To build skills as a SysAdmin
Posted by AegonsDragons@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 17 comments
I have been told that to be a great SysAdmin and build your skills come with a lot of late nights. I'm up at night trying to build my skills by doing stuff in my so called home lab.
I know it's probably not necessary but have any of my fellow SysAdmins her do things like that?
Sad_Recommendation92@reddit
After doing this kind of work for 20 years. If I could do one thing differently I would have advocated for my own time more when I was a little younger. Yes, it's absolutely necessary to keep your skills sharp, but make sure you don't overload yourself.
It's a vicious cycle you'll spend all this time trying to front load a bunch of skills without any actual practical application for them. Anyone interviewing you that's actually worked with those technologies will cut through you like tissue paper.
taint3d@reddit
How should those of us looking to specialize and pivot better tackle this problem? I frontload skills because I'm looking to step into a role where they can be practically applied. Homelabs and cert studies might not give the same kind of experience as on the job deployments, but I don't see how I'd be any more prepared for a tough interview not having practiced what I could.
Sad_Recommendation92@reddit
Perhaps there's some poor phrasing there. I'm not saying you should never spend personal time to learn new skills And better yourselves. What I mean is don't overwhelm and burn yourself out just because you feel like you have to know every technology.
I mean maybe I have a different outlook. I don't put skills on my resume unless I feel I'm very practiced and can speak from a position of authority and experience about them. If I put something on my resume it means I know it and I know it well. Now if I am in an interview and something comes up that's not on there, I will speak from my conceptual experience about it which yes might be from homelab side study
AegonsDragons@reddit (OP)
Appreciate that, I think the reason I'm doing is to apply the skill in real life. I'm the main guy now and there is so much to do. I have learned from this subreddit also and applied things I've learned in the lab, on the job in prod environments.
I do understand that finding the balance is a major deal. However, I feel like if I'm not on point damn near everytime I will feel like a failure
Sad_Recommendation92@reddit
You're not a failure if you're trying, you're not failing. Be more worried when you learn a handful of things
If it's any comfort and you probably realize it from being on this sub, almost all of us have imposter syndrome to some degree even at senior levels. In fact, I would argue more in some cases.
Don't get me wrong. Putting up too hard of a boundary can hamper your career. Sometimes our job requires us to work when it is least impactful to the business. Very few people get into this profession with the intent that they're never going to work nights and weekends.
But what I say to that is be selective don't just give away your free time for nothing. Be strategic when you decide to put in a little bit of crunch time. Staying up all night is to close tickets and things like that we'll almost never get noticed. The reward for completing lots of work is always more work. Where it can be worth spending a little bit of extra time is when you get these opportunities where perhaps Senior Management has visibility or you can put in some extra time, but you get to learn some new technology that makes you more marketable gives you political capital etc.
AegonsDragons@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the advice
megasxl264@reddit
Reread everything you wrote. You aren't the problem here its your employer. Maybe they should not make you feel that way by giving you the guidance or resources required to run their operations? None of anything going on there is your fault and you won't fail, they will fail and let them.
Pretend-Raisin-6868@reddit
I'll hit 25 years in IT next year. I've moved into management now but have a very small staff and am still very hands-on. I too have struggled to find this balance. My youngest child began college a few weeks ago, and I sometimes question my career choices thinking about a lot of time I've missed over the years.
It has been my observation that experience is still most valuable, but I am a firm believer that a good combination of book-learning and experience is an asset. It's tougher to build the house without the foundation, so I think a formal understanding of the fundamentals is still important.
With more and more subscription-based and cloud infrastructure, I find it a little more difficult these days to get hands on outside of a production environment than it used to be, as many tools may not have a "lab" type offering and might require subscription to get access.
I don't think there's anything wrong with spending a late night here or there if you are setting up your lab with something that you are truly engaged in, but I agree you need to make time for life outside of work. There is no magic number of extra study hours that's going to guarantee your success, but a thirst for knowledge is never going to hurt you.
My experience has been that the late nights are a product of companies that are understaffed or don't spend budget on keeping systems current or only replace things when they finally die. Some companies will work you to the bone if you let them. It's important to set boundaries, but might require a few sacrifices early on if you want to accelerate the process.
Sad_Recommendation92@reddit
That last paragraph is spot on when I started the company I worked for had no change control process and 3x admins including myself, hence every 3rd week is the On-Call from Hell. I endured a lot of toil early on and lost out on a lot of family time etc and having no perspective at the time didn't realize how much of a difference business practices make.
To be fair though I leaned a ton of skills that I still use today in a short period of time, so I can't deny how much those days shaped me, it anything it be more attentive to how my decisions affect the Ops team and now in a senior position I always try to think how a poor decision is going to ruin someone else's weekend so I try to give the grace I didn't get.
Yeah some late nights are unavoidable given the work. My caution is to just not normalize working 60-80 hours. It diminishes your own compensation, and it also hides understaffing from your employer which many businesses won't correct if the work is getting done. I only realized in retrospect that most of my promotions were a result of a handful of key projects and initiatives that got me "good press" with management, vs just doing 60 hours of unseen grunt work.
Sigseg-v@reddit
Exactly that. In my younger years also spent some evenings (but not whole nights) building my own mail server and learned scripting languages. I‘m also in the management now and last week I spent 2 evenings in exploring the new SIEM my team has set up, because I have barely time to play around with tech in my work hours anymore and I love doing this. My team hates that, because it usually means extra work for them when I come to the office the next day and start a sentence with „Guys, I found that function, couldn’t you…“. My wife knows it‘s just one or two evenings in a month and sees it as my hobby.
And when the alternative is to spend a night in front of a shitty TV program, spend it with your homelab instead. It‘s all about balance.
Difficult_Corner_395@reddit
This is an excellent comment.
bws7037@reddit
One can be as technically adept as possible, but without decent people skills, patience and the ability to explain complex concepts to management, in a clear and concise way, ranks up towards the top.
moderatenerd@reddit
I hated my night shift as a junior linux admin, but it probably helped my career more than any other job so far.
mallet17@reddit
Yes to having a lab. You'll be guilt free breaking and rebuilding things to validate your knowledge.
A combo of self learning, asking others for help, and keeping an open mind will enable your growth.
If there's something of interest, just jump onto it and put your hand up for projects.
megasxl264@reddit
I've done this in my 20s, but what I've realized now is that sort of thinking is only good for getting good at the first job and its mostly spent benefiting your employer. At best you'll wonder where the years went and wish you spent time doing what you truly enjoyed, at worst you get taken advantage of and end up burnt out while making someone else rich.
Over the years I've seen people move on and join organizations that know its in everyone's best interest to invest in their employees. Do that for a short time, but focus on finding a work environment that offers opportunities to learn either while on the job or at the company's expense.
BornAgainSysadmin@reddit
Sorta, but not in a home lab. For me, it was too many late nights and weekends fixing Sev1 outages.
_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit
Home lab? Yes. Late nights? Not so much.
You have to strike a balance. Don't waste your youth sitting at home on the computer. There is plenty of time in a day to learn and still have a social life.