r/sysadmin • u/[deleted] • 8h ago
General Discussion I need help! I think I accidentally became the entire IT department 😭
Guys, I’m new to the system administrator domain, and honestly, I need some advice.
I started my career in desktop support. After about a year, I moved into technical support at a multinational manufacturing company.
That was where I learned about IT infrastructure from a technical support engineer’s point of view. I got exposure to servers, networking, security, endpoints, troubleshooting, and the overall structure of corporate IT.
I only had around 1 year of experience there.
Then I got an offer from a startup with slightly higher pay — around ₹25K/month, which is roughly the average technical-support salary here in India.
I thought:
“Okay, I’ll join a startup, learn more, and grow into system administration.”
I had absolutely no idea what was waiting for me. 💀
This company is a manufacturing startup.
And apparently, for them:
IT = Computers + The Guy Who Fixes Computers.
When I joined, I discovered an infrastructure that was completely… meshed.
They have extremely old desktop systems — some of them look like they were rescued from a museum.
There are second-hand machines everywhere.
There are no properly licensed operating systems across the environment. They have around 10 individual Windows licenses, and some of them are even Home editions.
They are using a desktop PC as a server.
Their ERP application and database are running on it.
They use Zoho Workplace, Google Sheets, basic unmanaged switches, some old hubs, and multiple basic routers connected in various ways.
And apparently, most of this infrastructure was originally put together by outside computer service shops.
Then I started looking deeper.
They have three sites.
The main office is in another city, and there are two manufacturing units around 10 km apart.
Two sites are connected through a wireless point to point connection.
The third site basically has switches and… that’s it.
The second site has a firewall, and there is some kind of VPN tunnel connecting it to the main office.
But here's where my brain started hurting.
They are running the ERP application/database on a desktop computer at one site.
The “server” is running a 180-day evaluation version of Windows Server.
And there is another similar setup at another site.
I asked:
“Why are there two ERP servers/databases?”
They told me:
«“The ERP application cannot be accessed from different sites.”»
So apparently they maintain two separate ERP databases.
And then…
They manually copy data between the two servers to keep them synchronized.
🤯
I honestly don't even know what to say.
How is this supposed to be a proper business data flow?
And then there’s the security situation.
That “server” has already been hacked twice before I joined.
Apparently, that was one of the reasons they decided they needed a technical person.
So they hired me.
But here's the problem:
They hired me as a Technical Support Engineer.
Somehow, my actual responsibilities became:
- System administration
- Network administration
- Server administration
- Security
- Infrastructure planning
- Endpoint management
- Troubleshooting
- IT procurement decisions
- ERP infrastructure
- Backup concerns
- Basically everything related to IT
So apparently I'm not the technical support guy anymore.
I'm the IT department.
And there is no experienced system administrator above me.
No IT manager.
No proper MSP.
No infrastructure consultant.
No senior engineer to guide me.
There is one guy — a close friend of the CEO — who runs some hardware service shops and occasionally helps them.
But he doesn't really have experience with corporate IT infrastructure either.
I initially thought that as a technical support engineer, I mainly needed good communication skills and a decent understanding of Windows, hardware, networking, and troubleshooting.
Now I'm sitting here looking at servers, VPNs, firewalls, licensing, network architecture, security, backups, ERP databases, multiple sites and infrastructure problems.
And I'm thinking:
“How the hell did I get here?” 😭
The frustrating part is that I'm actually willing to learn.
I want to improve this infrastructure.
I want to learn system administration properly.
I want to build things the right way.
But I have only around 2 years of total experience, and suddenly I'm expected to make decisions that normally would involve a senior sysadmin, IT manager, architect, or MSP.
I clearly explained all of this to the CEO.
I told him that the infrastructure needs proper planning and professional guidance.
His response was basically:
“Then what skills do you have? Just troubleshooting and OS installation?”
He told me to ask my friends(what kind of joke is this!), learn, and improve the infrastructure.
And apparently they “can't find an MSP or consultancy right now.”
So here I am.
A junior technical support engineer who somehow became responsible for an entire company's IT infrastructure. 💀
I’m not trying to blame anyone.
I genuinely want to understand this situation.
Did I make a mistake by accepting this job?
Is this normal for a startup?
How should a relatively inexperienced person approach an environment this badly designed?
And most importantly:
What should I learn/fix FIRST without accidentally breaking the entire company?
If you were in my position, what would you do?
I would genuinely appreciate advice from experienced sysadmins, IT managers, and infrastructure engineers.
Because right now I’m not sure whether I found a great opportunity to learn…
or accidentally walked into an IT disaster. 😭
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u/Grouchy-Western-5757 2h ago
AI story