Idle Intern. Salary: $28,000 

You're about three weeks into your internship in the IT department at a major credit card company's headquarters. You were brought in on a temporary basis, but you're hoping to convince them to keep you on. The odds aren't looking too good, though, ever since the senior administrator figured out you were changing the Executive VP's passwords every three days to character names from Keanu Reeves movies.

Gaming the System. Salary: $64,000 

You're a new employee at a local bank in a medium-sized town. Their network was kind of on the fritz when you showed up, but some simple software updates fixed about half the problems. You've been slowly correcting the others as you go. Management was initially pleased, but then the senior manager came in unexpectedly on a Sunday and found you and three of your buddies in the control room using the bank's server to run a networked game of Minecraft. Your employment status is now "Probationary."

Incendiary IT Guy. Salary: $76,000 

Your manager recently asked you to install a wireless network in the building, but only promised about two-thirds of the necessary budget. The argument that ensued wasn't pretty (he didn't like the comment about how only someone with two-thirds of a brain would offer that budget), but such is life when you're the only one who understands how all this stuff works.

Trimming the Fat. Salary: $87,000 

You hold about a dozen network and information security certifications and are one of the most trusted guys in your organization. You've kept the company upgraded, secure, and functioning. You spend less time actually working the network these days, since you're the senior network manager and supervise the other administrators.

Network Sage. Salary: $102,300 

There isn't much in this business you don't know—Cisco has even asked you to consult on some of their new router development projects. You've spoken at Black Hat a couple of times about network security techniques and co-authored a book on the subject. Kevin Mitnick even follows you on Twitter, a fact that both thrills and terrifies you.