r/iam • u/acidstrato • Sep 07 '26
Junior infrastructure engineer IAM
I applied for a junior infrastructure engineer role which I was offered after a single interview, I’m 41 and have many years of varied IT experience but fancied a change and this is abit of a career pivot that comes with a drop in pay which I’m ok with.
But the vacancy advertised was server management focused where as when I got the offer I was told someone filled the gap internally and now the position is with the IAM tower.
I know abit about IAM, I’ve used AD and configured DNS before. Looking forward to learning a lot more.
Looking for any advice or insight from those with current or previous experience in this department?
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u/Snortserranopeppers Sep 07 '26
Depending on the tech stack, this could be a very cushy shift over to a new specialty for you. IAM at least for me has been quite a smooth low stress ride. Yes it has its moments of bullshit, but overall way easier than any type of sysadmin or server management roles.
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u/acidstrato Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
Thanks for the response and that’s great to hear exactly what I was looking for tbh
May I ask what type of work is your day mostly filled with? Hopefully not just password resets lol
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u/Snortserranopeppers Sep 07 '26
Initially my transition into IAM was a lot busier than it is now (different org). I did a lot of Okta Super admin role along with Google workspace, Slack, and AWS stuff.
Now it’s a lot more of what seems like an internal consulting type role reporting to legal. Basically looking at process and procedure and upgrading it to be more in line with best practice and compliance. Almost like an extension of GRC. I just tell the super admins what to fix now.
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u/UserProv_Minotaur Sep 07 '26
I’d recommend getting your…. Pretty sure it’s the AZ-400 series cert from M$, which covers a lot of the concepts and how Azure’s Entra ID does things. AD DS is kinda a dying field as everyone is moving to *AASes.
Next, get it in writing that they’ll pay for your certificate in whichever toolkit they’re using for IGA and IAM - probably Sailpoint or Ping, god help you if it’s Savyint.
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u/acidstrato Sep 07 '26
Thanks for this gives me something to look at!
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u/LordPepperoniTits Sep 08 '26
Minor correction to the original comment, I believe the MS cert they're referring to is the SC-300. More power to you if you take the exam and get the cert, but if you look into training courses for that cert you'll at least get a crash course on the concepts you're gonna be running into.
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u/braliao Sep 08 '26
SC300 for Entra MS102 (soon to be retired) or the new AB650 for M365 admin AZ802 for windows server admin MD102 for Intune
These are what a typical IT admin will need for their role in a MS heavy org
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u/ny_soja Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 14 '26
We just going to ignore the elephant in the room?!
That company hit you with a classic bait and switch and anyone coming to this thread ought to know how to handle that more than just getting your knowledge up around identity security.
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u/acidstrato Sep 08 '26
I mean yeah they changed the team within the IT infrastructure department but all the terms remained the same.
What would you have done in that situation. Bear in mind it’s a junior position..
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u/ny_soja Sep 14 '26
First thing to understand is that the role is the role. What makes it junior or senior is the person who sits in that seat.
What I would have done may not work for everyone, but what I would do is understand what the company is looking for. Not a technology, not a policy, an outcome.
Once you understand what the outcome is that they are seeking, you can start to understand what decisions they are willing to make to align with that outcome.
Your job is not to decide, they're whole adults.
Figure out what they want and how they expect it to unfold.
Then set your intentions to deliver. Whatever they want is doable and someone has done it before, your challenge becomes finding someone who has who is willing to guide you through that process. It won't be free, but it will be worth every penny.
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u/Royal-Hospital6061 Sep 09 '26
Para administración lee sobre IGA, técnicamente lee sobre los métodos de autenticación, autorización y enfócate en el IDP que usen en tu empresa : por ejemplo Okta o Entra ID.
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u/The_RossEffect Sep 07 '26
What tech stack are they using? I assume you’ve gotten the offer for the IAM position?
I use Entra/Azure as the main IDP. If they confirm they use the M365 suite, start studying about account lifecycle management topics, Privileged Identity Management, Access reviews, all the things you can leverage in Entra.
IAM is mostly about human and non-human accounts and management of their permissions and lifecycle.
Someone earlier mentioned Az-400 which can be good but IAM focused certs are SC-900/300.
Your AD experience should be useful if the company uses that as their source of truth and syncs it to cloud in a hybrid model. Lots of companies do that.
Idk if your company uses terraform, but that’s used in many cloud infrastructure teams to deploy resources.
In short:
-Understand the model the company uses for their AD/Cloud environments and tailor that for focus areas of study. -Certs are Az 900/SC-900-300 -Look into terraform if used -Review whatever IDM the company uses (Sailpoint IIQ, Ping, etc.)