes during the day and then spend the evening studying how to actually do the work.
It wasn’t always comfortable, but it forced me to learn quickly.
That experience taught me something that has stayed with me throughout my career:
You don’t need to know everything before taking on a new challenge. Sometimes, the challenge itself is what teaches you.
2. The Job Search: 100+ Applications and Interview Lessons
Moving to my second company was a completely different challenge.
I submitted more than 100 job applications and attended around 30 interviews before eventually receiving an offer.
It was a long and sometimes frustrating process.
As a non-native English speaker, interviews were particularly challenging for me. Even after living in Australia for more than a decade, there were times when I struggled to understand exactly what an interviewer was asking.
Earlier in my career, if I didn’t fully understand a question, I sometimes tried to guess what the interviewer meant and answered anyway.
That usually didn’t work very well.
Over time, I learned an important lesson:
Don’t pretend you understand a question when you don’t.
It is completely fine to ask the interviewer to repeat or clarify a question.
For example:
“Pardon me, could you clarify that last part?”
Or simply:
“Sorry, could you please repeat the question?”
Asking for clarification is much better than giving an answer to a question you didn’t actually understand.
For anyone going through the interview process, especially people working in a second language, I think this is an important lesson.
You are being interviewed for your skills and experience, not for your ability to understand every question perfectly the first time.
3. Stepping Up: How I Became a Systems Manager
Becoming a manager was not something that happened overnight.
Before moving into management, I spent around four to five years building relationships with both end users and executive management.
I learned that technical skills are only one part of working in IT.
People also need to trust you.
When users have a problem, they want to know that someone will take ownership of it. Management needs to know that IT understands the business and can be trusted to look after the company’s systems.
When the previous manager eventually left the company, I was offered the opportunity to step into the position.
I believe the experience and relationships I had built over the previous years played a major role.
This was another important lesson for me:
Career progression isn’t always about waiting for a promotion. It’s also about consistently building trust and demonstrating that you are ready for the next responsibility.
4. Leadership: Building a “One Team” Culture
When I first became a manager, I initially handled almost everything myself.
At the time, the company wasn’t large enough to justify having a larger IT team.
As the company grew and the workload increased, we eventually hired an IT Support staff member.
That was when I learned another important lesson about management.
Being a manager doesn’t mean knowing everything.
And being an IT Support Officer doesn’t mean knowing less.
Everyone has different strengths and areas where they have more experience.
Someone might be better at troubleshooting end-user problems, while another person might have deeper knowledge of servers, networking, Microsoft 365, security, or cloud technologies.
Over the past several years as a manager, one of my main goals has been to build a “One Team” culture.
Rather than trying to make one person responsible for knowing everything, I believe a strong IT team should learn from each other and cover each other’s knowledge gaps.
If one person knows something that another person doesn’t, sharing that knowledge makes the whole team stronger.
That’s something I continue to value in my role today.
5. The Importance of In-Person Workplace Relationships
Remote and hybrid work have become a normal part of modern workplaces, particularly since COVID-19.
Technology makes it possible to communicate with colleagues without leaving your desk. Teams, email, chat, and ticketing systems allow us to solve many problems without ever meeting face-to-face.
However, I still believe there is significant value in in-person interaction.
Whenever possible, I prefer to walk over to a colleague’s desk and talk to them directly rather than solving every problem through a ticket or chat message.
Sometimes a five-minute conversation can solve a problem much faster than a long chain of messages.
More importantly, those small interactions help build genuine relationships.
When people know you personally and have spoken with you face-to-face, it becomes easier to build trust.
For me, IT has never been only about technology.
IT is ultimately about people, and technology is the tool we use to help them.
Final Thoughts
Looking back at my career, I didn’t have everything figured out when I started.
I began as an IT Support Officer while studying for my Master’s degree. I applied for more than 100 jobs before moving to my second company. I spent years learning new technologies, building relationships, making mistakes, and gradually taking on more responsibility.
Eventually, those experiences led me to become an IT Systems Manager.
If you’re currently working in IT support, studying IT, looking for your first IT job in Australia, or wondering what your next career step might be, my biggest advice is simple:
Keep learning, take on challenges, build good relationships, and don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know.”
You don’t need to know everything today.
Every problem you solve, every technology you learn, every difficult interview you go through, and every relationship you build can become part of your experience.
Looking back, many of the challenges I found difficult at the time became some of the most valuable experiences in my career.
And the journey is still continuing.
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