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How to Hire a Linux Administrator
Skapare writes "Hiring a good system administrator can be difficult. Hiring one while converting to Linux may take someone with special skills. Tom Adelstein is exploring just what is needed, and what should be avoided, in an article at Linux Journal about Linux System Administrators. I say hire more than just one."
Disadvantage: Spends a lotta time on /.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Yeah, but unfortunately for YOU, Mr. Castro, your Visa was rejected.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Our Policy is not to hire dyslexic third world despots for IT positions.
Don't forget to look for personality.
Too many geeks spend so much time in front of the computer they forget how to deal with people.
I'd rather hire a less-technical person with good person skills then a more-technical person who cannot hold a converation. Since the Linux admin is basically a internal support person for the business, a good personality, decent communication skills, and the ability to turn a low-level human concepts to create a technical solution are always very important. The ability to chat over a coffee or beer is essential in any workplace.
Many technical skills can be learned very quickly. Personality is learned in a lifetime.
Don't wait until he signs the contract to ask him what his funny nickname means and how he got it. I'm serious about this. Under no circumstances should you EVER hire an admin who answers to the name of "jizz". Truse me.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Not a big fan of several of the answers. The first batch of questions has some things that are quite wrong (virtual memory is implemented by time-sharing?!?) and there's no comments correcting them. At least the one that starts with "ls -ltra" has comments, although the main page doesn't make that clear.
One problem with providing answers to interview questions is that it's almost useless. If the interviewer knows the correct answers, then they don't need it. If the interviewer doesn't, then the questions must be crafted to only have one correct answer (eg, "What does UDP stand for?"), and such questions are often teh suck. Otherwise (still discussing the case when the interviewer doesn't know the problem domain) you end up with situations like the windows/unix filesharing question, in which the interviewer expects to hear NFS while many respondants would reply SAMBA. Open-ended questions, such as "what does [technology] do" are the worst in this scenario. So I don't think that providing answers helps.
Beware also of "opinion" questions, such as "what is the main advantage of symlinks over copies". The question on your site says that permissions are shared, while I think that the main advantage is that modifications are shared. Somebody coming from an embedded systems background may well have good reason to say that the main advantage is disk space.
I guess my point is, it's perilous to interview for Linux folk if you don't know enough Linux to deal with a variety of correct answers.
Agreed. Policy dictates that they should be confined to managerial positions.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
First, look over your potential new sysadmin from a distance of a few feet. What you're looking for are any major defects.
Contrary to popular belief, a good sysadmin isn't just skinny or fat. Any body shape will do fine, so don't spend a lot of time here. Just feel him or her in his midsection and verify that the flesh is soft and supple. Firmness in the stomach area is a sign that this sysadmin has been exercising rather than reading product manuals.
Count the legs and arms: a good sysadmin should have two arms (with hands with five fingers each: sysadmins do a lot of typing), and two legs. However, if your sysadmin has less than two legs and comes with a set of wheels, he will do just fine. Two arms are absolutely necessary though!
Next, come in a little closer. If you detect the aroma of old floppy disks, throw this one out, it's not fresh. What you want is an aroma of unwashed armpits mixed with the smell of microwaved CD-R fumes.
Look your sysadmin in the eyes. If he or she looks at the floor, that means the reflexes are sharp.
Finally, take an alphanumeric pager and wave it in front of the sysadmin. He or she should instinctively take the pager and strap it to his or her belt. If the pager is rejected, a firm "NO" will usually suffice, however a salary increase and/or further training is sometimes necessary.
Once you've selected your new sysadmin, take him or her to your server room and let him roam freely. Be sure he has a clean box to put empty Mountain Dew cans in.
If you have sysadmins already, you may want to keep them in separate cubes for a few days. Then, put them in the same room for a few hours each day to rub scent glands and discussion Gentoo USE flags. In some rare situations, disgreement over which boot loader to use may result in fights, be prepared to separate them.
Congratulations on your new sysadmin! He or she should bring you several months of smoothly running systems, until burnout or employee turnover sets in.
As elitist as it may sound, in my experience (as a Linux Admin for an ERP consulting firm, sometimes I'm asked to provide training for the client firm's tech staff) this is actually true. The reason may be that a Windows admin has spent so much time with the GUI that memorizing/using the command line may seem like a daunting task. I'd say it's not a matter of competence, but rather a matter of attitude.