These Hidden Careers will make you $400k a year (2026 Edition)

Obviously, everyone's talking about software engineering, things are screwed. really don't look at it that way. I look at it as an opportunity. It's like we're in the the '90s dot com bubble all over again. There is just it's a feeding frenzy out there for talent. And like if you've got a high motor and, you know, the ability to learn, What is currently undervalued, but obviously in the next 5 years we're going to see some wild stuff. So, what are you saying is undervalued now that it won't be in the future? what's funny is uh database administration. Okay, guys. Today we're talking IT infrastructure careers. Everything you should be focusing on, AI's impact, what to look at, what to avoid, and what is making the big money today. We have an infrastructure executive today. His name is Ed Morando. Ed, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me. And there's nothing wrong with I mean, the cloud is still a big deal, right? You want to get into cloud engineering? Like, I'm not going to tell you to go go go learn Python. You know, I mean, it's it's kind of table stakes at this time. Like, that's how we're processing data. Um it's less of a SQL world and it's more of a flat file kind of S3 bucket world where, you know, we're taking just this large large data set and we need to do parallel processing against that. I work a lot in analytics uh specifically on the AWS side, Azure as well. For the people out there looking for career tracks, those are the two. I mean, GCP's fine as well. Um I personally don't use it a lot, but uh AWS and Azure, uh you know, in my opinion are on the cutting-edge in the space. So, data analytics, that's another good entry spot. Come into [clears throat] data analytics, learn how to do data processing, data visualization. Those are really hot careers right now. It's a good jumping point into AI infrastructure because data analytics, big data, machine learning, I mean, it's the cousin of AI. I mean, it's really the same principle. Um you know, the only difference is you know, you've got this adjunctive setup where you're doing, you know, backwards propagation and and these agents are all working together, right? They're feeding off one of another. But but the principle is the same. So, if you start with analytics, you can jump into that AI space pretty quickly. You start network or certs? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm a pretty big Cisco guy still. I don't know if I'm I'm showing my age, but um you know, the Juniper's and Aruba's of the world are really popular, uh especially in the new AI builds because they're cheap you know, they're cheaper. Um Cisco's still expensive. So, um the Cisco certs are always valuable. Um they're difficult to get. They're easy to verify. Um one of the first things I do when I get a resume as I go and look up each and every certificate. Make sure it's active and it was taken uh you know, when it was taken cuz obviously things the technology's evolving. Um but I I check the certs. Um entry-level start with your CCNA's. Uh CCNP is the sweet spot. Make good money there. Uh and and you can learn you know, basically Cisco's fabric, right? Like their their ACI fabric. That's still very popular. Um and and then, you know, you get into the more the more the more advanced stuff, right? This is probably for your CCNP's and above uh where you know, you're building like real tech you know, real technology uh for you know, that 400 to 800 gig per second uh AI synchronization because you know, the AI [clears throat] game is all about memory capacity. Right? So, you can have 200 GPUs, right? They all need to talk to to one another. So, we're we're going back to like hardcore old-school on-prem infrastructure. You're talking converged storage. You're talking fiber channel, right? You're talking high-speed replication, right? So, you get into the telecom space. This stuff is so valuable and it takes so much money and time and energy to to build and train, it's really important to have that that kind of second data set, you know? so so now you're talking replication to an offsite facility. So learning things around those areas is is critical right now and it will be for the next 5 years. Learn Kubernetes. Kubernetes is super important to the modern workspace and the AI infrastructure stack. That's the backplane. Um it's going to run on that. Typically you're running bare metal on hardware, um you know, with uh with connected GPUs liquid cooled. Um and they're all hooked together at least at 400 gig. So that's that's another area that I think um I would I would consider looking into if uh I had to give advice to, you know, your junior intermediate or even your experts. Yeah. This is still an emergent technology. Everybody's rushing to do it, but the truth is is while I you know, while I mentioned earlier like we're in a new supercycle, a lot of this stuff's vaporware, right? They're AI enhanced. Like, okay, I got a chatbot, right? We've had chatbots for for 10 years. Um you know, do they enhance them per se? Uh sure. Um but, you know, that's that's that's the that's the hardcore stuff on the back end that is going to be the future. What is currently undervalued on the infrastructure side that you see that, you know, maybe these careers don't pay a ton yet, Yeah. but I would say in the next 5 years we're going to see some wild stuff. So what are you saying is undervalued now that won't be in the future? administration. It's the fundamental building block of all of the you know, the AI stack. You need your data somewhere, right? And and usually you're talking on you know, unstructured data. That's that's typically what this runs on, but there's still a lot of object-oriented uh data that gets fed into these models for training. And database administration. It's an interesting one that, you know, I don't know if it surprises you, but that's that's that's one area if you wanted to if I had to pick one like where there's the most arbitrage that's undervalued, like I'd probably say that. used to see Oracle DBAs were, I mean, like 15 years ago, I would see tons of those. Then I kind of just stopped seeing big companies. Maybe these people just didn't leave and they didn't need new Oracle DBAs or whatever. Right. You're saying that is going to be on the come up again? I think so, yeah. I do. Once again with that, I mean, what would you look at right now, 2026? Yeah, check out some of the new networking components. Uh uh well, you know we didn't talk about we didn't talk about Nvidia. That's another area where I would look to get certified and they've got some great material out there. Nvidia's the the 500-lb gorilla. They're not going anywhere. All of our stuff, all of our private AI is built on Nvidia. Um so, understanding you know, Nvidia AI Enterprise is is commonly what most companies use and and go learn that. Become an expert on deploying and managing AI models. That's a cool area. That's not going anywhere. Um the high-speed networking, some some of the new quantum security, so these new switches that are coming out, what they're doing is they're really kind of collapsing they're collapsing the the hardware stack where they're building security into the switch layer or the router layer. So, it's no longer just the firewall. So, th- there's a whole new series of hardware coming out that that is completely different to operate. Um in some ways it's simpler, in some ways it's more complex. Storage isn't going anywhere. This high-speed networking, it is the you know, you can't do anything in the AI space without that high-speed networking. So, focus on that area. Um let me see. Another one I'd say is um you know, Nvidia bought it, um but Nvidia has their own networking stack now. And you're going to find that if you want to get into the more cutting-edge AI with with the you know, with the with the newest chips and and and the the the larger clusters, you're going to need to learn InfiniBand, right? Like um it's not just the Ciscos and the Junipers of the world, right? It's broader than that now, and learning that network stack is important, especially the new one. Quantum cryptography is going to be a thing very soon. I mean, look at what just happened to Anthropic. Um you know, like their their cybersecurity project uh product you know, just got exploited. Um you know, it's supposed to do the opposite, right? [laughter] So, um uh you got to focus in that space, the data space, the cloud space. I mean, I don't want to generalize it too much, but that's the stuff that's not going anywhere. And and that's if you want a long-term stable career with with a lot of upside, [music] that's the area you want to focus on. Well, there you go. Well, thanks again. Yeah, I mean, everyone talks about like all the jobs that are going away and doom and gloom. We just We gave you about 20 careers that are going to thrive in the AI era, so. Right. Yeah, check out the database stuff. That's that's that's that's an interesting piece. Oracle DBAs are back. So, awesome. Ed, thanks so much for making this happen. thank you. Yeah. All right, guys. We'll catch you next time.