Re: Advancing from Unix Sysadmin to Programmer

From: Doug Freyburger (dfreybur_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 05/25/04

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    Date: 25 May 2004 07:06:30 -0700

    Dave Kosenko wrote:
    >
    > This may be a somewhat contentious position, but...
    >
    > When looking at the positions that have, to date, been most
    > likely to be outsourced to places like India, Russia, etc.,
    > it is the programming jobs that have been high on the list (along
    > with help desk functions). Sysadmins, on the other hand, are
    > much harder to locate overseas, especially if the hardware
    > itself remains local. Even with outsourcing the
    > location of the hardware to shared facilities, the need for
    > local SA talent remains. And while a company may even outsource
    > the SA function, it is likely to a company with a local
    > presence and local SA staff.
    >
    > So in this regard, one might consider the SA to have the "safer"
    > job.

    Every good university has a Computer Science department built to
    churn out developers. That means there is an endless supply of
    young folks competing for the jobs. SysAdmin is an engineering
    profession that has resisted a good CS program in universities.
    Too much breadth is needed to be a good SA to pull off a program
    that churns out good SAs.

    Further, Microsoft has conveniently supplied a path for folks who
    want to enter the field the easy way via the MCSA/MCSE/MCDBA
    cluster of training programs. These plans attract almost all of
    the people who are technicians at heart not engineers at heart.
    This means that there is an endless pull of potential competition
    away from Unix SA.

    So in SA there is a dual dynamic of lack of good university plans
    to churn out new folks combined with a competing industry pulling
    out the bottom half of the talent pool that want to go into
    Windows. Combine this with the need for hands-on access and SA
    is indeed safer than developer. Safer doesn't mean switching
    either way is a promotion in any objective sense. Folks who WANT
    to move one way will automatically consider moving that direction
    a promotion. Good for them no matter which direction. Former SAs
    make good developers and vice versa.

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