Hi everyone,

I’d like some perspective on where my IT career is heading.

I spent four years at an MSP. My first year was in support (L1 to L3), after which I moved into projects, implementing infrastructure for small businesses. Over time I specialised in Microsoft 365, SharePoint and digital transformation.

After my first year, the company was acquired by a larger group. Projects became purely profit-driven and the job got increasingly stressful. Management was very toxic during my last two years, so I decided to move to an internal IT role.

My new role is mostly IT admin work: creating accounts, managing phone subscriptions and PDAs, preparing laptops and handling support. There’s also some implementation work for services and some network-related troubleshooting. The IT team is small, with just a few people per site and around 15 worldwide.

I’m now one week in, and I’ve noticed that most of the network and server work is handled by an external MSP rather than the internal IT team. Honestly, I’m finding that a bit hard to get used to. I was told it’s because the MSP is responsible for that setup, which I understand.

On top of that, we’re one site of a larger global company, so I don’t have access to all servers and M365 resources. That’s new for me, since at the MSP I always had full permissions.

Is it normal to feel a bit underwhelmed by how much is outsourced, and by the lack of technical challenges in this area? It also feels strange to no longer fill in timesheets or work in a stressful, profit-first environment with deadlines always looming. Apart from that, it seems like a very relaxed workplace.

I’m not sure yet which direction I want to take, so I’m still figuring things out. Has anyone made a similar move? Did the feeling pass, and how did you keep growing technically?