TL;WR : I know linux(5 YoE), webhosting tools(3 YoE), some pythong, and am slowly learning automation and orchestration tools but I need a job to bridge the gap, does this exist? I broke into tech as a hotshot linux admin managing a 1000 server DC, the servers were standardized and i worked in a ticket oriented task oriented environment. I did anything from DC hardware, Linux provisioning, setting up databases or software, multi-server configs, automating small tasks, and all of it was driven by customer tickets that were handled 1 by 1, if i could not do something I would put it back or get help from someone. after 3 years of being underpaid and overworked I got an offer for an ops manager at the best company I can think of. I absolutely love the company I work for but I have been fighting and beating myself into the position I don't enjoy for 2 years now and I cant do it much longer. I am hoping I can stay within the company but its anyone's guess if there is a pipeline to get me from my position to something systems focused. I am more manager than ops at this point which was nice for a time but is not leading to growth or fulfillment. I use knowledge from my sysadmin past daily but anything I configure is via gui, and any tasks I do are chosen almost at random out of a pile of overdue projects/requests.. Personally I do not get on in this position.. I like projects but being given 4 critical projects, the responsibility of training, and troubleshooting lower tier's escalations is too much it seems.. I put my hours in and do work but im exhausted and "just keeping afloat" the position does not play to my strengths. I want back into systems work, whether its automated, bare metal, cloud, I miss knowing my job well and being able to build on experience. I am not against the new ways of doing things with configuration files and such but I do not have that under my belt yet. These days the only real systems work I do is on my own servers and I legitimately think i want to be back in a staff position doing the work im given in a manageable volume with clear expectations and deadlines.. if the project is to find a way to migrate xyz, or solve abc problem, optimize provisioning of x; I am all for it. if I am working on documentation of a process or automating one thing or another that sounds fun too, but having a pile of unprioritized problems and gaining more daily is crippling my functional ability and maybe spiraling the issue a bit.. I know a lot of web/server technologies but its almost all systems level. nginx proxy, haproxy kind of stuff. A lot of people say SRE is the way to go for me and i might agree but the issue is I want a position i can learn in, i want something where i can use and be useful with what I have now while I learn and grow my way into devops or SRE roles. I know enough python to write and maintain 3 telegram and discord bots but lack some of the lower level features (I know of but am not using classes, __methods__, pandas) Currently im converting my 20+ homelab services from 3 locations(Digital ocean, a bare metal server, and esxi on local server) to docker/kubernetes with better monitoring which is helping me learn but the time I have after work and trying to keep my uptime is limiting my progress. As I continue to study and learn does anyone know of a position that exists where I might find success and be able to meet the long term goals of SRE(or just more automated eng) while being able to learn on the job and be USEFUL knowing the the core linux server management kit? Im learning off youtube/google which is fine but if there are generally requirements for certs i may grab those on the way too. My main goal is to get from where I am, an linux admin with a couple years off track as project manager to a pipeline headed for SRE or whatever comes along the way. On top of this I know i could be making more even without changing career paths. 6YoE 72K #sre #linux #sysadmin #careergrowth
Gotta let that hardware addiction go. I spent 15 years doing sysadmin work for a small co. It was one fire after another until the M&A mothership sucked the co up. Focus and learn how to work well in a team. Not alone covered in hardware problems. There’s better money out there with your experience. Apply and try something new. Good luck.
I actually dont do any hardware anymore and dont need it, I should have mentioned that I am perusing cloud native i just can only do so much with personal projects and though I do work with cloud systems now but not on the systems team im limited to sshing, running a few commands, logging out. When i say I want something to bridge my systems experience and SRE "way of life" I mean more a company doing traditional linux work in the cloud but who also have ways to learn K8s, terraform, etc. Its kind of like I have this core experience but im facing a lifestyle change with the level of automation we have now its like an entirely new way of working, where as my experience with bare metal is not too different from my experience in cloud.
You are underpaid for sure, decide what you want to do and get out. SRE, system platform engineer/manager , cloud ops seems like great roles to me. I am network architect and work closely with system platform engineers. Dm me for MasterCard referral
Systems development engineer roles at Amazon. Potentially not great long term depending on your team, but will definitely get you more exposure to how big tech uses automation/orchestration with a relative low barrier of entry for SysDE 1 or 2. Was in the same boat as you on the network engineer side and made the jump here. Now I live and breath automation / reliability engineering just to survive.
Thanks for the hint. Without looking into it I already figure it would be comfortable in at least the training and team support side of things. In your experience are new hires ran from 0 to hero as fast as possible or more like put in a spot and left there until you either apply for another position or quit?
From my exposure to AWS infra ops teams, there is quite a ramp up period in training due to all our proprietary tooling and process. For my team specifically, training is 3-4 months before being able to be on the main primary oncall rotation. From there, you’re kind of on your own in a sense, but very good internal resources to learn and external training (if relevant to your role).
Being very honest, I would suggest investing time on improving communication skills. When people are starting their careers, technical skills is usually way more important. However, there is a point in your career where efficient communication starts gaining more weight. People don't realize how important this is.
I appreciate that. I was battling between a brief request and detailed story and things got muddied. I will be adding this to the list near re-writing my resume.