Sandra Henry-Stocker relate ses 30 années d'expérience en tant qu'admin sys et explique comment son métier a évolué.

Petit extrait choisi:
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The downside: Compared to many IT jobs, there's not much climbing up the corporate ladder for sysadmins. As a systems administrator, you'll seldom be in the spotlight. You can easily still be a "bottom rung" (nobody reporting to you) worker after 30 years in the field. It's also hard sometimes to get a sense of value. You generally get noticed least when everything is running smoothly. Unless you resolve Big Problems, most of the people you support won't think about you very often. Maybe not even on Sysadmin Day.

Systems administrators are rarely customer-facing unless you count as customers the staff that use the systems that you keep humming along. And, even then, the big changes that you make are likely done after hours when everyone else is off duty and having a relaxing weekend or enjoying happy hour at the local pub. Do your job really well and no one will remember you're there.

The upside: The work is seldom boring and there's always something new to learn -- something breaking, some new coming through the door. Even after 30+ years, the work is anything but monotonous. And the job pays reasonably well. There's also a lot of variability in what you do and what you specialize in. You might automate all of your tasks or manage a huge data center, but there will always be something that challenges you and problems that need your attention.

Some of the significant trade-offs involve the kind of organization you work for. I worked in one company with only three employees and two independent contractors and other organizations with staffs of tens of thousands. The benefit of the smaller staff positions was getting to touch nearly everything and being involved in almost every aspect of the work. The big ones offered more chance of moving around and changing my organizational role fairly dramatically.
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Article remarquable.