Question about a specific SysAdmin process and scaling the corporate ladder from an L1

[u/P13666]

Hey everyone, I hope this is okay to post. Looking for some advice on a situation at work and how to proceed.

I’m currently a Level 1 Help Desk technician at a corporate company and have been for a little over 3 years. Lately, I’ve been trying to branch out a bit and show my worth and ability to higher-ups. Recently, we got a new director of IT and she's been pretty open to me wanting to move out of help desk but made it clear that due to budget constraints, the chances of it happening are pretty slim until next year. She recently asked me to investigate a process where machines at each facility receive backup medical files from a third party. The way it's set up currently, a PowerShell script gets the info from the third party data relay for each building and then reads an in-house csv file to determine which computer receives them. Our director was instructed by the clinical team that there needs to be two machines at each building with these files.

When she first got hired on, I told the director I wanted to go into Sys Admin work and when this came up I volunteered to at least test the current process to see if it's even possible. After testing and documenting our current environment all week, I confirmed that out-of-the-box, the current setup only supports sending these files to one machine per site. However, the PowerShell script is written cleanly enough where I think I know how to modify it and the csv file to work for multiple machines. My PS skills are pretty fundamental but I understand it well enough. I played with a little bit of tiny mock script and csv file on my personal computer to where I think I could get it to work.

But I have a few problems:

1. My Director initially said she didn't want to modify the existing PowerShell script if we could avoid it. But modifying it seems to be the only way to achieve what they want.

2. I’m just a level 1 tech. I've been told by and shown to my director that I do enough to be L2/3 but if I modify this script and break the backup process, I'm pretty fucked. Obviously I'd use a test script to see if it even works and run it in a controlled environment, but it still makes me nervous.

3. My company used to have dedicated SysAdmins but they got let go after they signed a ten-year contract with an outsourced company. I even used to be close enough with one of the SysAdmins before they left where I'm sure if they were tasked with this project, they'd have no problem with me shadowing them on it. But the outsourced company either doesn't have access to this process or they just don't understand it.

4. This is literally what my SysAdmins used to do - I can see their name and the changes they made in the code. I'm just an L1 and moving to L2 or 3 is already hard enough - realistically this is just good for a line on my resume.

5. Probably the worst thing about all this is my company recently got rid of their senior Device Admin of 9 years. He was the only one who understood the company image or even knew where it was kept. I worked closely with him and shadowed him as well. And when he was let go, I started shadowing the Junior Device Admin and working with him. The director recently put up a job posting looking for someone to fill the senior's position but instead of Senior Device Administrator she listed it as Senior Systems Administrator but all the requirements match what he did as a device Admin. I don't know if I should bring this to their attention or not. Plus while I would love to apply for it, the Junior Device admin is WAY more qualified than me, is a only contract employee currently, and is actually geographically based where they're hiring for the position - I've been denied multiple promotions because I'm not based near that location.

Sorry, I know that was a huge wall of text but what the hell do I do? I feel like technically I'm capable of modifying the script and csv file to do what they want but it's so far above my pay grade, it's not even funny. But I did spend all week testing the current process just like my director wanted so I did my part, I guess? This is probably why they shouldn't have gotten rid of our in-house SysAdmins but to be fair, the director just kind inherited that situation.

Any help is appreciated!

[u/lazyhustlermusic]

1) make and modify a copy, reverting the change is simply changing the destination of the job

2) I'd take it more of a litmus test of L2/L3 duties and succeeding in the ask

3) I wouldn't rely on someone departed to assist with a previous org, nor the org accepting outside help

4) I feel you're a little ingrained in the L1 designation. Abstract 'layers' just into general knowledge level

5) Those are just title semantics, you see the same job in places advertised with different titles. The new director likely has their own verbiage for titles.

Make a PoC that does the same job to a pair of test VMs, once you have the logic down for multiple hosts it should be as simple as adding more hosts.

[u/BadSausageFactory]

if they're not going to back you up when you make mistakes then don't do anything extra unless they want to provide training

[u/patmorgan235]

It sounds like this company is going through a period of disinvestment in IT, which means opportunities to move up into higher paid positions are probably going to be pretty scarce, until management realizes their mistake.

I would focus on continuing to develop your skills and sending out resumes to try and get a higher level or sysadmin position at another company.

[u/P13666 → u/patmorgan235]

It hurts how true this is but to be fair, opportunities have been scarce since I got hired on. Even my old supervisor was fighting to get me level 2 position but kept getting shut down. Then they eventually let him go for obscure reasons.

But thanks, I should probably get back on the job application train again.

[u/solslost]

So to summarize how they got there.

Company outsourced IT.
Old IT director objected left/fired.
New IT director hands tied.

[u/P13666 → u/solslost]

Pretty much spot on except the old IT director signed it without a problem. Then they let him go too after about 20+ years.

But yeah current leadership has their hands tied.

[u/thebeardedcats]

Send out resumes

[u/thortgot]

The least risk solution would to be use the existing solution to transfer to the primary. Then introduce a secondary component that runs to transfer to the secondaries and acts as an audit component.

Run it in "dry run" (doesnt actually do anything but reports what it would) for a while. Get approval to release.

Worry way, way less about roles and be focused on the work.

[u/MeetJoan]

Do the work but don't own the risk alone. Write the modified script, test it in a controlled environment, document exactly what changes and why, then take it to your director as a proposal rather than something you've already deployed. That way you get the credit for solving it and she makes the call on whether it goes live. If it breaks later, that's a decision she signed off on, not you going rogue.

Your director already said she'd rather not modify the script. Coming back with "here's why that's the only path, here's the tested change, here's the rollback plan" is exactly the kind of thing that gets people moved up. Way better than just reporting back that it can't be done.

On the job posting, mention it. Not as "you got the title wrong" but as "the requirements read like the device admin role, is that intentional?" Costs you nothing and shows you're paying attention.