Linux Admin -> Linux solo consulting..anyone done this?

Posted by power_pangolin@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 23 comments

Hi all,

Looking for inputs from successful solo Linux Consultants, mainly.
I've been getting bored at my job lately and recently thinking of supplementing my income. I want to venture into consulting as it seems to be natural progression at this stage and I'm interested in the field.
I had some questions for the successful solo consultants in this space.

How did you get started with solo Linux consulting?
How do your offer your services (platforms, pricing, etc.)
What do you offer as part of your services (can be vague or detailed)
What skills at minimum do you think one would need to get started as solo Linux consultants.
Any advice for admins wanting to venture out..should we pursue something else before starting to offer services, etc.?

[-]

Anycast@reddit

Just Linux? Maybe 10-15 years ago you might be able to do this, but now that's too niche/legacy IMO. How are you with cloud, containers, IaC, CI/CD, scripting / automation, etc? Those are the modern skills that the Linux admin role has evolved into.

[-]

power_pangolin@reddit (OP)

I have experience with cloud and scripting/automation using Ansible only. Learned IaC , containerisation on my own but no prof experience yet.

[-]

derprondo@reddit

Switch jobs, mate, there's no career path for OS-centric engineering roles anymore. The job titles are extremely ambiguous these days as well, but infrastructure engineering is still there under it all, eg: cloud engineer, devops engineer, platform engineer.

LLMs do an incredible job of writing IAC these days, so you don't have much of a career future if your main skill is just slinging yaml and HCL, but knowing the underlying infrastructure like AWS is still valuable. I would recommend leaning heavily into the development side of things, however, infrastructure roles are by and large being rolled into development teams and DevOps is quickly becoming just devs that do their own infra and automate away any ops.

[-]

eman0821@reddit

Linux System Administrators in enterprise IT. It's a very niche role in IT since most Sysadmin jobs are Windows Server/Azure based. Enterprise IT is a completely different field from Software Engineering/DevOps. Infrastructure roles like Cloud Engineering mostly deals with customer facing infrastructure which is the web hosting side of DevOps, the infrastructure that runs SaaS products and web applications on the internet.

[-]

eman0821@reddit

The Linux Sysadmin role is becoming more rare and very niche that's overwhelming dominated by Windows/Azure Sysadmins since the vast majority of organizations are Microsoft shops. You only find traditional Linux Admin jobs in government contracting, health and finance.

All the Linux based jobs nowadays are in the SWE field that resolves around DevOps when it comes to software development like Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, SRE.

[-]

OwnProcedure7178@reddit

Mind backing that claim with some data?
Isn't the majority of computing being ran on linux?

[-]

eman0821@reddit

Linux Sysadmins doesn't manage public facing servers, they manage internal servers for a business. You seem to be getting fields mixed up with another field. The people that deals with public facing internet infrastructure is Cloud Engineers which is in the SWE/DevOps field. So yes most of the internet runs on Linux but it's a different field from IT.

[-]

OwnProcedure7178@reddit

The Linux Sysadmin role is becoming more rare and very niche

-even though most companies run linux in the back end??

vast majority of organizations are Microsoft shops

-yet they run linux in the back end??

[-]

Amidatelion@reddit

My officemate made the change to consulting after being let go from his admin position at a company we used to work at. Rather than address your questions directly, here's what you need to be able to address from conversations we've had:

Time sink. Actually doing the work is frequently 40-60% of the job. You will be in meetings, doing admin, and other miscellanea much, much more often than you think. This specifically may not gel with your plan to do it on the side.
You need a network. No platform is going to see you a significant income.
You need to be able to differentiate yourself from normal linux admins. What is your value add skills-wise versus people who are normally employed? Your average RHSCA holder is not going to succeed at consulting. You need to be able to demonstrate that you're worth your hourly. In his case it was facility with SCADA and low power linux networking devices.
Don't know where you live, but if you're in NA the lack of employer health benefits can turn crippling fast, and self-insuring can be difficult depending on your location.
This may not apply to you as you wish to do it on the side, but the biggest thing that he went over that turned me away from it was the ramp up time. He had a severance package and a supportive family which helped, but it took him eighteen months to get "stable" and about four years to "catch up" to where the rest of us ended up salarywise.

[-]

NegativeK@reddit

the biggest thing that he went over that turned me away from it was the ramp up time

There's a tip I heard from another industry: when starting your own business, do it on the side and don't quit your main job until it's costing you money to stay.

(Obviously adapt that to your specific needs.)

[-]

EndpointWrangler@reddit

Most successful solo Linux consultants started by taking on small projects for their existing network before leaving their day job, referrals from colleagues and former employers are how the first few clients happen, Upwork and Toptal work but commoditize your rate, and the skills that actually differentiate you at the solo level are automation (Ansible, Terraform), security hardening, and being the person who can explain what they did clearly enough that the client doesn't need to call back every week.

[-]

Radiant-Welcome4876@reddit

I use GigUp to avoid the commoditization trap by only seeing jobs where my rate actually works.

[-]

FarToe1@reddit

Your human networking game has to be pretty good out of the gate. If you have no networked contacts who can give you work, you're going to have to work damned hard to even get started.

I know myself that all the admin overhead of any small business startup is hard. Learning all the hoops of contracting and tax in your region, and all that crap bores my socks off. Then when you grow enough to employ people, that's a whole new world of pain. Being an expert in the work itself is one thing, being an expert in business is another.

Sorry, am probably unduly pessimistic due to currently enjoying a safe and boring life after years of being on unstable ground. Some people thrive in those conditions, maybe you are one. I've learned I am not.

[-]

fearless-fossa@reddit

The simple trick is not being a solo consultant.

Like, I don't know any company that would ever hire a solo consultant, the risks are just too great. Who jumps in when you fall sick or have an accident?

If you're a super specialized unicorn companies fight over - sure, then it could work. Reliability is king, and you can't provide that solo.

[-]

amarao_san@reddit

Well, Linux consulting is either really, really welcomed thing... like 'we start getting odd latency spikes when we use those ebpf programs together with io_uring, and we are lost how to fix it'.

or it's like 'yes, I know I can mask units and kill -9 will killa process' - in this case, thank you, no.

[-]

PieSubstantial2060@reddit

Try to reproduce the problem using fio and io_uring, then start profiling it, however this sounds like something that you can solve with affinity. Now pls hire me

[-]

amarao_san@reddit

Can you where it stalls? why?

[-]

PieSubstantial2060@reddit

Before profiling (let’s say bpftrace) it is hard to say (and without context), in principle when you have this you are going to first reproduce (the hardest part with rare event), second measure. But if it is something like p99 spike maybe there are few possibility in my experience:
-weird race condition
- wrong affinity plus above
- hitting a bug some where ? (Again profile)

[-]

ByteSizedBeast@reddit

Cloud and on-prem Kubernetes, along with AI and MLOps, are where many of the opportunities and money are right now. Getting by with only traditional Linux administration skills is becoming increasingly difficult these days, as the industry has evolved quite a bit. It also helps to stay adaptable and expand your skill set beyond the basics. Just as important, build a strong professional network and maintain a good reputation. In tech, opportunities often come from who you know just as much as what you know.

[-]

slippery@reddit

I went solo (a long time ago) after working for a consulting company for about 5 years. I landed a long term contract supporting a division in IBM. It was great for 3 years, then they moved the division to a different city and I didn't want to relocate. I wouldn't try it without some kind of long term commitment from either one big one or dozens of small ones. Dozens of small ones is more resilient.

[-]

robvas@reddit

How many potential clients ya got?

[-]

power_pangolin@reddit (OP)

That number would be 0, a goose egg.

[-]

robvas@reddit

Gotta get some clients before you can even think of doing this