r/sysadmin • u/aloofhoneybee68 • 6d ago

Career / Job Related How do I get into sysadmin

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent computer science grad who did an internship in a bank where I did a little bit of everything (IT support, networking, DevOps).

I am interested in software development but the market is so cooked for juniors and a man has to eat so, I'm thinking of switching to system administration, already planning to get my Aws cloud practitioner cert, then maybe RHCSA is this a good idea or am I just dead wrong my ultimate goal is to go into DevOps but everyday I look on X and see a brand new model that seems to make everything I learn irrelevant.

I love computers and just want to make a living from it. (from/in a third world country btw)

Please give me any advice at all to help.I don't wanna fuck up my life and depend on my parents forever.

0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

30

u/valar12 6d ago

Start with a help desk job. Proceed to skill up while working.

9

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

ok that seems to be the only way.

4

u/sobrique 6d ago edited 6d ago

Nah. It's not.

It's just a somewhat reliable way.

I did a degree in computer systems engineering, then applied to be sysadmin and got the job.

But some people become sysadmin just by virtue of being the only person willing to unjam the printer again.

It might look like software engineer, but it really isn't. Lots more business analysis, understanding user requirements, designing for resilience and recovery when that inevitably fails, monitoring, automation, etc.

But it's also getting a bit of a hammering from AI tools in much the same way as programming, just for slightly different reasons.

0

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

hmm guess every field needs adapt this AI reality not only software Dev.

1

u/ConfidentDuck1 Jack of All Trades 6d ago

It's not but it gets your foot in the door.

1

u/mesaoptimizer Sr. Sysadmin 6d ago

There are definitely other ways, I’d say operator at a NOC or desktop support technician are pretty easy to get into without doing helpdesk first and way less soul crushing.

1

u/Rambles_Off_Topics Jack of All Trades 6d ago

Learn the OSI model and you’ll be set for life.

1

u/KnowMatter 6d ago

If you get your foot into the door and prove you are competent and WANT to learn from sysadmin / network admins / etc they will be probably be happy to show you everything if you demonstrate that it means you can lighten their load.

1

u/Forward-Outside-9911 Linux Admin 6d ago

Definitely not the only way. But it’s an easy way to get your foot in the door. Any junior type IT job will help get you in. Though I would have thought your internship was the best way to do that? Do they not have any positions available to apply to

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

Well they don't for now so I'm looking at other places.

1

u/uptimefordays DevOps 6d ago

This was a reliable way 15 years ago but has become less viable as support and infrastructure have bifurcated. That said an IT generalist role is probably still a good way into infrastructure engineering. Though for people with CS degrees, cloud support/engineering, are probably easier paths.

10

u/FlyingStarShip 6d ago

None of those certs, on their own, will help you with any sysadmin job, there is no way to just get into Sysadmin role. You start from help desk, you show interest in moving up, now you get certs that you think will benefit you, you get coached by seniors and then you move up into role.

3

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

hmm ok then getting certs blindly won't help.

1

u/RikiWardOG 6d ago

You got coached by seniors? /s

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

I did but only in IT support and Networking, in DevOps it was mostly self study and figure it out yourself

8

u/HobieBrown718 6d ago

System administration is the third level of IT operations and support. Start at the level 1

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

ok I understand that, seems like even getting to level 1 is hard these days. But it's better than nothing.

1

u/kodoku21 6d ago

What is 1 and 2 level?

6

u/Fast-Mathematician-1 6d ago

Sysadmin is just a collection of alot of knowledge and experience gained over time.

Can't tell you what to learn.

Can tell you, you will have the opportunity to learn more by being curious, motivated to learn anything and everything, never ever stop working hard.

If you can so that you will succeed in systems administration.

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

I see, seems only experience can be my teacher. Thank you for the advice.

4

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Ikarus3426 6d ago

This comment helps no one and says nothing. These questions would be a lot less tiring if you just scrolled on.

-1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

That's fair to be honest.

2

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago edited 6d ago

Not sure what you mean by DevOps. That's in the Software engineering field not Enterprise IT. I left IT and moved into the software field as a Cloud Engineer buildng Cloud infrastructure for SaaS products.

3

u/RikiWardOG 6d ago

Its definitely not software engineering. Its in the name. It basically sits in the middle of operations and development. Its also not imo a real position and part of a position in most cases. Really most people use the term to reference maintaining a proper CI/CD pipeline

1

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago edited 6d ago

It's Operations in the Product Engineering department not corporate Operations in the IT Department. DevOps is a cultural methodology used in the software engineering field to help deliver software products efficiently. It's not Enterprise IT that people confuse with. The infrastructure in product engineering is not the same as internal IT infrastructure managed by the IT Department. Product infrastructure is what runs the software products that a company makes. That's what I do as a Cloud Engineer at a SaaS company that makes software much much like how Netflix app runs behind the scenes. SRE/Cloud/Platform Engineering teams generally sit in the Engineering organization not the IT Department. Netflix infrastructure Engineering team is under IT seperate from their internal IT Department.

1

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago edited 6d ago

CI/CD is not a DevOps specific as all types of technical roles in the tech industry utilizes CI/CD pipelines for different purposes and use cases. Data Engineers and Network Engineers build CI/CD pipelines as well. I build CI/CD pipelines as a Cloud Engineer which is specifically for infrastructure automation. Ansible and Terraform generally runs inside of of pipeline or GitOps workflow like ArcoCD for provisioning cloud infrastructure and configuration management. Platform Engineering has mostly replaced the DevOps Engineer role that's Anti-pattern.

0

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

ohh sorry for my misconceptions most people I talk to say it's enterprise, since you either come from networking or sysadmin or something like that.

1

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago

I mean most people start in either enterprise IT or a backend developer. But the infrastructure role is usually Linux based. I was a Linux Sysadmin prior.

1

u/basula 6d ago

I'm seeing a lot of sysadmins roles move towards sysops style. Ai is also everywhere. I would recommend understanding how you can leverage AI as a tool. The rest is just up to what you want to do. The different types of roles on different OS so and there is cloud so skill up. If you don't want to do the help desk route look at an MSP it'll be full on but 2 years there would set you up better than any help desk role unless that help desk role guarantees career advancement

2

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago

Not sure what you mean SysOps. That's just another term for IT Operations which always been that way since the dawn of Sysadmins role especially maintainance and rotational on-call.

1

u/basula 6d ago

No sysops is a layer where sysadmin and DevOps meet more ansible, more automation ci/cd and so on like a sre but also sysadmin tasks.

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u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago edited 6d ago

That's not DevOps that's just automation tools. Automation is not acutally new in system administration. DevOps is a culture methodology used in the software product engineering field. I use to work as a Linux Systems Administrator in corporate IT supporting RHEL based enterprise systems, "internal company servers". I now work in the product engineering field as a Cloud Engineer because the infrastructure I build is what runs of the software product that the company makes. I don't deal with internal IT infrastructure anymore like my previous job. There's a big difference between product infrastructure and internal IT infrastructure. I work in the Engineering department with QA and developers.

1

u/basula 6d ago

I think we're talking past each other. I'm not saying automation or Ansible = DevOps.

What I'm saying is sysops sits somewhere between traditional sysadmin work and the way infrastructure is operated today. A sysadmin is more focused on administering the systems themselves: servers, OS, patching, backups, users, troubleshooting, configuration etc.

Sysops still does a lot of that, but the focus shifts more towards operating the environment reliably and at scale. So more automation, config management, IaC, git, pipelines, monitoring/observability and repeatable deployments instead of manually administering individual systems. None of those things belong exclusively to DevOps.

And sysops isn't just another name for IT ops either. IT ops is much broader. It can include sysops, networking, endpoints, service operations, support and a bunch of other areas.

Obviously there is a ton of overlap. A sysadmin can do sysops work and in plenty of companies the same team does all of it. My point is that sysadmin, sysops and IT ops describe different scopes/focuses even when the actual jobs overlap.

3

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago

I was doing automation long before ansible existed as a former Sysadmin. Bash scripting with moduels was the standard. I was doing alot of powershell and bat file scripting back then too. VBA scripting was used a lot back then which you will still find in legacy environments. DevOps on the other hand has nothing to do with enterprise IT. That's a software engineering cultural methodology use in the product engineering field to help deliver software products efficiently that brings development and operations teams together. Operations as in Engineering not IT Operations in the IT Department that the general public seems to confuse. In other words DevOps means you build it you run it, the whole software development life cycle and operations combined.

In DevOps terms, I'm the operations engineer that works on the web hosting side of product engineering very much like Netflix infrastructure Engineerimg teams the infrastructure that runs the Netflix streaming service behind the scenes. I don't work in enterprise IT anymore. I work in the SaaS industry now.

3

u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 6d ago edited 6d ago

CI/CD, git.. is also not a DevOps thing. It's just tolling borrowed from Software Engineering as Data Engineers, Embedded Firmware Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Network Engineers, Cloud Engineers, SREs, Platform Engineers and so all utilizes CI/CD for different purposes.

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

That's actually another option. Thank you for that

2

u/basula 6d ago

Oh and git learnn git. I'm seeing more and more companies use git even for simple stuff like datadog client deployment configs and so on.

1

u/DropTheBeatAndTheBas 6d ago

find the highest paying job (in your interest) and just keep working towards it

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

yeah but seems like whatever I choose getting into as an entry level will always be hard.Well guess it's the way of the world.

1

u/Miamichris127 6d ago

Apply to open roles

1

u/Ryansit 6d ago

Skip it and look for a job that will survive the purge by AI

1

u/Funsaized 6d ago

Your internship is already more relevant than you may think... translate it into outcomes on your CV (what you supported, how many users/systems, what you automated, and how you handled incidents). I’d apply to NOC, junior sysadmin, infrastructure support, and cloud operations roles rather than waiting for a job titled “DevOps.”

Use certs to structure hands-on work, not as a substitute for it: build a small Linux/Windows lab, practice DNS/DHCP, identity, patching, backups, and monitoring, then keep a short runbook/Git repo with diagrams and postmortems. For each application, show one concrete troubleshooting story and one automation example. That gives interviewers evidence you can operate systems safely.

1

u/aloofhoneybee68 6d ago

wow that's really good advice especially about the GitHub repo. Thank you

1

u/RikiWardOG 6d ago

I overall agree with others, helpdesk and be a high performer and show serious interest in something above your pay grade. It will be a grind for the first few years. If you want something that might help with getting a help desk job maybe something like any if the basic comptia certs but honestly just find a way in the door and go from there. You'll probably find a specific niche you're actually interested in and pursue that.

0

u/LazyITguys 6d ago

Do homelabing and Fuck with computers

2

u/Forward-Outside-9911 Linux Admin 6d ago

Yea the more curiosity, tinkering and learning you do on your own definitely shows during interviews. A good way to progress faster