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From System Administrator to Developer?

Posted by Cliff on from the making-a-change dept.

ma11achy asks: "Recently, I have been looking at making a career change from Unix Systems Administrator to programming/software development. I have a CS degree recently obtained through distance education and have been working in the field of Unix Systems Admin for roughly seven years now (in my early thirties). I have reasonable knowledge of C, good knowledge of Perl and excellent knowledge of shell scripting. Is, is there anyone out there that has made the change and could they provide any insights into what it was like for them? Am I just barking up the wrong source tree?"

2 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. stuff by austad · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    As far as hair coloring goes, I used to frost mine heavily, and it didn't seem to affect the type of jobs I was able to get, including one with a stuffy financial institution.

    Visible tattoo's and piercings though... The only places I've seen people with those hired are trendy companies (ad agencies and web companies, both places where I've worked). The stuffy corporate places seem to frown upon that sort of thing, mostly because of the HR dept. I would assume any company that has the HR dept interview you would be likely to not like body art.

    Ad agencies and web companies are definitely a different sort of environment and for the most part don't seem to care. Maybe they just like cool people.

    It makes sense that a company would look for people that fit in. Most people who work for big corporate places are married, kids, mid 30's to early 50's. Ad agencies and web companies seem to be mostly 20 somethings.

    As a mathematician, you would likely have more options at a big corporate empire. You could hold off on the body art until you get hired, and then bust out the needle and ink once you get your nice cozy corporate cubicle of hell. Or, you could do it now, but expect some prejudice when interviewing.

    --
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  2. BDFH by Lord+Sauron · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Behold the Bastard Developer From Hell.

    He makes programs that will surely crash or give false results, thus freaking out the luser.

    Rumor says some BDFHs work in Microsoft.