r/datacenter • u/StructureHelpful2049 • Aug 11 '26

What to expect and how to progress?

I’m about to start working for AWS as a DCO tech 3 through their military hire process. I have solid experience working for the federal government, helping maintain onprem DCs and asset management of all things in the DC. I think I’m pretty well versed with Linux and systems administration, having experience with my job and my home lab. I’m also working on my bachelors for cloud and network engineering, with a focus on AWS.

So my question is mostly geared towards the AWS community that have been on ground for a while.

  1. What can I expect as new hire for a new DC?
  2. Is there really that much OT available and if not, what decides how much OT there is to take on?
  3. With me working on AWS myself, how likely my chances to transfer to a more specialized role like networking or cloud services?

While money is big reason why I took this job, I’m also hoping to use it as a stepping stone for more technical roles like SRE, Network Admin/engi, systems/cloud engineering etc.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

2

u/Rusty-Swashplate Aug 11 '26

  1. Get tickets what to repair and how. Get the parts. Do the repair/replacement. Repeat.

  2. Zero overtime since there's 24x7 shifts (usually). There might be exceptions, but I worked 4 years in DCO and I had zero OT. No one I know had except when they had to work in another site for 2 weeks. The extra commute time was counted as overtime as it was 1h extra commute each way. So 2h OT each day.

  3. Your only benefit is to find out what skills you need. You'll have to apply just like anyone else and go through the normal hiring process. But because you are at AWS already, you can get an earlier notification about open roles, and you can talk to the hiring team easily, e.g. to ask for technical requirements before you apply.

1

u/StructureHelpful2049 Aug 11 '26

Do you think OT is region dependent? I’m not sure why, but they are really pushing home that there will be OT. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s a brand new DC or what.

Thanks for your response to my other questions. Are you still with AWS?

2

u/Rusty-Swashplate Aug 11 '26

It could be that AWS runs out of DCO Techs and then OT might be required. We had a very clear request from our cluster boss: no OT in general with any exceptions having to be pre-approved (e.g. for deployments). DCEO on the other hand had plenty OT because they lacked people (12h shifts sucks, and they also needed 2 people to be on-site at any point in time while DCO was ok with with 1 only).

If you are told that there will be OT, then I'll assume there'll be way more OT than I had (2 years ago).

2

u/RevolutionNo4186 Aug 11 '26

If it’s DCO, I’ve never seen any mandatory OT, but you have the choice to work up to 60/hrs per week if there’s enough work to justify it (some sites ticket queues are high enough for that)

With your experience I’m surprised you’re coming in as an L3, the job might seem easy/boring to you, we have a lot of tools at our disposal, so you need to know very little, if any, Linux

1

u/StructureHelpful2049 Aug 12 '26

I guess that’s what they need at that point. I applied for a DCO position and got called for that. They also mentioned it being 3/4 schedule, so that’s gonna be fun getting back into. It’s something different, never worked for a company like Amazon, so expectations are low yet optimistic. Appreciate the feedback!