I'm currently a jr systems admin in a lower cost area in Northern California. I worked help desk for a couple few months and my boss took notice of me and promoted me. I've been a jr sysadmin for a year and a half now and I make 50k/yr. I have my CCNA and I've been studying for the CCNP.
I was recently offered a job in the south bay area, near San Jose for 80k/yr (high cost area). The job will mainly be administering internal NOC Linux machines/ cloud Linux machines that service other customers. At first I wasn't very interested because I always wanted to be a network engineer, so I told them that because of the cost of living increase, I would only consider the job for 90k/yr. Well, my attempt to shoo them off didn't work, and they want to move through with my counter offer.
My current job offers my a lot of study time. Not a lot goes on in my organization and I typically just get to do the day to day maintenance tasks. Some engineers sit around often from lack of work. I could easily get my CCNP here and even a bachelors degree on company time. I've also learned basic automation with Python and Ansible, which is why I think this company took interest in me.
The new job would push me more towards Linux and development/automation likely. Though, I would still describe myself as a novice in Linux, so a full time job in this sphere scares me.
I guess my question is, if you were in this situation, would you pursue what you already do now (network engineering) or would you try to move into the Linux/development sphere? My personal hold out is that I think it's going to be a long road for me to get to a high paying networking job. I pretty much only see senior level positions in my area that demand 5+ years experience.
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