How Did You Become a UNIX Administrator? 903
"I am an English teacher now but am a techie at heart and spend all my time coding and using various Linux / BSD distros. I figure I am capable of handling a junior position, but most ads I see for *nix admins are looking for several years of work experience (on specific platforms), CS or EE degrees (I have a BA in philosophy) and perhaps years of experience in a specific industry (financial, wireless, transportation...).
I have been told by a couple people that at 33 I am far too old to start ANY kind of tech career (with no previous work experience). Anyone out there with experience to counter that? I know the job market is tough right now, but I am thinking long term."
Just know it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Getting the interview is a different story. Perhap certification would help there, but I doubt it.
Re:Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
Get some education.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I had a friend who broke in at 32. He went off and got certified on Sun, and their E10K's. It helped him get his foot in the door. He was lucky though. Also concentrate on learning a scripting language or two like Perl. You need to have skills that will make you stand out from the rest of the crowd.
passionate curiousity and reckless experimentation (Score:4, Insightful)
So, install Linux on a partition (I imagine you probably have already). Network your apartment/house/dorm room. Set up a web server and host your friends' sites. Set up a firewall. Follow the security updates for the software you have installed. Put a free database on it and write some useless but entertaining CGI on it. Translate the code into Java, Perl, and PHP just for kicks. Get excited, and the rest will follow.
Steps to greatness! (Score:2, Insightful)
2) Learn it inside-out.
3) Get a CS (Computer Science) degree.
4) Enroll in co-op, that might start you in the sysadm dept.
5) Look for odd-jobs that have a lot to do with networking. (afterall, every UNIX that's worth admin' is networked)
Hope that helps
Go the .edu route (Score:2, Insightful)
Good luck!
Re:Advice (Score:2, Insightful)
a common path (Score:4, Insightful)
Less sysadmins via better programs. (Score:2, Insightful)
What the tech industry needs is better coders and more robust administration programs where simple tasks, even server cloning can all be automated. Setting up a website or email or dns for a customer should be painless, fast and simple.
The ultimate goal of every sysadmin and programmer should be to render themselves obsolete.
forget the CS degree, just have a passion for it (Score:2, Insightful)
The hiring manager told me flat out that there were at least a few other candidates that were much more experienced in Unix than I. He told me he was going to recommend me anyway, though, because he liked my enthusiasm and really felt that he would enjoy working with me.
Before graduation, I had been the sysadmin of my own home Linux box for a few years, and had even spent a year as president of the Miami Unix Collective, a student organization of Unix geeks. But I had no enterprise-level sysadmin experience, period, and certainly no certifications from Big Blue or anything like that.
The thing is, I had a passion for learning. All the Unix I knew, I had crammed into my head in between studying Plato, formal logic, mathematical physics, and organic chemistry. I think the manager was impressed with that, and I know he was impressed with how much I picked up after I started here.
I've been a Unix sysadmin here for five years, and pretty much everybody knows to come to me if they're stumped with something Unix-y. And pretty much everybody comes out of my cube with at least a good direction, if not the answer to their problem.
I script and automate routine stuff that doesn't really need my attention, and I augment systems with GNU and other tools more useful than the ones that come with the systems, so that I can work more efficiently. Folks frequently have to ask me to slow down if they want to be able to repeat what I'm showing them. I think it's because I've really come to think in pipes and regular expressions and such.
That's really the most helpful thing of all-- being able to think Unix.
Forget worrying about the degree. Just show them your stuff, and they'll hire you. If a particular employer won't hire you based on your capabilities, but is insisting on some silly technical degree, then you probably don't want to get stuck with them, anyway.
Best of luck.
clayton hynfield
Blunder into it! (Score:3, Insightful)
I first started at this company as "Microcomputer Support," that is, Windows and some Mac OS. This shop has been all Windows and VMS since time immemorial, but one of their critical apps was switching from VMS to Unix so they had to do it too. I happened to hear at some event that they were going to have to start working with Unix, and since I had already logged a few years with Linux and BSD, I started to push through channels and ask if I could be involved - that's all I asked. Next thing I know, the Director of Technologies is calling me, asking for an interview, and in a few months, after taking a battery of tests and as soon as they were able to replace me, I moved to my new office as sysadmin. This must have been divine intervention; everything else here goes through lots of channels and gets tested with umpteen Gartner and PWC statements, blah blah blah, but for some reason (I'm sure it was a clerical error) they awarded me the job. Of course, they are paying me about half what an outside consultant would charge, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Having said that, you might be surprised at how boring and thankless this job can be sometimes. I know a lot of people who really have programmer tendencies, who get stuck with sysadminning and burn out on the whole industry.
How Did You Become a UNIX Admin? (Score:3, Insightful)
Three years ago, I went from being a married, stay-at-home mom to divoced mother of three. I can't say I'm a true geek at heart. I'm interested in computers but not obsessed. The model is the same for Paralegal Services and Computer Science -- research, discovery and investigation, and analysis -- only the data is different.
I've only been in this field two years. I'm 45; I was 43 when I changed careers, so to speak. I changed the format of my resume to draw attention to what I was learning and the fact that I was continuing to learn and to draw attention away from my lack of work experience. I installed linux on a second partition on my Windows machine at home and learned both Operating Systems. I added a linux firewall to my home network and learned system administration and network security. I learned programming languages and protocols. I put all this down on my resume -- experience is experience. I provided copies of my executable programs when I went on an interview. I joined the local LUG, and as I got to know other members, they pointed me toward job openings, and I was able to use them as references.
Thirty-three is not too old to change careers. Statistics show that people change careers as many as three times during their lives. If this is your heart's desire, you owe it to yourself to go after this.
UNIX Experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Getting Started (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd avoid Linux. I may well love the OS, and have been using it since the Linus boot/root disk days, but I'd advise something else for learning how to admin the box. Linux makes life too easy, with the consequence that you get used to the niceties and are then stuck when confronted with an OS that doesn't have them (and most of the paid Unix admin jobs will have such an OS).
Writing bash scripts, for example, gives you some syntactic sugar, but little in the way of real added value over and above plain Bourne shell. But it means your scripts won't be portable, and when confronted with an OS without bash, you're stuck.
I'd recommend OpenBSD or Solaris, or preferably both. Both can be acquired at zero cost for PC hardware, and hence make good choices to play with. Try to do everything you do without resorting to adding extra toys to the system (via the ports collection or sunfreeware.com, for example). Some might claim that's making your life hard for the sake of it, but I'd say it gives you invaluable experience that you'll welcome later in your Unix admin career. Get exposure to as many different versions of Unix as you can lay your hands on, and learn the differences between them. I've met (and in fact, interviewed recently) too many admins that only know Linux, or only know Solaris. Ultimately, Unix is Unix, but if you can show exposure to a wide variety, you're demonstrating an ability to deal with the variance between systems. I've met AIX admins who didn't know how to use a system without smit/smitty, and hence are useless on any other version of Unix.
unix admin (Score:1, Insightful)
Thrown in the water (Score:3, Insightful)
Certification? School of Real Life, baby.
Get a job. (Score:5, Insightful)
Took a job at this state agency as a programmer, then filled a void when it turned out their UNIX skills were crap.
I do not currently hold any certifications.
It used to be that you could apply for a job with a fraction of the experience stated as "required." I don't know whether the economic crash has changed this substantially, but it never hurts to apply. The worst that'll happen is that they say no. So tip #1 is: just apply, and see what happens.
#2) Don't be a snob. Before I started here, this was an NT/Novell shop, which has (slowly) changed into a UNIX/Novell shop. The migration has gone pretty smoothly, but required some handholding along the way. OTOH, you may have to take on some NT admin stuff en route. Once people see that you don't have to reboot *nix boxes daily, you're in pretty good shape.
#3) Don't ignore your local and state governments. Is it sexy? No. Does it pay well in comparison to other IT positions? No. On the up side, they still have positions to fill, and you may find yourself at the top of a middling crop of non-traditional IT resumes. Being a medium sized fish in a smallish pond has its advantages.
#4) Use your strengths. One of the big problems in IT is that the people who staff the positions can't communicate. This certianly doesn't apply across the board, but the stereotype fits for the most part. I'd think someone who can write effective emails and describe the situation to PHBs would deliver significant value to an organization.
#5) Practical experience over "home use." Can you start something where you are? It doesn't have to be big, per se, just functioning. Email/WWW gateway for your students? I know that getting something into production will greatly increase your value over "well, I set SAMBA up at home, and I've got Apache running on my home network." This'll also give you an idea of whether you actually want to do this.
Good luck.
A few observations (what I did) (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a shot at adminning for a small ISP, they usually can't afford to pay an admin. Be prepared to get paid squat, but you should at the least have very flexible hours.
Review your job situation very frequently and objectively. Don't get caught deadending or in a rut.
Don't be afraid to change up jobs after a year. Its hard to do, but it seems like unless the company you work for allows you to advance within, you can only advance by getting out of there.
A CS degree or EE degree does NOT an admin make. I think out of the group I work with only one has that degree (Actually he has both). The rest of us have our degrees across the spectrum.
Apply for some of the jobs that you see in the papers/web. Chances are the ads are asking for the moon while hoping they'll get someone with a telescope.
Just because a company is asking for a CS or EE degree shouldn't scare you off. Alot of times they want someone with any degree. It has to do with the stupid traditions that companies have, but it also shows you can stick something out for 4+ years.
Honestly, if you have some decent programming skills you should at the least be able to get a job as a programmer. If you find one at a small firm, you'll be the programmer and the admin so your dilemma is solved. Good luck.
Become a sysadmin in 3 easy steps. (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Install and run as many different kinds of unix as you can get. DON'T just stick with Linux. When I do interviews and stuff, I get a million kids with Linux experience. Truly motivated sysadmins will also install xBSD and Solaris x86 (it's free -- go get it now). Run them every day. Make them work together over a network(NFS, NIS, etc). And when you apply, write all this experience down! Of course it counts as "real" experience!
2) Read all kinds of books. Develop your knowledge. You need to demonstrate a depth of understanding, in lieu of experience, when you're at an interview. If you can converse intelligently about the pros and cons of various topics, that's a good sign.
3) Here's an important one: do _NOT_ try to get a job at a small development shop run on Linux. This place will do very little for your career. You'll learn (guess what?) even more small-scale Linux skills. Woo. Now you're just like the vast majority of the people I interview but don't hire. From a career development point of view, it's far better to get into mid-sized or larger companies. Find places that can -afford- to buy EMC storage, Shark arrays, E6500s or 10ks, Cisco 8500s, giant robotic tape libraries. Find places that have fleets of enterprise servers, multiple remote offices, dedicated frame networks, and whatever other cool stuff you can find. Yeah, you'll be hopelessly lost in most of it, but you'll -learn-. If you're keen and enthusiastic, most places will let you get involved with the good stuff in some way. And if they don't let you watch over their shoulders while they're doing the cool stuff, leave and find another job if you can.
Sure, the "enterprise" stuff isn't the be-all and end-all of sysadmin. Buuuut having that stuff on your resume opens up a lot of doors, and gives you a lot of room to maneuver with your career. Small-scale shops are run very differently from "real" enterprise shops. That's not to say they're bad, it's just that it's a very small subset of the sysadmin universe, and it's vastly overpopulated right now.
Re:Get some education.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Education? (Score:1, Insightful)
I was originally hired as their web page designer (before the title of web developer existed). Back then, I knew just enough Unix to navigate the filesystem and do enough to get files where they need to be. The company that was co-locating our server was going through some major changes and eventually was bought out, leaving me pretty much in charge of all admin responsibilities in addition to designing web pages. As it turned out, I really wasn't a great web designer-- I just couldn't get passionate about it, and it also involved a lot communication with self-absorbed businessfolk who thought their page was going to be the next Amazon.
I preferred to be just left the hell alone and do my thing-- the fact that absolutely nobody knew what I did or how to do it prevented the possibility of being micro-managed. This holds true today.
My advice:
--find a cozy shop, the smaller the better, where you will be allowed to mess around with linux/Unix in some sort of capacity where you will be able to claim it as work experience.
--Get to know anyone who knows more than you do about linux/Unix.
--set up a linux machine at home and learn.
--after 2 years at the cozy shop, start looking for a Gig in State Government. 2 years of experience will usually be enough to get you into an admin/server support possition. Take advantage of any and all training available.. This is where my *nix skills really took off.
--after 2 or so years at the state you should have raised at least a Gov service level or two, and have some respectable training on your resume. Consider looking for a better state gig, or get back into the private sector. Someone will want your *nix skills for sure.
My observations of IT in state government show that server admins are among the most autonomous, and least micro-managed positions. If you keep the server up you're golden, leaving you plenty of time to learn other skills-- advanced networking, programming, etc.
Helpdesk (Score:4, Insightful)
For me, and quite a few of the folks that I've seen, they get a part time job during college, supervising the computer labs in some way, then once they're seen as dependable and hard working, they might be given a few extra tasks to do by your manager, or they might just been seen as the person that everyone keeps refering questions to.
From there, you either use that as a job reference to go someone else, or if you like working for the university, you wait for a good job opening (expanding the department, someone leaving), and work your way up from there. [I did a little of both -- I left for a couple of years, then came back]
Of all of the folks I've dealt with in the past dozen years or so, I've only seen one person recently make the change over once they were over 30. [Quite a few did so decades ago, but it doesn't seem to be a common thing these days]. Unfortunately, he was a little bit of a black sheep, as he kept making poor decisions which affected other departments, and many of the other system admins wanted nothing to do with him. The person who hired him had also been stripped of all of their hiring abilities. Of course, he didn't try to take the slow route, but went to a certificate course, and then applied for the job.
I would say that the folks who don't come from an all-computer background tend to make better system/network admins overall. I've worked with some great folks with Psych/History/Art/construction backgrounds, and because they don't think in the conventional CompSci/CompE terms, they can sometimes circumvent many of the problems. There have been quite a few CompSci folks that have made spectacular system admins, but there also tend to be so many of 'em in the field who suck, and bring down their average.
So, well, where's that leave you? Unfortunately, there aren't many places to go. You say you're a teacher, but not where. If it's in higher education (college, university, whatever), you might be able to teach a class with a computer slant once a year/semester whatever, come up with a reason to put up your own server, so that you can work it all back into fleshing out a resume. For high school/middle school, you might be able to do some of the same stuff with extracurricular activities...maybe be an advisor for a computer club, etc.
If you're a seasonal teacher (eg, high school, and have 2months off for the summer), or you have enough extra time, you might try moonlighting for an ISP helpdesk, and flesh out your resume from there. Although it might be possible to take some certificate course, and then get some manager to hire you when you have to experience, you'll do better in the long run if you get a good foundation, and build from there.
Re:Becoming a Unix Admin (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, yes and no. The issue is that as you are older, it is more difficult to change industries. Not because older people are slower, more set in their ways or anything, but because you will be starting from scratch with little or no experience. And you will have financial commitments (mortgage, school fees for the kids, whatever) that a fresh graduate won't. Which leaves you with two options, attempt to persuade and employer to pay you enough to cover your commitments, which may be more than a junior sysadmin is worth to the organization, or cut back and reorganize your own lifestyle while you get up to speed.
The best route is not to do this while changing jobs, try to make a lateral move within an organization you have been with for a long time, one where you are a known contributor. Maybe to cover a vacancy, maybe in addition to your other responsibility. Bear in mind that the economic downturn means that there are (or will be) experienced people coming into the job market with lots of skills and experience.
I still think anyone who sets out to become a sysadmin is crazy, it's something that people tend to fall into by accident. Like, do people wake up one morning and say, I want to work in bomb disposal, or bioweapon quarantine control? Crazy!
Re:Just know it. (Score:1, Insightful)
If I was interviewing a candidate I'd worry less about his book knowledge and more about his methodology. I don't need someone who can recite what X file does, I need someone who can tackle a problem he DOESN'T fully understand. To me, that's Unix. A bunch of drek one man can never fully understand, but there's a graceful logic to it. Grok that and you're set.
You're wrong. knowing the core stuff cold *does* make you a better sysadmin. And I've yet to meet one who could ace one of my interviews, and couldn't solve unix issues he'd never run into before.
BTW, you really dont know what nsswitch.conf is?!?! Shame on you, calling yourself a unix admin.
Re:Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
That is to say that you do not enjoy being a sysadmin.
If it weren't for the users there would be no system to admin. Give them their sandbox and when they trash it, delete the user and their resources. If they complain, then tell them not to fuck around and hand them a policy sheet.
Admining a system is not about tinkering with the OS and hardware, it is about making the box useable to others. This implies dealing with users. If you don't like dealing with users then you need to look elsewhere for another job, because this one doesn't fit the description.
Having a system admin who hates dealing with the users is like having a developer that hates writing code.
Re:start at the bottom and work your way up (Score:1, Insightful)
Same boat here, consider that people getting MCSE aren't more technical than 80% of the CS graduates, some think because they've got a piece of paper, they own everybody else... MCSE has turned to a joke because of those bozoz that are good at getting papers and cheating on exams or simply memorizing like a parrot, but still don't have a clue on the real world.
Re:Experience counts - not the age (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a mistake to say that people can't be both artistically and technically minded. I personally am a clear example that this is not true. I'm not a great artist or a great coder, but I'm way better than average in both of these (and a musician as well). I'm a very creative person, and in my experience, this comes into play just as much when I'm coming up with an elegant solution to a tricky problem as it does when I'm drawing a picture or something.
One generalization I think you *can* make, though, is that some people aren't techies and probably never will be, although with a lot of work they might be able to learn to write simple programs or whatever. This comes from me trying to tutor many of my non-techie friends in Computing Concepts (the computing course non-CS majors need to graduate). Some of them simply don't have the brain for it (although, some do, which surprised me)... the ability to intuitively break down a task into the steps needed to tell a computer how to do it. And this, I think, is a crucial step before you can really "get" computers, whether coding or admining or whatever.
Maybe this style of thinking is something you can teach yourself; I've just never seen anyone learn it who didn't seem to already have a feel for it.
Re:Advice (Score:2, Insightful)
Never did I have to deal with users in my former life as SA.
A path that might work (Score:2, Insightful)
To start out avoid with any chance major corporation.
Don't run home every day at 5 and don't give up on anything. Get used to not having too much time left for your personal life, most people can't do that.
Show you can use the available technology to make your work easier and more profitable (Build scripts,...) in addition to your day to day tasks.
If you have good technical knowledge and are able to code most stuff in Perl and shell scripts avoid getting expensive and mostly useless certifications.
If you will stick out you will STICK OUT and eventualy became a system administrator and maybe more.
Hope this helps!
Re:Getting Started (Score:2, Insightful)
I couldn't disagree more. Call it what you will, but Linux is just another unix variant. The principles are exactly the same under Linux as they are under Irix or DEC OSF3.2 or AIX. The paths, command options, file system structure, etc. may be wildly different, but all unix variants are unix.
Writing bash scripts, for example, gives you some syntactic sugar, but little in the way of real added value over and above plain Bourne shell. But it means your scripts won't be portable, and when confronted with an OS without bash, you're stuck.
This is easy to avoid, since you can write Bourne shell scripts under Linux as well as you can anywhere else. You just have to watch what you write and avoid the 'syntactic sugar'.
The important thing is that you expose yourself to as many variants as possible, not to which variants you expose yourself. Note the similarities to make your life easier, but keep in mind all the annoying differences to keep your job.
Honest reply from a Unix/Linux boss (Score:2, Insightful)
Such an honest and eloquently stated question I feel I must respond in kind.
First, what I do. I am a 32 year old N.American manager of datacenters ( w/ many years as a UNIX SE and Unix manager ). I lead a team of a couple dozen gloriously competent SA's and SE's of diverse ages and backgrounds. As my co. is a financial/energy one, the team is on the high end of the compensation scale ( with skillsets to match ) I can't speak for IT managers in general, but I can share my views and experiences.
I have a history degree and half a dozen minors, none of them technical. The greater portion of my staff have non-technical degrees ranging from psyche to economics. The tech-background folks range from IEEE (electrical engineer) to ex-military technical specialists w/o college.
I started in the IT biz after college pulling cable and fibre at a temp job for a contractor at Motorola ( it was '93, a recession, and I refused to leave Austin ). Other folks in my team started at, of all places, a mega-electronics retailer doing PC upgrades, college tech departments ( unpaid ), entry-level desktop support ( mac/NT ) etc etc. Several were hired after interning during Summer breaks their junior/senior years, and of course the ex-mils. Many started as I did, doing temp work from the part-number answer guy at Compaq ( now the sr network architect ) to temp callcenters at IBM or Dell.
I know and have worked with nearly a hundred Unix SA/SEs on two coasts and I must say, sadly, that I can't think of more than two that started IT directly as UNIX SAs ( they graduated with CS' from a top-5 on the planet CS college ). All of us took low-level or even brute level IT jobs to start and worked our way up.
Not that doing so takes all that much time. From PC upgrader at a mega-retailer to financial systems UNIX admin in two years ( at 19 y/o I might add ). Quadruple the pay in two years? That doesn't suck.
Some switched careers from finance, construction ( I know a great PERL programmer/SA who was a sub-sea welder ), teaching, retail sales dude etc, etc. Age is not a factor ( nor country of origin etc ), knowledge and experience most certainly is. My team ranges from 21-63 and is a cross section of humanity.
As for certs, they can help get past the HR goons and perhaps help land an interview. Windows certs are literally worthless and not worth the time nor money ( and no, this isn't a religious OS belief ). In other words, they can help open doors but aren't guarenteed to help as much as, say, Cisco certs help networking folks.
The reasons for this are simple. OS level certs have no relation to trouble-shooting skills. All they prove is that you can build a box, big whup.
YOUR CASE:
Since you're an educator now, your best bet is to leverage your experience and seriously consider combining the two.
Leverage: One quick way in that would also buy you a pay raise immediately is to get a job designing tech training coursework. This allows you to use your course development skills AND learn the technical side ( my wife took this route ). From there you could quickly gain tech certs and begin teaching apps or OSs ( BIG BUCKS BTW, esp when combined with tech experience, $80K-300K ).
A very good alternative is to take advantage of the Summer/Winter breaks to to entry-level temp work. The money would be irrelevent b/c you'd still have your teaching salary, and you could quickly amass skills and experience. This goes for college folks out there too. Temp work isn't attractive, I know, but temp-to-hire is VERY common. It lets us IT manglers see if you're any good without the risks and troubles associated with perm-hire. Temp-to-hire is even common on the high-end tech side ( although these folks prefer the term "consultant" ).
BTW, your coding and fooling around on home machines is a BIG plus in an interview. If they don't ask, DEFINITELY mention it. The best IT folks are rarely the best formally educated. This is why I always question prospective employees about their home computing environment. The best of all UNIX, NT, Network, DBAs and coders are all self-taught. It's the passion that makes you great at any job. If you love it, you'll rock!
The recession may make it take longer to break in, but don't let that dissuade you. Budget cutting gives the advantage to the less experienced. There's time to train them and they don't cost a pile of money ( yet! )
So, to sum up:
1) You're DEFINITELY not to old. Great IT folks and age have no correlation. It's never too late.
2) You can absolutely leverage your teaching experience to transition into IT without taking a pay cut.
3) You can take advantage of the semester breaks to gain experience and resume material doing temp work.
4) Certs can help on the UNIX and DBA side, and they open doors on the Cisco side. They're great for technical educators.
- Schmedley