IT Generalist and System Admin Titles for the SMB
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I have so little job hunting experience that have no idea how many Good/Great SMB employers there are that truly understand the value of IT to their business and value it as they should.
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@Dashrender said:
IT Generalist = someone who can support desktops
IT Admin = someone who can support serversNo, that's incorrect.
IT Generalist: Someone who supports "everything." The IT Jack of All Trades. The Archmage of IT. Sure desktops would be assumed, but servers too without question as well as networking, security, application support, hypervisors and other functions. Don't confuse a generalist with a desktop tech. SMBs do sometimes hire dedicated desktop support specialists because SMBs can have enough users and/or desktops to support that specialist role. Helpdesk as well. But not system admin. Generalists are what most SMBs hire, at least one of. Someone who can do "everything needed in the environment." Called LAN Admins in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
IT Admin: Not a real term.
System Admin: Someone who supports systems (not servers.) Systems refers to the OS. So a system admin would support Windows, RHEL, CentOS, Suse, Ubuntu, OpenVMS or similar. One or more operating system platforms. Not servers as a term, that implies the physical server or even the virtualization platform. A system admin would not generally touch either of these.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
IT Generalist = someone who can support desktops
IT Admin = someone who can support serversNo, that's incorrect.
IT Generalist: Someone who supports "everything." The IT Jack of All Trades. The Archmage of IT. Sure desktops would be assumed, but servers too without question as well as networking, security, application support, hypervisors and other functions. Don't confuse a generalist with a desktop tech. SMBs do sometimes hire dedicated desktop support specialists because SMBs can have enough users and/or desktops to support that specialist role. Helpdesk as well. But not system admin. Generalists are what most SMBs hire, at least one of. Someone who can do "everything needed in the environment." Called LAN Admins in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
IT Admin: Not a real term.
System Admin: Someone who supports systems (not servers.) Systems refers to the OS. So a system admin would support Windows, RHEL, CentOS, Suse, Ubuntu, OpenVMS or similar. One or more operating system platforms. Not servers as a term, that implies the physical server or even the virtualization platform. A system admin would not generally touch either of these.
you quoted me out of context!
Of course I've come to accept those terms as you've defined them for us here and at SW, but I was specifically referring to what SMB hiring managers probably think when they see those terms.
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The one role that is common (but not TOO common) to mix with system admin is virtualization platform admin and/or cloud admin. I've never seen a company larger than 1,000 people mix these two together, but I know that it happens sometimes. But because of standard focus and separation of duty concerns, these two generally remain independent.
Typically a system admin would be supported either higher or lower in the "stack" by roles like server tech (sometimes called a datacenter tech) and platform engineer (virtualization) on the "lower" side and application specialists (Exchange, Hadoop, whatever) and database admins on the higher side.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The one role that is common (but not TOO common) to mix with system admin is virtualization platform admin.
We didn't used to but a while back the CIO decided to merge it. We are considering the virtulization a comity item now. Storage is still separate.
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@scottalanmiller said:
side and application specialists (Exchange, Hadoop, whatever) and database admins on the higher side.
I'd love to clean house our exchange team though. Ours goes down for for 10min or so at least once a month.
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@Dashrender said:
Of course I've come to accept those terms as you've defined them for us here and at SW, but I was specifically referring to what SMB hiring managers probably think when they see those terms.
I see, I don't feel that any non-IT person uses "IT Admin." I've never once heard that used by a business doing hiring. Are you really seeing that places?
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@Jason said:
@scottalanmiller said:
The one role that is common (but not TOO common) to mix with system admin is virtualization platform admin.
We didn't used to but a while back the CIO decided to merge it. We are considering the virtulization a comity item now. Storage is still separate.
With more and more businesses dropping VMware and being able to have UNIX Admins handle the cloud because it runs on KVM or Xen it makes more and more sense. With VMware the cloud platform was completely unique, with Xen it is more an extension of the tasks already being done.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Of course I've come to accept those terms as you've defined them for us here and at SW, but I was specifically referring to what SMB hiring managers probably think when they see those terms.
I see, I don't feel that any non-IT person uses "IT Admin." I've never once heard that used by a business doing hiring. Are you really seeing that places?
I know of one person at a very small company with IT administrator title. He's basically a desktop support technician. but does their networking to (even in the manufactoring side) with Linksys routers and switches from staples.
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@Jason said:
I know of one person at a very small company with IT administrator title. He's basically a desktop support technician. but does their networking to (even in the manufactoring side) with Linksys routers and switches from staples.
I would definitely assume something like that if I heard a non-standard, clearly meaningless title. It would imply that the hiring manager had zero clue and didn't care at all and that the person that they hired didn't care, didn't know or lacked the clout to get a valid title. Because a title like IT Admin will certainly hold you back looking for other jobs for just those reasons.
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This topic came up at our recent SpiceCorps event in Auburn.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Generalist and System Admin Titles for the SMB:
This topic came up at our recent SpiceCorps event in Auburn.
You mean someone specifically brought this exact ML topic up, or the topic in general.
How did the conversation go?
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@DustinB3403 said in IT Generalist and System Admin Titles for the SMB:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Generalist and System Admin Titles for the SMB:
This topic came up at our recent SpiceCorps event in Auburn.
You mean someone specifically brought this exact ML topic up, or the topic in general.
How did the conversation go?
LOL, I think it was YOU who brought it up
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I don't recall bringing this up.... maybe though.
We'll have to check with @Minion-Queen I think she has the entire event recorded.
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Yeah Scott is supposed to help me get a place to post all of this stuff
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@scottalanmiller Your stance on IT job titles seems at variance with your stance on the English language. It seems that you want a level of flexibility in language that you're unwilling to extend to titles. My experience in SMB, and annecdotally, is that a SysAdmin is what most SMBs call your IT Generalist. The SMB job market has designated a skill set and assigned it a title. Whether it is technically accurate, or matches the enterprise is not really germane to an individual's ability to get hired in the SMB, or get paid in a manner commensurate with skills and experience. If I put down IT Generalist as my title/position sought I will get slated for helpdesk positions. The "correctness" of the title is no longer relevant to the discussion. You are fighting against the same things that I am with the language overall, and we're both losing.
