I Want To Learn!

Hello everyone I'm looking for a bit of career advice. I'm a thirty something that went back to school a few years ago and attended a trade type two year program and graduated with honors with an electronic technology degree. I immediately landed a job in instrumentation maintenance that quickly turned into a controls technician position. Turns out I'm a pretty solid troubleshooter and I just gobble this stuff up. I mostly handle day to day PLC and HMI maintenance these days with a lot of electrical troubleshooting and drives upkeep thrown in.

I love every aspect of my job with one glaring setback. I have no one to mentor me or even bounce ideas off of for that matter. This may not sound like a big deal to some but I still have a lot of fire left in me and I'm really starting to think that my present employer is not going to fill the gap from a challenge standpoint. Couple this with the fact that they have nothing in terms of a training budget and I worry about going stale. I put out fires 90% of the time and while engaging, I'm constantly yearning for more. Very limited process improvements scheduled in my employers five year forecast has me concerned as well.

I guess my question for everyone out there is given my degree and and two years experience is there a spot for me out there in say an integrator role or something similar? I make pretty darn good money now and I'm sure there are people out there who would kill for my position but I also know for the most part that money tends to follow this profession so I don't worry so much about that. I'm looking for the personal enrichment side of things and I'm just hoping for a little insight from someone that may have traveled a similar road.

You, and you alone are in charge of your career. Sounds like you've out-grown the position you are in pretty quickly. I would say yes it's time to look for a position with an Integrator. However, be realistic with your expectations. Working for an integrator is hard, and you may or may not have any more training or formal mentoring. You may just have to show you are valuable and learn from osmosis when you are there. Personal experience, I had to prove to myself I could the work, and create good relationships with my co-workers to forward my career. Simply mentoring because I became a resource for them, not because of some awesome OJT path. YMMV.

It will be a compromise. Are you willing to move more than 30 miles from home? If you are making really good money now, you may have to take a pay cut for an entry-level integrator position given your degree and experience. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to travel for long periods of time just about anywhere? Are you willing to just have to figure it out with minimal support/direction?

FWIW, pay cuts I have taken have eventually lead to bigger pay checks than where I came.

finding a good mentor is everything!

Better advice: Sell a product, not your time.
I've been selling my time since 1996.