Topics of Systems Administration
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
how do I not know that one?
No Idea. It's required reading.
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Inside, you'll find advice on topics such as
- The key elements your networks and systems need in order to make all other services run better
- Building and running reliable, scalable services, including web, storage, email, printing, and remote access
- Creating and enforcing security policies
- Upgrading multiple hosts at one time without creating havoc
- Planning for and performing flawless scheduled maintenance windows
- Managing superior helpdesks and customer care
- Avoiding the "temporary fix" trap
- Building data centers that improve server uptime
- Designing networks for speed and reliability
- Web scaling and security issues
- Why building a backup system isn't about backups
- Monitoring what you have and predicting what you will need
- How technically oriented workers can maintain their job's technical focus (and avoid an unwanted management role)
- Technical management issues, including morale, organization building, coaching, and maintaining positive visibility
- Personal skill techniques, including secrets for getting more done each day, ethical dilemmas, managing your boss, and loving your job
- System administration salary negotiation
It's a really complete book, and a great read.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
I have never seen a SA making $400k that never touches anything outside the OS.
Well, you've also said that you've never seen one at all, so this doesn't tell us anything additional. When I've seen roles in IT making over $400K, it's been either because they wear multiple hats and it's generally manager roles that cause the pay increase, or it's from being pure SA. From what I've seen, pure SA is the highest paid IT technical role with any volume to it.
My guess is, once you see pure SA you tend to see it a bit. And when you do see it, and rule out the things called that but clearly aren't, I bet you find (and I truly bet, because there's definitely no data on this) that the average salaries are crazy, like averages well over $150K in the US. Whereas the job by title, rather than responsibility, is like half that or less.
I was a "pure SA" for a fortune 50. I was a "pure SA" for a fortune 1000. No other SA in either (or any other SAs that I have talked to) make anywhere near that. You're the only person that keeps saying this. Job postings for Citi show they aren't "pure SAs" as you claim. One posting I found called the position an SA but wanted Unix, Linux, Windows, Oracle, networking experience. They set the job at medium to senior experience.
The only people I have seen making those numbers are devs for fortune 20s and roles like SRE (that aren't management).
Edit: added the management clarification.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
My first IT job (not software) was as a junior UNIX admin, pure admin, in 1994. Working for the "senior" (who was pretty junior himself I'm guessing looking back) who was also a pure admin. That was my first introduction to it.
By 1999 was doing pure admin on Windows. In 2000, mixed Windows and Linux with just the tiniest addition of application stack (roughly LAMP stack), but the role was nearly all OS.
IBM in 2000 was my first major place where they operated as little SMB silos and while SA was a major part of the day, it was very far from all of it and I had to cover absolutely everything including both CIO and CTO hats. So IBM was about the polar opposite of pure SA.
Worked for Microsoft and Dell in a pure SA role in 2004 and 2005. Then Wall St., pure SA there. Then hedge fund row, same thing. Then non-profit in San Fran, definitely pure SA as well.
IBM certainly felt like the outlier with loads of disorganization and low efficiency. And it showed, they had to close the entire facility for exactly those reasons. From little ten person companies to fortune 10, from grocery to wildly different finance to medical to non-profits.
I'm not saying it's the norm, it's obviously not. But "norm" is weird to define when the alternative is "not-SA". LOL But if we use "companies" as the base number, maybe 1% of companies, at most, will reasonable try to have a real SA role. But then again, only 1% of companies is big enough to have value to it. But those that do, hire a lot and pay a lot.
Just being honest, I have quite a few doubts of your employment history. It seems to change quite a bit to fit the scenario, and there are times where you are working 3 full time jobs for 3 different companies. You say you couldn't get a job after Citi because of a non compete, but they allowed you to work one to two other jobs while you were employed there? That doesn't make any sense.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Job postings for Citi show they aren't "pure SAs" as you claim.
CitiGroup not Citi.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
You're the only person that keeps saying this.
Maybe I'm the only person you know with that kind of experience. That's the thing I was saying about the barrier, jobs in this range aren't advertised on job sites full of fluff and fake listings. They go through headhunters. If you filter for only low to mid range sites, of course you see low to mid range jobs.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
You say you couldn't get a job after Citi because of a non compete,
I never said that. My non-compete was years after being at a bank.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
and there are times where you are working 3 full time jobs for 3 different companies.
Definitely. Working multiple full time jobs is part of getting ahead in IT. What shocks me is people who've not done this.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
but they allowed you to work one to two other jobs while you were employed there? That doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make sense because you don't follow what was said and mix things that don't go together.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
It seems to change quite a bit to fit the scenario
You say things like this, but you never produce evidence. My history definitely doesn't change. Find this example you claim to know about. You can't, because it's consistent.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
It seems to change quite a bit to fit the scenario
You say things like this, but you never produce evidence. My history definitely doesn't change. Find this example you claim to know about. You can't, because it's consistent.
One being you mentioned in this thread that you taught at Lockheed, and somewhere else said that you were only there for a week. There's no way you were onboarded and teaching within a week. You also mentioned in another place the quality of engineers at Lockheed. There's no way you would have gained that knowledge from a weeks time.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
You say you couldn't get a job after Citi because of a non compete,
I never said that. My non-compete was years after being at a bank.
What? Your non-compete issue was from CitiGroup correct? Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
One being you mentioned in this thread that you taught at Lockheed, and somewhere else said that you were only there for a week.
IBM and Lockheed had a joint teaching / training facility. I was at IBM teaching both IBM and Lockheed engineers in Endicott, NY. I taught at Lockheed, but for IBM.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
What? Your non-compete issue was from CitiGroup correct?
Incorrect. It was from a hedge fund, years after I was at a bank.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
You're the only person that keeps saying this.
Maybe I'm the only person you know with that kind of experience. That's the thing I was saying about the barrier, jobs in this range aren't advertised on job sites full of fluff and fake listings. They go through headhunters. If you filter for only low to mid range sites, of course you see low to mid range jobs.
See that's the thing. It's always you're the only person that has this experience. There's never any proof, and after working in the field and interviewing with companies of large size, it's never that way.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
Non-competes don't cross industry lines. If it's bank to bank, that might make sense. Things like bank to manufacturing, or bank to logistics don't.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
Non-competes don't cross industry lines. If it's bank to bank, that might make sense. Things like bank to manufacturing, or bank to logistics don't.
I mean I guess anything is possible, but why would you accept employment from somewhere that wouldn't allow you to work after that?
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
One being you mentioned in this thread that you taught at Lockheed, and somewhere else said that you were only there for a week.
IBM and Lockheed had a joint teaching / training facility. I was at IBM teaching both IBM and Lockheed engineers in Endicott, NY. I taught at Lockheed, but for IBM.
Through a contractor. You specifically said in another place that "feel dirty for having stayed that long". That really makes it sound like you had a choice even though you were contracted through someone else for IBM teaching at Lockheed?
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
Non-competes don't cross industry lines. If it's bank to bank, that might make sense. Things like bank to manufacturing, or bank to logistics don't.
Well, tell that to the courts. Because they do cross industry lines at times. As I was told by my attorney.... in court I'd win, but not until after a decade of fighting and we'd have to pay attorneys all that time and be unemployable. In the end, we were expected to win big, but my kids would grow up destitute while we fought the non-compete.
As my employer said at the time "You can't bag groceries in Oregon", that was their policy. No job, of any sort, anywhere in the country. Their policy was that they were a "US business" and "all US business" was a competitor. Clearly that doesn't work in court, but the number of people who had won against them were.... very few. Famously, two just did a few months ago. But it's taken that long.
So while you can say that non-competes have whatever limits, when you are talking companies of this size and resources, the courts are a bit fungible and what is legal or not becomes a question of who can afford to make it so.
