Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 72 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#31

Post by rajangdavis »

If you have some experience with bash, I would recommend learning more bash.

If you want to get into development, the next step might be to learn a new language. Ruby, Python, and Javascript are pretty popular scripting languages that will have some overlap with bash that you can connect to. Pick a language that works closest to how you think and work with it in place of what you would normally do with bash.

Most importantly, understand that you are in technical role but that role is not the summation of who you are.

Additionally, not all developers have sysadmin skills, so understand that what you provide is valuable. Don't be hard on yourself, you have your entire life to keep building on what you know and who you want to become.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#32

Post by stunt »

Sysadmin is an important role but don’t forget that what we call DevOps is an essential step for most of the SysAdmins these days.

If you stick with the traditional definition of SysAdmin, your job market becomes smaller every year. That doesn’t mean you won’t find a high paying job, it just means there are less opportunities and more competition. Are you good at it? Then perhaps you don’t need those DevOps skills. There will be enough opportunities for your lifetime. Then instead focus on branding yourself. Write online about your skills, share your knowledge on internet to create a strong and visible profile that you can reference to it. Don’t keep your knowledge on your head. Make it more visible even stuff that you think is obvious and easy. Then you always have a better chance in the market and it is very likely that good offers knock your door.

But, If you do feel that your career is at risk and you see kess chance in competing other SysAdmins, Then definitely invest on learning Cloud focused DevOps skills. And I think grasping the next step isn’t hard for a SysAdmin. Stuff like Modern CI/CD pipeline, Monitoring and integration with Cloud providers and different services, Cloud migration, some level of scripting probably in Python, etc.

And about coding, first of all you don’t have to become a programmer, . so be careful what resources and courses you take as some of them might be unnecessarily overwhelming. and secondly, like everything else, there is a learning curve. You just need to pass it and be patient.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#33

Post by akarki15 »

It has helped me immensely to change my perspective. I don't see programming problems/blockers that I encounter as _my_ "mental blocker". I see them as problems that stand themselves. There is nothing wrong with _me_. I see the problems as these little (and sometimes big) challenges. Like a level in a game. Not clearing a level doesn't mean that the character you are playing is weak. It just means that the character is not using the right tool, or mechanics. The root cause is lack of information; there is nothing wrong with the character itself. If you can detach yourself from the problem and view yourself as a player in a game, you won't get frustrated. I have even come to like it. When I finally figure out why that sneaky race condition was breaking on prod after days and nights of debugging sessions, I feel like I have defeated a big boss in a game. I actually fondly recall these kinds of victories from my past years like a life event. Hope you can do the same :)

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#34

Post by leowoo91 »

stunt wrote: post #32

Sysadmin is an important role but don’t forget that what we call DevOps is an essential step for most of the SysAdmins these days. If you stick with the traditional definition of SysAdmin, your job market becomes smaller every year. That doesn’t mean you won’t find a high paying job, it just means there are less opportunities and more competition. Are you good at it? Then perhaps you don’t need those DevOps skills. T…

DevOps is also shrinking fyi.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#35

Post by quickthrower2 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #28
vortex_panda wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about that. Every time I looked at AWS pricing, it seemed insanely expensive for the people that just forklifted their on-prem services into the cloud without re-architecting it to fit that type of environment.

Most cloud solutions costs 2-3 times more than the on-prem equivalents. The selling point that's usually trotted out is "but it just works and you can fire your IT staff". ...Most people who move to the cloud end up still needing IT staff to manage it, and are now, by proxy, paying for the cloud provider's IT staff too. (Hidden underneath all of those cloud providers are a silent army of IT people.) A recent conversa…

What about reserved pricing? I use Azure and that’s significantly cheaper and more compariable to buying your own servers.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#36

Post by photonios »

vortex_panda wrote: post #18
cbanek wrote: post #3

Okay, first off, being a sysadmin or an ops person is important! You are the first line of defense, and many times, companies just need eyes on systems (all the time). It's your ability to analyze a problem that makes you useful. There are ALWAYS boring repetitive service tasks that aren't rewarded but someone needs to do (this is true for devs too). Most of this probably doesn't seem hard or new to you, but I just w…

"Okay, first off, being a sysadmin or an ops person is important!" This is the first time that I have heard or read anyone say this in years. Thanks

After having gone from a 3-person company to 30+ people running two large websites serving tens of millions of visitors every month with tons of systems I can definitely say: all praise the sysadmins / devops people. Keeping the whole damn thing running was a challenge and when we finally made some good hires in this area a ton of weight was lifted off my shoulders.

Thank you!!

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#37

Post by p0d »

You seem quite articulate. Have you thought of blogging or writing? There may be other avenues for your creativity other than coding.

I have been a sysadmin for 20 years and imagine I will be for another 20.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#38

Post by arpa »

The majority of the comments fail to miss one important thing: the cloud is not an abstract magical thingy which provides whatever you need whenever you need. It merely abstracts away the underlying infrastructure - on hardware, network, sometimes even the OS level.

It runs on the same(ish) hardware you can find in your own server rack. It runs the same Linux (or some customly patched Linux derivative), it is connected by twisted pair or optics, it still uses the same tech you, a linux administrator, use underneath the whole shiny packaging. Kubernetes is a collection of scripts. Docker is just a script written in go to easier leverage linux kernel cgruops and namespaces.

To reiterate: cloud just hides this instead of replacing it completely. Worst case scenario, nobody (outside of amazon/google/azure/baidu) knows how to set up a simple webserver on a linux box in their closet - then your skills become invaluable for people not willing to keep their data/code/service god knows where with god knows who. There are still some people that value "on-premises/bare-metal" setup. So there's one venue. Another would be to deepen your sysadmin skills to the point where instead of working against the cloud, you could join them. As far as I know, they are constantly looking for good sysadmins.

Now if you really want to become a dev... Well, i would suggest probably to start with what you know best: bash scripts probably. Start there. Start by small chunks. Take a small script, try to understand how it works. Try to write a small script. Try to find tasks that would be useful / interesting for you, e.g. make a script that starts playing music in the morning, constantly and slowly increasing the volume until you wake up - just make stuff: the key here is to have fun while doing it and achieve the result, not make everything perfect.

And try to do this without any pressure on yourself. Sysadmins have value, and will continue to have value. You're doing this not because you're being obsoleted, but because you wish to better yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin?

#40

Post by bennybob »

On the programming front, I ve worked as a programmer for 12 years. I consider myself as not smart at all. I worked hard at learning my trade. I'd suggest you take things really slowly, some things you are going to have to rote learn.

I wish I had found this book when I was starting out: https://www.htdp.org

I've only browsed it, but it looks like the best way to get started to me.

My brother worked through https://learncodethehardway.org python book, he liked that. I used the learn c the hard way and I like the guy's teaching style. He makes it clear that this stuff can be hard and you need to take your time.

I was constantly overwhelmed by programming, but I just kept going. I'm now at the point where I realise coding isn't the hardest part of the job anymore.

Post reply on HN