system engineer

senior systems administrator

account manager

senior system engineer

technical support specialist

Ntiva

Ntiva has been different from any job I have ever had. I started thinking I would just be here to get a paycheck but then quickly realized it would be my career and I would really grow here. 
When I am able to spend quality time with the CEO directly, it is clear why he loves this place. I certainly used to spend more time with him alone or in small groups and while that has lessened, he has always been available anytime I have reached out and quick to do whatever it takes to make me happy and ensure I am taken care of personally. 
By working here, I seem to constantly get approached by recruiters asking me to work for competing companies and internal IT departments, it is really flattering and makes me feel like I am becoming more valuable. With that said, I feel this almost insane loyalty to Ntiva, really starting with the president and how he seems to have similar insane loyalty to me.
My career path here is clear (mostly). I want to be technical and not a manager and know that with hard work for fellow techs and our clients it will happen. It would be nice to see more information on what certifications or training classes I need as it is a little confusing on exactly what is required to advance. I have access to an intense internal training program but am unclear which I need to do to move up in my career. I am clear on how many I would need to take and succeed in to get points to buy stuff from the points store though! (while a nice bottle of scotch or an xbox is cool, I would rather know exactly what I should be doing to advance my career. Actually, if being a little greedy, I want both!)
Ntiva is not afraid to jump into something, make a mistake, and change. usually, the mistakes aren't repeated. I think this is really cool. Every other position I have ever held has been in companies (some smaller and some larger) that are stuck in their ways and think they are always right - never changing. It is cool to know change happens quickly. The stuff that works tends to last. 
OK, and some other things to note, just in passing. There seems to always be food at company meetings and at the office - especially Friday. The office is spectacular looking and highly functional (though loud at times), close to metro and the building is getting a facelift (I wish I could be at the office a little more). The new metrics seemed overwhelming at first but now that a month has gone by, I get it, and they are achievable - I will actually know where I stand on my core job here in real-time. We have game nights, occasional happy hours, paid training/exams, access to automation tools (though they could likely be configured better).
Great time off/vacation program - I never use all my time off but have a ton available. Never asked for time off and didn't get it approved.
Oh, and for what it's worth, the procurement process is great. The team always has a great attitude and seems to help me with anything I need.

I came from a 7 year position at a slightly smaller IT consulting firm in the DC area. I was responsible for all escalations relating to issues other technicians could not resolve. I was also responsible for 24x7 coverage as the on-call engineer. I had to do this myself and everything fell on my shoulders. While I recognize Ntiva is in the same business, it has not once felt like this to me. First, I am surrounded by at least 10 technicians that have significantly more experience than I do and are willing to share that experience and help out. Second, the on-call rotation, which I am on, is done weekly and there are backups. I am only responsible once every 10 or so weeks. The help desk core business hours and weekend coverage also help minimize what gets to me as well. When it is my turn to come up, it seems like a beach vacation as compared to my previous gig.
Ntiva also has this network documentation system that keeps everything centralized and available for the technicians that need it. We only had random excel documents in my previous position. 
At Ntiva we are moving into a team approach to support clients with Account Managers being responsible for clients. They are helping make sure that client needs are met with extremely quick response, they also hold the techs accountable for keeping up documentation system and ticket notes. (I have heard rumblings from other technicians that they don't like this but frankly if everyone is responsible for their jobs things should be very smooth). I've found if you focus on taking care of the clients and updating the tickets/docs things balance nicely, I wish more people did this because I can see that some of the other techs that have been here a while have to pick up where others may not have been as thorough. I hope that balances out for them so they can be as happy as I am.
some of the clients here are more demanding than other places I have worked with. I understand what it is like for a client to have an issue or want something new but some of these folks have slightly unreasonable expectations. Leadership will always step in to reset expectations or handle the particularly challenging scenarios to shield the technicians to focus on the task or simply avoid the discomfort.
Building is under renovation. This con is a pro as I believe the plans are amazing but it might be a year or so of construction. I also understand the ntiva offices are moving in the building to a fancy new, larger space. It is rumored to have a good place for technical labs and a lot of shared workspace for meetings and white boarding solutions.

About Ntiva as a corporation. They function as a high school group in terms of management & advancement. Their top engineer was not knowledgeable in terms of any networking and considered STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) a layer 3 routing protocol. He commented one day on how it was enabled on a switch and how it should be disabled.

This is not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing. Their top management wants to advance to the next level of corporate hierarchy but honestly will never get there if their engineers are intimidated by knowledge and act like school girls when someone smarter comes along. Instead of listening to them they shun them and try to get them fired. Human pride, vanity and ego does not advance an organization. 

Their management wanted changes made without any change management. Myself - I have practiced change management for years and I was against making changes on the fly. Management pushed against this idea every time I brought it up. Of course when I did bring it up, I proved exactly why change management should be an adopted practice. In every situation it ended disastrously because no one was thinking of impact. Any impact analysis I advised on was discarded before a change but unfortunately happened and the customer paid for not following this practice. 

This company is good for those who want to launch their career and learn the basics of systems & a small amount of networking. If you are looking for  more in depth knowledge you should look elsewhere. 

Lack of knowledge on the MSP's side should never be a reasons the customer does not get the best service. Unfortunately letting the customer know that Ntiva didn't know everything was a bad thing in their eyes. Truthful and honesty was not a policy that was followed and I was against this as well. Its like the old school IT guy that uses big words and creates problems just to secure his job, except at a much bigger scale.

Working at Ntiva presents a mixed experience. On one hand, coworkers are very friendly and stand out as a positive aspect, fostering a collaborative and supportive environment. However, this is contrasted by the management's approach, which seems to fall short in several areas. The expectations set for workload often appear unrealistic, creating a challenging scenario for employees to navigate. This is compounded by the lack of comprehensive documentation, which is a critical tool for any professional to perform their duties effectively. Moreover, the training provided seems to be disproportionately in favor of interns, leaving other employees without the same level of guidance and support. 

The ambiguity surrounding performance metrics further complicates matters. Without clear benchmarks, it becomes difficult for employees to gauge their performance, understand expectations, and strive for improvement. This lack of clarity can lead to uncertainty and stress, as one may not know if they are meeting, exceeding, or falling short of the required standards. It's essential for an organization to establish and communicate clear metrics, as this not only aids in personal development but also aligns individual goals with the company's objectives. 

In summary, while the interpersonal relationships among colleagues at Ntiva are a highlight, there are significant areas for improvement in management practices, documentation, training, and performance metrics. Addressing these issues could lead to a more transparent, equitable, and fulfilling work environment for all employees.

DC IT companies are a dime a dozen. And this one is just spinning its wheels like most of them. 

You can expect:

*a non-competitive compensation for the industry standard for the DC area. Ntiva is yet another small company that will work you day and night and underpay. 

*Extremely cliquey, cult-like, high school company culture. Fit in or be fired.

*Favoritism from the top.

*Management that expects miracles with very few resources/staff. You will be setup for failure. 

*Technical staff that is overworked, overextended, unmotivated, mechanical, and rigid. 

*So-so benefits that don't kick in at start-date. 

*Completely out-of-touch management that fosters toxic business relationships and belligerent, abusive customers.

*Little to no training. Expect to get thrown in and fight fires your second week. 

*Very prevalent and murky conflicts of interests between clients and management/CEO.

*Extremely resistant to change. Company is mired in business processes and standards that are last decade. 

*Selective accountability and oversight.


In short, this is a company that has been around for 10 years and just can't get out of second gear. They're more concerned with everyone fitting into the company clique/culture than they are with success/growth. All of the above reasons are why they can't hire or keep talented people. Avoid, avoid, avoid. 

Don't believe the "Best Place To Work" Hype

Management doesn't really care about the grunts in the field, or what they point out that are problems that are going to come back to bite the company as a whole if not addressed.

For instance, inter-departmental cooperation is almost non-existent. Project teams will make changes and break things without warning the other departments, same with field personnel. Quality of work by most departments is not up to professional par by most expectations.

Management also does not seem to be aware of morale issues and will promise the moon then under deliver. Currently their only real focus is expanding more and more rather than consolidate and make sure the foundation is rock solid.

Coworkers are entirely 50/50 - some will be extremely nice and more than happy to help and explain things, others will be vitriolic or simply rude. Some seem to forget that all IT pros start from somewhere, and that we all have our strong suits and weak areas.

Overall, I've worked for worse companies but this place has a lot of room for improvement that seems to be overlooked or straight up ignored. This is not helped by the increasingly inadequate compensation that the company seems to be completely tone-deaf to as well. In short: typical American business management.

Typical day envoled supporting customers remotely or via site visits.   Visits usually entailed deploying, configuring equipment or resolving isses with previously deployed equipment.  
I learned how to configure install and manage new products I had no previous experience with. 
Work place culture is layed back but for lack of a better description cliquish.  It is very competetive and somewhat cutthroath.  There are oportunities for advancement but they are few and everyone wants to advance.  This effects how people interact with you.  I always felt like and outsider.  
The hardest part was adjusting to working in an MSP environment. I aslo was not comfortable with the selling aspect.  
Most enjoyable part of job ws Hot dogs and nerf guns.

In my experience, communication between teams was often inconsistent, and organizational changes sometimes created confusion about priorities and expectations.

The workload could be demanding, and there were times when I felt resources and staffing did not keep pace with the volume of work being assigned. This occasionally made it difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

While I gained valuable technical experience and worked with some talented coworkers, I often felt that employee concerns were not addressed as effectively as they could have been. Career growth opportunities also seemed limited compared to what I was hoping for.

Remote Support operations are well established, however, its an environment of micromanagement with lofty expectations and minimal employee count on each shift.  

SLA requirements are out of line with staff levels and as a business model it relyies to heavily on non-issue support verses failure resolution for customer satisfaction.

Internal documentation is a mess going back 3 years for failiure to adequately import and clean-up one knowledge management tool to the next.  Current employees that try clean and consolidate information have little resources left due to knowledge loss from employee turnover.

Most of this is just like every MSP and is usually why customers hop from one MSP to the next, to the next, to the next.

I never learned more than what I learned at Ntiva. I increased my technical skillset on a daily basis and never had a moment where I was not challenges and bored. This is a great environment for people who are looking to grow and get exposure to technologies. As I understand it, they are now at the point where there are different opportunities available depending on how much growth vs. stability you want. It is truly a company of great people who care about what they do, each other, and the customers they server.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
System engineer 13 salaries reported	$90,000 per year
Senior systems administrator 1 salary reported	$70,000 per year
Account manager 4 salaries reported	$65,750 per year
Senior system engineer 1 salary reported	$90,000 per year
Technical support specialist 2 salaries reported	$45,000 per year

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