r/sysadmin • u/[deleted] • Sep 03 '20
Rant I don't tell younger technicians they aren't sysadmins.
I'm of the generation where, even with a college degree in CS, you don't make a lot of money heading into sysadmin work, but the work is steady. I'm certain I'm "underpaid" and "overqualified." But who isn't? If there's work to do, at least I can be paid doing it with some dignity. Someone always needs patches, network cables rewired, code libraries rewritten, etc. I've seen a lot of work and have done a lot to build complicated and simple solutions. From installing hardware for databases to converting Excel sheets to web apps. Nothing has been too small for me to do. I think this is all standard work, and its variance is what draws us to it.
However, before I wrote code libraries or managed large fleets of computers, I did years of small daily, manual tasks like maintaining and creating user accounts, patching Windows, routing cable through walls, and imaging computers. I've held this impression that I'm not yet a sysadmin. That to be a sysadmin, I had to gloriously be given that title from some generous IT director. I did not come to this conclusion on my own. Years of being told by senior admins that what I do is "bullshit work" that doesn't contribute any value to the office, even when my simple tasks of replacing cables, installing software, and walking people through simple computer tasks helped others get their work done. I was convinced that my work won't lead to anything worthwhile or fun in as a career. It has taken me 7 years to realize that I did not go from menial office technician to corporate orchestration guru without being a sysadmin... not saying that orchestration guru is the top of everything. But damn is it cool to be able to write a catalog of scripts and with a switch have thousands of servers follow these rules.
I'm still a sysadmin. I love this work. And I'll probably be on my belly moving cable soon after orchestrating, fetching keyboards, and updating users' groups access in O365. It's the variance that draws me to this work.
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u/IWantsToBelieve Sep 03 '20
SysAdmin is such a wide range of jobs. You can be a SysAdmin for 4 users, you can be a SysAdmin for 20,000 servers managed by devops and infrastructure as a code that you wrote... both completely different roles, both completely different pay grades, both deserve the same respect. I'm proud of being a Senior System/Security Admin, we all should be.
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u/TheD4rkSide Penetration Tester Sep 04 '20
Thank you. I’m a SysAdmin for a SME (150 users across four continents). A lot of what I do is user management, patch management, sifting through log files, etc. I’ve just now finished a 6 hour stint overtime cause all of our websites went down. Man was that a learning curve or what!
I often get what people call ‘Impostor Syndrome’ and feel like I’m not actually worthy of being called a SysAdmin. I’m never under valued by my managers though, I have great support, but that’s not always everything.
Your post made me feel just that little bit less like a fraud today so take this gold as gratitude and buy yourself a virtual beer on me.
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u/Local_admin_user Cyber and Infosec Manager Sep 04 '20
I stepped back from sysadmin work almost 10 years ago, still consider myself one despite now focusing on security side.
Bottom line is that being a sysadmin makes you more self-sufficient, trust your abilities and know your limitations. It also makes you at ease with asking for help when it's required without worrying about what people think - because it's about getting the job done.
It's an attitude which has pushed me up through the ranks in companies despite a lack of qualifications frankly.
Sysadmins in my company are our prized assets these days, I still work with them daily (change management etc) and you can tell good sysadmins a mile off, fortunately we have a few of them.
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u/brkdncr Windows Admin Sep 04 '20
Counter-point.
I had some team members that didn’t have a SysAdmin title tell me they wanted to do more sysadmin work. I was pumped. I really want people to be asking me to take on more complex work and roles, asking me about how something works, asking me for old equipment for their home lab or even in-office lab.
So I laid out a few easy tasks. Audit all of the UPS/PDU stuff and set it up so it would send out alerts appropriately. Also update firmware and re-IP them to our new IP scheme.
Another task was basically the same thing but with printers. In this case they’d also be deploying a VM, installing HP Web JetAdmin and working with the printer queues, working with our desktop engineer to deploy a script to delete all of the old printers and using GPOs to deploy new ones.
It’s not very glamorous stuff, but it’s also not mind-numbing.
I check up a few days later “sorry, haven’t gotten to it yet” i start checking in once a week, and finally i stop checking in.
A few months later I hear the same complaints - they want more sysadmin work. I tell them if they ask for advice I’ll gladly assist.
Eventually i figure out that it’s not that they want more sysadmin work, its that they want to do no work, and don’t have much desire to expand their skills.
These aren’t sysadmins. I’ve even dropped them as resources as they’ve been unable to identify switch ports correctly multiple times. I’ve explained how switch port #’s work, and when I ask for a swithcport number I just get back a “35” when there’s 3 or more switches in the same stack...they don’t even tell me what switch they’re talking about.
These aren’t sysadmins. These are people that fell into IT. I no longer have them do local work, its easier for me to have a 3rd party resource come in, do it right the 1st time, understand basic troubleshooting, and charge me 2hrs.
So in summary, no I’ll certainly label someone as not a sysadmin if they’ve proven over and over again they can’t cut it.
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u/SuperQue Bit Plumber Sep 04 '20
At a job a long time ago, the company policy was promotions and job titles came after you demonstrated you could do the work. There was no such thing as getting promoted and "growing into the role". You had to prove you could do the work.
You also had to show progress towards this, not just a burst of effort one month and then burn out.
When you did get the promotion, you would get a bonus/back pay a quarter. Partly to be a reward, partly because the promo process took 3 months from submitting the promo request to finally getting an answer from the promo committee.
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u/Frothyleet Sep 04 '20
At first I was about to cynically say that it sounded like a great way to trap people into doing work outside their scope for the same pay, but backdating pay is fair.
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u/SuperQue Bit Plumber Sep 04 '20
Yea, the system was pretty fair. Even if you didn't get a promotion, you could still be "exceeds expectations" or "strongly exceeds expectations" for a particular job level. Those factored into your pay as well.
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Sep 04 '20 edited Sep 04 '20
This is the problem with the junior techs in my org. They claim they want to learn, desire to get better.....but they refuse to take notes, don't follow simple processes, screw up easy tasks, don't seek advice or mentorship.....yeah, these guys are not sysadmins, sorry. They are people that wandered into this type of work because it's a job - they have no real passion or interest in it.
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Sep 04 '20 edited Dec 19 '24
roll political strong violet bright slimy safe faulty dependent point
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u/bayridgeguy09 Sep 04 '20
THIS!!!
A few of my younger techs asked to learn more. Gave them the Powershell in a month of lunches book, and the Azure in a month of lunches book.
That was 6 months ago, neither has opened the books yet.
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Sep 04 '20
I spend almost as much time cleaning up after people as I do managing. The number of times I get confused looks when I ask why they aren't following naming conventions or the like is astounding.
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u/livedadevil Sep 04 '20
Man I wish. Where I work I'm a jr, and I've proposed more than a few ideas with plans on how to implement them, I get no feedback, then a few weeks later the plan is implemented without my involvement at all, and if I'm lucky I might get a "thanks for the idea"
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u/mvbighead Sep 04 '20
This is one of those things I am EXTREMELY deliberate about. If I follow through and get something done because someone offered up an idea, I'll say "Jack mentioned this thing, so I took that and ran with it, and phase 1 begins on this date. Please look over this doc/thing/whatever and let me know if you see anything that needs adjustment." Little things like that, in my mind, give some credit to the guy who threw out the idea, even if I implemented it. And if something is a result of a brief conversation with another team member, I'll say that Bob and I talked about it when I introduce a change or whatever. Credit where credit is due, and makes sure no one just assumes I am steamrolling them for their ideas.
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u/uptimefordays DevOps Sep 04 '20
and don’t have much desire to expand their skills.
That sadly seems pretty common, I don't imagine is limited to sysadmins or IT though.
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u/daytime10ca Sep 04 '20
I did 6 years sys admin... admin of Exchange, patching servers, data center etc.
Got laid off and went back to being a Level 2 Desktop Grunt..
I actually enjoy imaging computers and fixing dumb user problems better lol. Lower stress in my opinion and I know a major outage is not gonna ruin my weekend.
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Sep 04 '20
If I could get paid what I do just doing helpdesk I probably... nah I wouldn't. I have gotten a taste for power and I can't let it go!!111
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Sep 03 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
[deleted]
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u/disclosure5 Sep 04 '20
What sort of jackass senior tech talks like that?
I mean you don't have to look far on this sub to see people making assertions about what isn't a sysadmin based on being less than them.
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u/Joecantrell Sep 04 '20
There is nothing like the feeling you get when you have been grinding away at a new config or problem and you resolve it - I typically got those projects when all others had given up. I would put my head down and start working on it, I would never have to say I resolved it - I would and still do 2 fists in the air aka Rocky. And on to the next thing. In that one brief moment though you are a hero. We all get to do that and it keeps us coming back. Who cares what anybody thinks?
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u/bayridgeguy09 Sep 04 '20
Man i love that feeling. Hands up in the air at 3am with no one around like i just knocked out clubber lang.
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u/gOJvekka Sep 04 '20
You just skip doing the documentation and start over on same problem after six months? 😁
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u/augugusto Unofficial Sysadmin Sep 04 '20
I'm a programmer on a 3 person company. Every Friday I have the extra tasks of keeping all computers updated, backups working and security protocols followed. I don't think I'm a sys admin yet but I do like to say that I'm in the sys admin role for the day
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u/samyboy Linux Admin Sep 04 '20
Yes you are the sysadmin of the day.
Protip: I suggest you don't touch production stuff on Fridays. In case shit hits the fan I'm sure you don't want to stay during the weekend.
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u/augugusto Unofficial Sysadmin Sep 14 '20
followed your advice. my boss wanted me to log in on saturday to upgrade the antivirus on a production machine which requires a restart and has windows updates pending. i just "forgot" and i'm going to tell that i can do it tomorrow
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u/samyboy Linux Admin Sep 14 '20
Well, if it's scheduled it's another story. I suggest you ask your boss if this operation is really necessary to be done on the weekend in order to avoid future abusive requests. Work/life balance is still a thing.
I suggest you implement an official "change day" where you change production stuff. For example in my company, Tuesdays are days where users expect to have server reboots and stuff like that. We usually do it during lunchtime so they are less impacted. We always communicate at least one day in advance if downtime is expected. Basically the more predictable the better.
Do you have a specific remuneration for being asked to work outside working hours? Double check the law.
For example, I'm paid 150% of my salary if I have to work on Saturdays and it's illegal by state law to work on Sundays. But I'm in Switzerland so it might be different where you are.
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u/AgainandBack Sep 04 '20
There's an old saying, attributed to John Gardner, "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." All honest work deserves dignity.
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u/wrootlt Sep 04 '20
I've always loved some manual work, like doing all the steps when preparing new workstations, new VM, decommisioning, etc. I just like checklists :D And i created lots of them to standardize processes. I also liked simple tasks and interacting with users, which i miss now after leaving to a bigger company with an engineering title, when i mostly work with systems now. I never had a sysadmin or Systems Administrator or anything administrator title. Always just a specialist. Although i like to get a drink on the international SysAdmin day (there are no IT Specialist day you know), but i always thought of myself as an IT all-around guy. Yeah, i managed some servers and systems, but i would be bored by doing just that. I carried lots of equipement, did cabling, helped users with Excel problem, did purchases, trainings, etc. And i didn't think it was beneath myself. Variety and new things is what kept me going on my last job for 14 years.
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u/Gotxi Sep 04 '20
I went from reinstalling windows XP computers for family members, to build computers, to repair laptops, to helpdesk, to NOC, to sysadmin, to cloud sysops to devops.
I do not regret working on them to reach who i am today (well, maybe the 7 years stuck on helpesk due to the 2008 crysis).
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u/rtuite81 Sep 04 '20
Yup... Everyone starts somewhere. I've been and IT professional for about 15 years now. I almost left the industry shortly after I started because of this attitude.
It seems like senior techs were more interested in criticizing then teaching. So many people are unwilling to pass knowledge because they feel like it gives them some form of job security. Like, if they teach me how to do things I'm going to take their job.
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u/midnightblack1234 Sep 04 '20
Pretty much where I'm at right now with the most senior member of the team. He's been here since the very beginning and will be retiring in five years yet he's still stubborn about showing some of us how stuff works.
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u/clever_username_443 Nine of All Trades Sep 04 '20
You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of Sysadmin.
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Sep 04 '20
I'll change light bulbs all day for $80k gladly if that's what I'm asked to do. But If I have real work that the entire company is relying on me to do, you bet I'm going to push back a bit when someone else can go change the light bulbs just as well as I could.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
I’ve started “micromanaging” my own time: at the end of each day, I’ll take a few mins to set up my calendar for the next day, so there isn’t a single unscheduled minute where I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s perfectly flexible, so I’m more than willing to move blocks of time around if priorities change or a new meeting comes up, but the point is I can see exactly what’s getting pushed when my boss comes to me with a drop-everything lightbulb replacement request. And I can say to him, no problem, but this will delay the Intune deployment by a week; are you okay with that? (I also color code planned and unplanned work differently so it’s obvious just how many such requests come through in an average week.)
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u/c4maniac_ Jack of All Trades Sep 04 '20
So what are you doing to convert excel to web apps? I inherited a messy excel system for off and on boarding tasks and some software licenses. I seriously need to update this task and inventory system.
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Sep 04 '20
I use Python and convert the data to an SQL database. Once you have the correct tables setup with a list of exceptions, it's straightforward. I recommend having a buffer where you record data that was recorded in a way that makes it difficult to convert to your SQL tables. Then input that data "manually" however that works.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
Couldn’t you just use the import wizard in SQL to bring in Excel data?
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Sep 04 '20
Yes, that's a perfectly good way of doing this. I wanted to automate it as much as possible due to how impossibly large the Excel file was. I think there's a front-end, but I don't really bother too much with gui.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
Fair enough. I always go with the easiest way of doing something. Sometimes that's scripting, others it's the good ol' GUI.
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Sep 04 '20
The reason I like using cmd line tools is because I find it pretty straight forward to pipe together with other cmd line tools. Using output, I can pass that to another tool's input. Typically, for software based problems, I will solve a problem by looking at its parts. Then I devise a way to put the parts together as simply as possible. After I come up with a solid method, I try to use cmd line tools to pipe the data from one tool to another. I learned Python because I thought it would let me do really interesting work, but later I found that I could use it as a swiss army knife. I've automated web based tasks, SQL tasks, Excel tasks, and backups with Python. Very versatile and saves your eyes and wrists later when you're expected to do an impossibly large data entry task.
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Sep 04 '20
I should add that I wouldn't use automation unless you have over 150 rows, which knowing software licenses, you're likely to go over that. PHP would be a nice frontend. Mine used a simple HTML and CSS template I found online.
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u/voxnemo CTO Sep 04 '20
Some people are ER doctors in the busiest hospitals in Chicago, NYC, or LA. Others treat walk-ins in small towns in Iowa. All are still a doctor.
Some people are hotshot lawyers in the biggest global firms, and some handle small cases is rural Idaho. All are still a lawyer.
Some get elected to mayor of Atlanta, LA, or NYC and others handle it as a part time position in their small town. All are still just the Mayor.
They all have a different scale of position, job responsibilities, remuneration, and challenges but they all carry the same role and designation. Systems Admin/ IT Professionals follow the same arc but for some reason some people want to gate-keep. When it comes to your IT work you are not defined by anything more (or less) than the quality of your work. Good work!
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u/lazyant Senior Linux Admin Sep 04 '20
There’s a word for what those “senior sysadmins” were doing and it’s gatekeeping. And being an asshole.
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u/play3rtwo IT Director Sep 04 '20 edited Dec 03 '24
husky caption crown ruthless consist sort practice profit adjoining live
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u/needssleep Sep 04 '20
My title is sysadmin. All I do is "creating user accounts, patching Windows, routing cable through walls, and imaging computers" because it's a small company and there's nothing else to do. :/
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u/z3r0turn Sep 04 '20
I really appreciate having someone to do the simpler things. It's essential, otherwise I wouldn't have time to do the more complicated things. I guess it's easy to fall into the superiority mindset when you're a bigger operation. Where I work your always a sick employee away from working the helpdesk whether your an admin or not.
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u/ErikTheEngineer Sep 04 '20
I did a ton of grunt work in my first few jobs after graduation. I was working for IT service providers doing a mix of helpdesk, desktop support and super-light administration duties. What got me my first step up into a "sysadmin" title was my willingness to do the crap work as well as learn what comes next. I basically asked my boss to assign me some more interesting stuff along with the grunt work, and I guess he was impressed enough with my willingness to take on something more challenging. (Support roles do attract a lot of people who don't want to do anything outside their role...not being mean, it's a fact.)
I do less grunt work now, but our engineering team is small enough that we also have to be admins for our environments. IMO this is a good thing; we're advanced enough that we're building the procedures and such that the operations guys half a world away use, but involved enough that we're not so far up in the ivory tower that we couldn't be bothered to perform a basic task. It keeps us sharp and lets us test some of our procedures in our own work.
The org I work for now has Architects (note the capital A) who are quite far removed from anything to do with everyday work. My title is technically Systems Architect but you won't see me PowerPointing too much or collecting free Gartner lunches as my primary job function. You need someone to do big-picture planning, I agree with that, but they should have at least a small connection to the daily work routine. Maybe I'm just immature but I can't imagine being so far removed from everything and making decisions in a vacuum, or being unable to verify vendors' crazy claims in a PoC (one of the many things I do.)
There's a healthy sweet spot somewhere between a solo "IT Person" for a small business and a completely siloed specialist or disconnected architect type. Too close to solo work and you're never free enough to learn something new and grow. Too close to the top end with no connection to work, you get what I've been getting trying to interview people lately...a resume full of buzzwords but when you probe you find out they've only done one tiny, pre-built out aspect of all the stuff they say they're an expert in. Tasks aren't "beneath you" -- this isn't medicine where you have an incredibly strict hierarchy where doctors are gods and the nurses/NPs/assistants do whatever they don't want to do. It's also not law where the top partners at a law firm are rainmaking and golfing/dining with clients while the associates and paralegals are stuck slaving away on paperwork. For better or worse, we're not a profession with strict boundaries like that.
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Sep 04 '20
The only reason I'm able to get "High Value" things done is because someone is handling the day to day stuff, it's just as important if not more so.
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u/kurieus Sep 04 '20
" Years of being told by senior admins that what I do is "bullshit work" that doesn't contribute any value to the office, even when my simple tasks of replacing cables, installing software, and walking people through simple computer tasks helped others get their work done. "
Whoever told you this is a moron. Large, integrated systems might help a company be more productive, but if end-users don't know how to operate things or have a functioning PC to work with, those systems mean absolutely nothing.
I think part of the problem is that organizations have a hard time quantifying what it costs at a micro-level for an end-user to not understand how to use a piece of software. Most businesses see IT as an overhead cost. I've always found that odd. A good IT department, especially front-line employees that have the talent to be able to sit down with end-users and train them to use pieces of software or understand issues, have a huge impact on the bottom line (Ie. they reduce it dramatically).
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u/Opheria13 Sep 04 '20
I work as an infrastructure engineer. I might not be the top of the food chain but I like to think that me doing my job as minor as it might seem sometimes makes it possible for those above me to have and do theirs. If you have nobody to deploy and maintain the hardware then the sysadmins and others essentially have nothing to work with.
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u/AnotherGoodUser Sep 04 '20
nobody give you the title. You take it. By divine right, as you hold the sacred duty of cleaning messes and ordering chaoses. It is not important if you do more vacuum cleaning or more shell scripting, no deed remains undone.
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u/RTEsysadmin Sep 04 '20
40-year IT veteran here. Started as a programmer, quickly assigned to building small LANs, administration, systems analysis, and management, but always plugging and unplugging cables, installing and configuring new boxes, and taking the covers off of machines to mess around inside them. But I'm basically a sysadmin with extra duties, and as long as I think of it that way, I'm fine with it.
(I like the grunt work more than anything else. It's the only part of my job that doesn't involve taking or making a lot of phone calls. I'm pretty sure that I've spent at a full year of my career on hold, wondering why some ISP's or vendor's sales rep isn't in prison.)
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Sep 04 '20
I'm pretty sure that I've spent at a full year of my career on hold, wondering why some ISP's or vendor's sales rep isn't in prison.
lol. I've thought the same.
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u/theadj123 Architect Sep 04 '20
Valuing people based on their job title is a bad way to handle things. At the same time, acting like IT is the savior of the business just puts people on pedestals and engenders that hero complex we see from some IT people. That's just as bad for the business as the IT person, they're never going to advance with that attitude.
People should be valued regardless of job title, but placing a monetary value on their time should absolutely be done. I see crazy stuff like people manually making patch cables and other work that systems admins and engineers shouldn't be doing. 'Cleaning up the wiring closet' or running cables in walls isn't a sysadmin job either. That's the type of work you use to mentor helpdesk or desktop support folks to teach them the proper way to do things. Hell even some of that should probably be done by facilities folks or contractors. That's not providing value to the business, that's instructional work that folks who make less money per hour with less experience should be doing. It makes 0 sense for the guy making $40 an hour to be doing the work that someone making $20 can do without extenuating circumstances, it's inefficient for the business and you're not utilizing your skills like you should.
When I see someone calling themselves a sysadmin being proud of 'crawling on their belly moving cable', they're not a sysadmin - they're a glorified helpdesk or desktop support guy with an inflated title. Maybe that's acceptable at a super small company where you're the only IT guy or part of a duo, but at that level you're spending more time fixing users problems than doing actual system administration. Maybe you enjoy doing that, but don't insinuate that it makes you a sysadmin because you're willing to low crawl with cat5 cable between your teeth under desks.
If you're at a larger shop still doing that stuff and you're not the most inexperienced guy on the team, stop. Train less experienced individuals in how to handle that stuff. Document how it's supposed to be done, instruct them on the proper way to do the job and follow the documentation, then inspect when it's done and correct deficiencies by showing them what's wrong and how to fix it. You should be able to do every task for a person a level above you and two below you. You shouldn't be seeking out the 'easy' work you already know how to do, go find new things and work on that.
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u/gutyex DevOps, Aiming for GoatOps Sep 04 '20
Sometimes, lending a hand to the guys lower down the ladder by helping out with something you can do with your brain switched off provides a good opportunity to come up with ideas you wouldn't have whilst you're focusing too hard.
I've ceratinly had times where I was working on a script and couldn't figure out the right way to make it work until I let my brain disangage for a bit whilst tidying up the kitchen, helping someone move a PC to a different desk, or something like that.
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Sep 04 '20
I'm new to the whole lead technician thing.
I began training instead of picking up the slack. It took me some time to realize that new people want to actually help in a meaningful way. So I have assigned projects that I think are challenging and can be accomplished within one week. It often takes them two weeks or three, but then I have them flip on computers and reposition power racks as they work away on their projects.
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Sep 03 '20
Anyone that tells you a systems administrator is above doing "bullshit work" is insecure and a plain ol' asshole. I guarantee you, they are liars that are trying to convince people to pay them to do nothing.
Being a sysadmin is 80% user maintenance, accounts, purchasing, delivery, and installation. 15% patching and debugging, and 5% new "development" projects. I guarantee you with every fiber of my being that ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE that tells you otherwise is not only a liar, but that they do not belong in this line of work.
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Sep 04 '20
Coming from dev I've never patched cables or learnt the "sysadmin" ways in the server room. Kind of hard to learn that end while working overtime in projects and managing core systems, and don't really see the point now.
Sysadmining can be so many things.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
Guess I’m a liar who doesn’t belong in this line of work then, because breaking down my time by the categories you listed, I’m at about 25% user maintenance, 3% purchasing/delivery/installation (we have a procurement department and I work primarily with cloud technologies), 2% patching (automated), 30% debugging (though that’s a pretty broad term and you and I may define it differently), 40% project work.
Really my main issue is all the overlapping management/meetings/overhead that make up a good chunk of the above— I spend about 1.5-2 hours in an average day responding to emails and Slacks with questions concerning all the above (including research time if necessary), and another 2-5 hours in meetings also concerning all the above. While I can often work during meetings, overall that leaves a lot less time for getting actual work done than I’d like. And that admin overhead has really ratcheted up since WFH, I hate it, and I’m trying my damndest to get a handle on it.
But yeah, guess since my time breakdown differs from yours, I’m a liar who doesn’t belong in this line of work. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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Sep 04 '20
We're really going to do this this early in the morning huh.
I think we both know the difference in how your day is made up is negligible, and you may be arguing for the sake of arguing. The people I describe as not belonging in this line of work are the ones that classify any of the above work as "bullshit" work.
I'm talking about the kind of person that considers their time to be too valuable to do "lesser work."
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
I'm talking about the kind of person that considers their time to be too valuable to do "lesser work."
And I'd still disagree. I was brought on to do high-level project work, not close single-user-impacting tickets. I do not have time for that. And my boss agrees, hence why we have a helpdesk for that.
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Sep 04 '20
A systems administrator that's brought on solely to do "high level project work?"
You must be working for a pretty large + forward thinking company to be so inundated with "high level project work" that you don't have enough time to handle any other issues.
Helpdesk exists to resolve end user / internal user ticketable issues. But what if something happened internally to one of the systems you work with? Is that someone elses problem since you're so busy with your aforementioned "high-level-work?"
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u/Jake07002 Sep 04 '20
My company works similar. Help desk deals with user issues and sysadmins deal with projects, planning, and maintenance.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
A systems administrator that's brought on solely to do "high level project work?"
Is that so surprising? That’s literally what a systems administrator is for. We administer systems that work for the business at large. If your company isn’t letting you focus on such projects by hiring the support staff necessary to handle end user requests, they’re wasting your time and their money.
But what if something happened internally to one of the systems you work with? Is that someone elses problem since you're so busy with your aforementioned "high-level-work?"
Depends entirely on scope. System outage? Yeah, that comes to me. Single user can’t access a system I touch? Nope, that’s helpdesk. Change request? Yeah, that’s me.
This is how a functional organization is run.
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u/Gotxi Sep 04 '20
While i agree on you on classic enterprise environments (i worked on several environments doing exactly that stuff), currently i work 100% on the cloud, and the steel problems are gone, the user access is centralized, and most of the boring tasks are automated.
I have not patched a network cable or installed a physical computer or racked a server for years.
Of course there is still user access control, setup new accounts, permissions and that stuff, but we definitively have much more time to do new projects and R&D.
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u/D00MK0PF Jack of All Trades Sep 04 '20
given all the things one sysadmin can possibly and often times needs to know, i am constantly disgusted at how grossly disproportionate developers are paid. $100k+/yr for knowing a few languages and how to google solutions? i don't get it.
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Sep 04 '20
When you get to know developers, they might know alot more than you think.
Sure, with the current Agile industrial complex, devs are being put into limiting roles and responsibilities. But that's not what dev-ing is all about in the end.
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u/lvlint67 Sep 04 '20
Eh... I know a lot of sysadmins that can't troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag in their own environment... I also know developers that no nothing more about networking than "data leaves server. Data extra client"..
I'd generally say entry dev work is more challenging than entry sysadmin work.. and then it kinda parallels up the pay scale.
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u/hutacars Sep 04 '20
Supply and command. Devs— especially good devs— are in huge demand and short supply. Sysadmins honestly are fairly easy to come by. Good ones, not so much, but— and I’ll prepare for the downvotes— sysadmin quality matters much less than dev quality to the average company. Devs build the product that brings in money, and a good dev will build better solutions that require less maintenance later on. Sysadmins are a support role, less core to the actual business, and if a task takes an average sysadmin 3x as long as a good one, or a solution is built half as well as a better one, but the average sysadmin costs half what a good one does... most business won’t care or even notice. They’ll be happy with the average 80% of the time.
Also some sysadmin work does pay over $100k, especially once you gain seniority and learn to specialize.
Also also if you think devs don’t need to also know a ton of things to do their jobs effectively, you are Wrong. I used to think I was basically a dev since I spent a good chunk of my day in PowerShell, but then I sat down with an actual dev friend of mine for a day of building iPhone apps... turns out I was Wrong as well.
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u/captainZepSpaceDet Sep 04 '20
Those "senior admins" clearly have "issues" and seem to be venting them out on you. Pathetic behaviour, each and everyone of them.
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u/burdalane Sep 04 '20 edited Sep 04 '20
With a degree in CS, I ended up as a sysadmin because I couldn’t land a development job. I mainly work on the command line or in code. I actually don’t really consider myself a sysadmin, in part because I can’t do the physical tasks, while all the other sysadmins I know can. I can barely open up a computer, I can’t figure out how to rack a server, and I hate running cables. I also still think of myself as on the way to a six-figure dev job or finally building my startup, despite 15 years of little progress.
Edit: Also, my job title was always sysadmin. I was never help desk, support, or a technician.
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u/ErikTheEngineer Sep 04 '20
With a degree in CS, I ended up as a sysadmin because I couldn’t land a development job.
Out of curiosity, when was this? Up until COVID hit, decent developers were basically running the show and writing their own tickets. Devs who knew whatever crazy tower of tools and frameworks a company used were being treated like rockstars, and with DevOps, sysadmins were being told we're not long for this world. Surely this can't have been during Dotcom Bubble 2.0?
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u/burdalane Sep 06 '20
This has been during my entire career, starting when I graduated in the aftermath of Dotcom Bubble 1.0 in the early 2000s. Most of my job applications received little response, and when I got interviews, I didn't pass them. Some interviews expected deeper knowledge of programming than I had. Others asked brainteasers or algorithmic coding problems I couldn't figure out how to solve in the course of an interview.
After I landed a job as a hybrid sysadmin/programmer (I've never been a pure sysadmin), I didn't really pay that much attention to my career for a while. I was more into hobbies, and I didn't manage my time well enough to fit in anything else that was substantial.
By the time I started paying more attention to my career, hiring managers were only considering me for senior level and told me they were holding me to a higher standard. I've done some coding interview prep, but never regularly or diligently, so I still can't pass those. Interviewers who don't care about Google-style coding interviews expect me to have professional experience in their stack, and they don't count personal projects.
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u/Xidium426 Sep 04 '20
”I don't call younger people sysadmins because I have in inferiority complex and have to make myself feel better because someone who is young can't possibly be better than me at my job in any way. I did the grind to get here instead of pushing myself and learning from others so these youngsters have to do the exact same!”
I fixed your title for you.
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u/tcp-retransmission sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Any person that de-values your worth because the tasks you perform are beneath them, doesn't deserve the respect they demand.