IT Personnel Overtime

Information technology covers a very broad category of employees. Companies (especially computer and high-tech companies) implement fancy titles to disguise the nature of the work. The law looks at the duties rather than the title: In short, if you perform tech (or IT) assistance or you work in a support position, you very likely qualify for overtime pay.

As an example, in one case a company called a class of employees 'systems engineers'. The employees were actually routine help desk employees providing standard IT services. In the computer industry misclassification of employees is common when they work in IT. However this is also true of IT employees who work for non-tech companies.

There have been a number of cases involving large banks, hospitals, and other non-tech industries that employ many IT people to service the company's IT infrastructure. Just because an employee works in or around a computer or with computer professionals does not make that person exempt.

The federal and state of California law focus on the day-to-day duties that are frequently performed by IT personnel and finds them non-exempt. If the work is primarily support and you work in IT, then you probably have a strong case.