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From System Administrator to Developer?
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?"
I went from programming to system administration and back again several times. If you know how computers work, it's not much of a leap to programming them.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Scary. Not just your comment, but a bunch of responses to it. I feel the need to respond if only to give a differing opinion.
I started programming when I was 7 years old. Atari 1200XL. Moved onto a Commodore 64. Then an Amiga. Then an IBM PC (8086/8088). Then more modern 386/486. An itty bitty bit of Macs. Went to college (BSCS), did the whole Sun/IRIX/HPUX thing for four years. Got a job at a National Laboratory programming. Did that for a couple years. Now back in grad school in CS (MS) while working. I've done BASIC, C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, and several others I'm embarrased to mention (though they end in -TRAN and -BOL). Programming in school and programming at work. When I have free time, I often write programs for fun or for utility. It's been twenty years. I will never get burnt out on it. Many of the people in CS in grad school I know are the same way.
I hate to make the analogy because it sounds presumptuous, but for me it's fun and creative, kind of like art. I know there are many people out there who chose programming because it was a good living. But they couldn't have enjoyed it too much to begin with. If I hear someone say they're burnt out, I wonder if they fall into this category. Can you imagine an artist say "That's it. I'm burnt out. I've painted for three years professionally, and now I hate it."? If so, then maybe they never really were an artist.
Sure, there are some tedious parts like debugging, but even that can be rewarding. And certain projects can suck your brains out; imagine working on a huge mural with 10 other artists for several years. Certain projects can get old. But while you're doing that project, you aren't necessarily thinking that you hate art (programming), but maybe instead that you're still itching to paint (code) something you want to work on instead of the project you're sick of.
If you've programmed some, and said to yourself, "Hey, this is slick! Look at this code I brought to life!", you might have it in you. If you wrote something and said "Glad that's over, now gimme my paycheck/diploma", then you might want to reconsider.
One of the things that attracts me about sysadmin is the variety of tasks required to do the job well. You have to be good with computer systems, of course. But your computer knowledge has to be broader than average, because solving systems problems frequently requires understanding the system at several different levels at once (Here I use "system" to include multiple computers connected with a network.) You also have to worry about hardware, and may find yourself elbow deep in a rack or under someone's desk. In addition to the technical aspects of the job, you also need to interact with people an awful lot, often under under difficult circumstances.
Computer programming requires a different skill set. Here, intense concentration on a single subject is a key skill. Your knowledge needs to be very deep in the particlar area you are working in. There's less of a premium on people skills. I don't have a college degree, and I've noticed that such degrees are less common among sysadmins than among software engineers. This could just reflect hiring bias, but I suspect it actually means something. Academic training in Computer Science, particularly in algorithms, is probably more useful for a software engineer than for a sysadmin.
For myself, the coding I do is another of the whole suite of tasks I am called upon to address as a sysadmin. I enjoy the intense concentration, but I'm glad I don't have to keep it up year after year. Instead I can jump from task to task, often having several going at once. Or I can learn some new technology that has popped up in the workplace. My jobs have been anything but boring, and boredom is my number one bummer thing.
Shameless plug: It's ironic that people who appear so similar on the surface can be so dissimilar at a deep level. (I've written a whole paper about it. The software it describes is at http://egbok.com/sudoscript
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers