There is such a profession.
Recently, the profession of system administrator has become extremely popular especially among young people. Practically in any company there are specialists of such a profile. Who are these people and what are their troubles?
Since there is no such profession officially, the number of interpretations of this specialty is incredibly large. How many transcripts did I have to hear. From terribly fanciful to frankly “amusing”, but everybody agrees to something - this is a person who sets up and monitors the work of the computer equipment of the company. Whether powerful servers and hundreds of user stations, or a dozen user computers and the eleventh in the "server".
Because of the confusion with the definition, and hence the responsibilities of system administrators, most businessmen and bosses, to put it mildly, have little idea what kind of a “system administrator” is for the specialty and what a person with such a specialty should do. Very often we hear how the sysadmin is called in his own way "geek". I am not casual cited this term. The fact is that once upon a time, when this term appeared, people had a picture of a sort of “keyboard maniac” in their head, who, roughly speaking, is simply well-versed in computers. This means that this person can understand both the servers and the user's computers and ... can set up a miniATS and repair the photocopier and change the paper in the fax. After all, the authorities truly believe sacredly that all this equipment is directly related to the “computer equipment” of the company, which means that it is under the authority of the system administrator. In other words, the responsibilities of a system administrator can be quite extensive.
The increased popularity of the system administrator profession has led to a decrease in the overall level of salaries and the level of demand for system administrators. For existing specialists working at the moment in this specialty, there is a problem - what to do next. Where to develop, where to look for earnings of a normal level. The reasons for this situation, there is not enough, and if you go into details and subtleties, you get at least a good coursework for some student. I will not try to find a way out of this situation, since my competence in this matter is clearly insufficient. Let's better think about how to get out of this situation.
')
If you imagine that you have already passed that period when you “urgently need money for beer” and assume a shift in priorities to a more serious side, then it seems to be a very good picture to change the main specialization. You already have a job, there is no lack of free time (as a rule), the company doesn’t pay any money every month. What prevents to stop whining about the severity of fate and begin to change the situation, at least relative to himself? I think that only laziness. But tell me honestly - are you all really going to work as system administrators all your life, even in the hope of becoming chiefs of the IT department? Come on, do not believe it. This is not a specialty that contributes to continuous professional growth and pleases the soul with the future of golden mountains. (We exclude from consideration a place in companies where this statement is not true because of the large size of the company and the widest opportunities for career growth - this situation is not as typical as many would have liked.)
Who could be a person who worked for some time as a system administrator? Yes, anyone! Moreover, system administrators often have even more opportunities to find a specialty “for themselves”, since by the will of work they often have to superficially delve into aspects of the work of many employees.
An example of this can be people who, in the process of working in a company, understood that the company's general activity is at least interesting to them. Usually, later, these people received education appropriate to their interests (as an option, if possible, to take the necessary courses) and it happened that they changed their occupation to a completely different one. For example, one of my friends, who worked in a company selling motorcycles and cars, wanted to be the head of the sales department (there are higher earnings and much more interesting work, not to mention the various perspectives of “useful acquaintances”). He received education, passed management courses and informed his superiors about the desire to work in a new capacity. Of course, no one appointed a newly-created manager as the head of an already established department at that very moment, and he had to work for a while, proving his worth, both as a performer and as a leader. However, for us it is much more important that after only half a year (from the moment of “profile change”) he achieved the desired result and, as far as I know, he is very pleased with it (both the result and the profile).
Another example is not related to finding a job "around you", however, it is directly related to the profession of a system administrator. Since many people working in this specialty for quite a long time have their own “working” schemes and methods for analyzing both tasks and various emergency situations (that is, in other words, use a systematic approach), it is not surprising that the analytical part of these people's minds is developed excellent. Therefore, personally, I was not surprised at all when I learned that two of my acquaintances had become analysts at quite large companies. Of course, this work is much more interesting for them, since it is not fixated on one thing (computers, servers, etc.), but covers a disproportionately wider range of issues.
Of course, no one has canceled the right to develop the profession of system administrator, with the possible subsequent transition to new levels. There are cases when a professional administrator grew into the head of a large IT department of a large company, or started his own business altogether. Passing courses and obtaining certificates help to find a better paid job in the specialty. By the way, some certificates can be obtained without attending courses, but only by improving your knowledge in the desired area with the subsequent passing of exams, in order to obtain the desired certificate.
In other words, examples of changing the main profile weight. Often, a job change is made taking into account the strengths of a person that were identified in the process of working as a system administrator. Some people find an interesting job in the same office where they served the computer network. As a rule, all questions related to the analytical, tactical aspects of work are fairly easily given to the person who worked as a system administrator. Apparently, the reason is in the type of thinking of people choosing this specialty.
So what's the deal? Maybe it's time to stop making big round eyes, meeting the next announcement of the search for a "man-combine" and come to grips with your future? I understand that the possibility to do nothing all day long, but only to sit on forums and in chat rooms is attractive for many, but it's time to think about how this will turn out in the future. Take a look around, maybe “your” specialty is hidden behind the next table of a corporate account manager. I had to hear assurances like "I can't do anything else." I think it is not difficult to remember that once you and Unix could not be installed. Or were you born knowing how to work in a shell? I doubt it.
The profession of a system administrator cannot be compared with utility workers; nevertheless, it requires some intellectual work, rather than blindly following instructions. But it is not right to consider it as a permanent specialty for an accomplished person, since this profession cannot give decent development and career growth (I repeat - except in rare cases, which I don’t take, especially in light of the global popularization of this specialty) for a really smart employee. . The authorities often do not even suspect what valuable personnel are hidden in their company until you yourself show them. And believe me, real professionals, system administrators do not sit still and do not have the opportunity to “hang out” on forums and in chat rooms all day. They have too little time and too many cases for which they receive decent pay.
Maybe it was already time for action, so that it would not be excruciatingly painful for wasted years in ten years?
(c) akeeper Korshunov Alexey.
Originally published in the journal "System Administrator"
PS Once, my debut article ...
Since there is no such profession officially, the number of interpretations of this specialty is incredibly large. How many transcripts did I have to hear. From terribly fanciful to frankly “amusing”, but everybody agrees to something - this is a person who sets up and monitors the work of the computer equipment of the company. Whether powerful servers and hundreds of user stations, or a dozen user computers and the eleventh in the "server".
Because of the confusion with the definition, and hence the responsibilities of system administrators, most businessmen and bosses, to put it mildly, have little idea what kind of a “system administrator” is for the specialty and what a person with such a specialty should do. Very often we hear how the sysadmin is called in his own way "geek". I am not casual cited this term. The fact is that once upon a time, when this term appeared, people had a picture of a sort of “keyboard maniac” in their head, who, roughly speaking, is simply well-versed in computers. This means that this person can understand both the servers and the user's computers and ... can set up a miniATS and repair the photocopier and change the paper in the fax. After all, the authorities truly believe sacredly that all this equipment is directly related to the “computer equipment” of the company, which means that it is under the authority of the system administrator. In other words, the responsibilities of a system administrator can be quite extensive.
The increased popularity of the system administrator profession has led to a decrease in the overall level of salaries and the level of demand for system administrators. For existing specialists working at the moment in this specialty, there is a problem - what to do next. Where to develop, where to look for earnings of a normal level. The reasons for this situation, there is not enough, and if you go into details and subtleties, you get at least a good coursework for some student. I will not try to find a way out of this situation, since my competence in this matter is clearly insufficient. Let's better think about how to get out of this situation.
')
If you imagine that you have already passed that period when you “urgently need money for beer” and assume a shift in priorities to a more serious side, then it seems to be a very good picture to change the main specialization. You already have a job, there is no lack of free time (as a rule), the company doesn’t pay any money every month. What prevents to stop whining about the severity of fate and begin to change the situation, at least relative to himself? I think that only laziness. But tell me honestly - are you all really going to work as system administrators all your life, even in the hope of becoming chiefs of the IT department? Come on, do not believe it. This is not a specialty that contributes to continuous professional growth and pleases the soul with the future of golden mountains. (We exclude from consideration a place in companies where this statement is not true because of the large size of the company and the widest opportunities for career growth - this situation is not as typical as many would have liked.)
Who could be a person who worked for some time as a system administrator? Yes, anyone! Moreover, system administrators often have even more opportunities to find a specialty “for themselves”, since by the will of work they often have to superficially delve into aspects of the work of many employees.
An example of this can be people who, in the process of working in a company, understood that the company's general activity is at least interesting to them. Usually, later, these people received education appropriate to their interests (as an option, if possible, to take the necessary courses) and it happened that they changed their occupation to a completely different one. For example, one of my friends, who worked in a company selling motorcycles and cars, wanted to be the head of the sales department (there are higher earnings and much more interesting work, not to mention the various perspectives of “useful acquaintances”). He received education, passed management courses and informed his superiors about the desire to work in a new capacity. Of course, no one appointed a newly-created manager as the head of an already established department at that very moment, and he had to work for a while, proving his worth, both as a performer and as a leader. However, for us it is much more important that after only half a year (from the moment of “profile change”) he achieved the desired result and, as far as I know, he is very pleased with it (both the result and the profile).
Another example is not related to finding a job "around you", however, it is directly related to the profession of a system administrator. Since many people working in this specialty for quite a long time have their own “working” schemes and methods for analyzing both tasks and various emergency situations (that is, in other words, use a systematic approach), it is not surprising that the analytical part of these people's minds is developed excellent. Therefore, personally, I was not surprised at all when I learned that two of my acquaintances had become analysts at quite large companies. Of course, this work is much more interesting for them, since it is not fixated on one thing (computers, servers, etc.), but covers a disproportionately wider range of issues.
Of course, no one has canceled the right to develop the profession of system administrator, with the possible subsequent transition to new levels. There are cases when a professional administrator grew into the head of a large IT department of a large company, or started his own business altogether. Passing courses and obtaining certificates help to find a better paid job in the specialty. By the way, some certificates can be obtained without attending courses, but only by improving your knowledge in the desired area with the subsequent passing of exams, in order to obtain the desired certificate.
In other words, examples of changing the main profile weight. Often, a job change is made taking into account the strengths of a person that were identified in the process of working as a system administrator. Some people find an interesting job in the same office where they served the computer network. As a rule, all questions related to the analytical, tactical aspects of work are fairly easily given to the person who worked as a system administrator. Apparently, the reason is in the type of thinking of people choosing this specialty.
So what's the deal? Maybe it's time to stop making big round eyes, meeting the next announcement of the search for a "man-combine" and come to grips with your future? I understand that the possibility to do nothing all day long, but only to sit on forums and in chat rooms is attractive for many, but it's time to think about how this will turn out in the future. Take a look around, maybe “your” specialty is hidden behind the next table of a corporate account manager. I had to hear assurances like "I can't do anything else." I think it is not difficult to remember that once you and Unix could not be installed. Or were you born knowing how to work in a shell? I doubt it.
The profession of a system administrator cannot be compared with utility workers; nevertheless, it requires some intellectual work, rather than blindly following instructions. But it is not right to consider it as a permanent specialty for an accomplished person, since this profession cannot give decent development and career growth (I repeat - except in rare cases, which I don’t take, especially in light of the global popularization of this specialty) for a really smart employee. . The authorities often do not even suspect what valuable personnel are hidden in their company until you yourself show them. And believe me, real professionals, system administrators do not sit still and do not have the opportunity to “hang out” on forums and in chat rooms all day. They have too little time and too many cases for which they receive decent pay.
Maybe it was already time for action, so that it would not be excruciatingly painful for wasted years in ten years?
(c) akeeper Korshunov Alexey.
Originally published in the journal "System Administrator"
PS Once, my debut article ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/5493/
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