This is a really great point.
If you set up your systems right, they pretty much run themselves.
I've been doing systems contracting for a few years and contracting often turns out to be much better suited for this work than full-time employment (unless you're a company at significant scale).
My typical contract goes like this:
- gain an understanding of their current systems
- document *everything* that matters in their systems
- simplify *everything* that matters in their systems
- organize *everything* that matters in their systems
- secure *everything* that matters in their systems
- automate *everything* that matters in their systems
- monitor *everything* that matters in their systems
- train their engineering team on how to run the systems
That's it. If I've done my job right, they'll never need me again unless something exceptional happens.
The best sysadmins make themselves redundant as quickly as possible.
The best sysadmins put the power of the systems in the hands of the other engineers.
The best sysadmins are well rested because the systems they set up are so damn stable and boring.
How do you know you have a bad sysadmin?
- they are a 'hero' that often rescues the company
- no one understands the systems but them
- they are a bottleneck for deploys
- little is documented
- little is automated
- they work long hours
- they're often frazzled and stressed
A big part of DevOps is saving developers from bad sysadmins. Fortunately, the last few years have been a renaissance for usability in systems tools (like Ansible for instance). This newfound usability for managing and automating systems has finally put the power of systems management within the reach of many more developers.
For more, see my posts on these topics:
Boring Systems Build Badass Businesses https://devopsu.com/blog/boring-systems-build-badass-busines...
Metrics that Matter for your Systems https://devopsu.com/blog/metrics-that-matter-for-systems/