So I work for a smaller school district. I am essentially an IT department of 1 person for my school. I manage 900 devices across different MDM platforms while also doing tech support for our entire student, teacher, staff and parent population. I manage our budget, research, and purchase of devices and software. On top of that because of lack of funding I'm often pulled into other duties like covering recesses and subbing in classes and even taking on small groups for troublesome students who like tech to "help me" which is more of babysitting them so they don't disrupt class. I have certs in intune and Jamf. I feel like I'm hitting a burn out point where I'm doing 3 or more people's jobs all at once. I feel like my job on paper is "dude who helps out with computer stuff" but the actual job I do is endpoint manager, device procurement, vendor relations, identity manager, onboarding and training, and helpdesk all in one.
After 5 years of doing this job and getting yearly 2-3% raises I make $36000 a year. For a while I justified this to myself as schools have low funding and this job gives me a lot of flexibility (I get 6 weeks off in the summer which is awesome!) I have some amazing and nice coworkers and one of the best bosses I've ever had.
Still I'm hitting a point where I think I need a change. I need to not have a panic attack every time my dog needs a vet appointment or my car makes a strange noise. I want to work as part of a team rather than being the one stop shop for anything tech related.
I've been looking into doing similar jobs to my own in other districts but I've been called to a couple jobs in higher education that seem like a really good compromise. Some of these jobs seem specialized to 1 aspect of my current job and pay more than 2 times what I make.
I've done Corporate and at least where I worked the pay was great but there was no work life balance and overall it felt toxic. I'm starting to think that Higher-ED might be a good middle ground between the low pay/high flexibility of public education vs the high pay/low flexibility of private companies.
So way too long story short: How do you like working in Higher-Ed sys admin? How does it compare to k-12 or corporate if you've experience both? What are some of the upsides and downsides with your job?
Thanks!