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Cross Skilling Across Multi-OS Platforms?
drtheman asks: "I have been working in the IT industry for the last 10 years, 7 of those as a UNIX system administrator. I have been noticing over the last year or two that companies are becoming very pedantic about specific skills that a UNIX sysadmin should have. Most troubling for myself is the so called multi-skilled UNIX/NT administrator.
It's a given that any seasoned UNIX admin should have *some* Windows knowledge, and cross skilling is something that shouldn't be balked at. However, after coming from large enterprise environments, where the UNIX boys do the UNIX stuff and the NT guys do the Windows stuff, I just find it a little troubling that if I don't adapt with certifications in these platforms I may become unemployable. Do other enterprise admins think that this is too much for us to take on, and companies are just expecting more bang for their buck these days? I can understand that these multi-skilled people are needed in the smaller shops, but I would like to know how it would work effectively in larger ones."
I myself am coming from the opposite direction (Microsoft guru, *nix acolyte), and from what I've seen, a decently cross-skilled admin can pretty much write their own ticket. I wouldn't go so far as to say that if you aren't cross-skilled, you will eventually be unemployable...there will always be work for an admin that's competent enough, especilly a Unix admin like yourself. But a cros-skilled admin brings much more to the table...not just for the obvious reason of being able to work on either platform, but because they can work on both platforms. The point I'm trying to get across here is that Unix/Microsoft interoperability is a big matzah ball in today's tech world, and an admin that can understand how Windows and Unix play together (and why they occasionally don't) will be valued much more...in essence, the cross-skilled tech is worth more than the sum of his parts.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Just like anywhere else, you must adapt. If you think this is bad, try being a tax attorney.
I can testify to that point. The HR folks are generally given a boiler plate job description in which they ask if you have the specified skills. They usually don't even know what the acronyms stand for.
Competent/confident individuals should just appease the HR folks with yes/yes/yes/..., and then talk to a technical person at the next stage to see what the company is looking for, and if you are a good fit.
And those ratings of 1 to 5 are very subjective, and think of some of the idiots you've worked with in the past, and what rating they would chose for themselves, and then chose your own accordingly.
Realistically I might consider myself a 3-4 level at a particular skill (because I know there is ALWAYS, much, much more to learn), but for an HR screening interview, i'm always a 5 for the critical skills.
I'm pretty much against unions, but maybe sys admins should have one...
What I've noticed in the past 5 years or so is that the average starting salary for a UNIX admins (and other highly skilled computer jobs) has dropped considerably... its disturbing. It is a HIGHLY skilled job that the wigs in large or small corporations just don't understand. It's not as if the market is flooded with employable sys admins, either.
I've never had a problem with NT... I think it is a fine server... but... (I don't know) is it still even being supported? Can you even buy NT anymore? Does it run on new servers? As far as what you said about the split between Windows and UNIX admins, that is my experience, too, only... if you have UNIX servers, why bother with windows? The windows admins are there for the user boxes at the desks... and most UNIX admins I know don't like to travel far from their desks and espescially not to interact with the (yuk!) user... if the UNIX admin is doing his job well, he never has to interface with the user. I look at Windows admins like I look at sales people... they know how to get along with people... they are more socially adept... and good for them, because I don't want to do that.
There was an ad in the paper for a job that I laughed at... it was for a Windows administrator, and they REQUIRED a Computer Science bachelors degree, and it started at 21K. WTF!! CS grads used to be able to start out doing, well, computer science at 65K fresh out of school... and now they have to shlub along as a windows admin for peanuts? This trend in the economy of devaluing high tech jobs is getting ridiculous... I don't care how many Indians can dance on the head of a pin for half as much, that work isn't easy, and it isn't cheap to get that education... my God, holding a figgin' stop/slow sign at a road work site pays better!
so, personally speaking, I think UNIX admins should bond together to prevent such a bullying from employers and industry, get their old starting salaries back (say, those of 5-8 years ago), and stop this UNIX/Windows admin BS. Windows admins would benefit too...
The Admin and the Engineer
Yeah, well, they get what they pay for.
You hire an accountant and you hire a lawyer. If you hire one person to do both, eith the legal stuff will be done wrong, the accounting will be done wrong, or, most likely, both will be done wrong.
This is why they remain small businesses; because they can't rise above mediocrity.
"Piter, too, is dead."
There's two sides to every coin. Even though I've been in I.T. for over 12 years myself, I can't ever seem to land a better-paying job as an actual sysadmin. Why? Not because I don't know the material. I've been asked to build departmental servers while working in "support specialist" roles for years, as well as maintaining Citrix Metaframe boxes, configuring and maintaining Exchange servers, setting up user accounts, and directory/file permissions for everyone in companies, and more.
... that you limit your usefulness when you specialize. But it's so tough to find good jobs in today's marketplace, I don't tihnk it's really THAT much easier for the people with a broad array of skills. (People like me who've worked with a lot of random technologies and even do Linux and Mac as well as PC/Windows are best working for themselves in consulting roles of some sort.) If you want a steady, corporate job with the benefits and good pay that can come with it - I think you may as well keep up a job search for the extra 3-6 months it might take to find a match for your specialty.
But they always look at my resume and see "Jack of all trades." in big, bold "between the lines" print. They'd rather have the more steerotypical systems administrator type with the MCSE, maybe a Cisco cert. for good measure, and a job title of sysadmin for a company or two.
Honestly, if I had worked for a larger firm that forced me to be "pigeonholed" in one area (and paid for related training and certs. for that area) - I'd be making a lot more money than I do now. Instead, I've always opted to work for the start-up companies, the mom-and-pop operations that set up entire networks for other small businesses, and a mid-sized company that made me wear a lot of hats while refusing to change my official title from one that made me sound like I was just a glorified help-desk guy.
I really do understand the other argument too
I would stay "away" from windows "skills" at great effort, it will only devalue your skill set and force you to spend time with technology that will become obsolete along with your skills.
One time I worked for a large enterprise, and they had these windows servers running transactions for all their customers. And (supprise) the servers would lock up under high load nearly every other day, which was extremely expensive because it could cause lines to back up in over 1000 stores and the company would be loosing something to the tune of a million dollars per hour.
Needless to say, the company spent tons of money souping up the servers with the best hardware money could buy and even custom rewriting the tcp/ip stack to get the results they needed. They flew in experts from all over the world to find out what the problem was, and the experts eventually came back and said that it was a failure in the NT kernel.
The company then went to Microsoft and demanded a fix, and Microsoft in not so many words told them to go to hell. After that, they spent another few million dollars migrating their system over to Solaris (this was in 98, so they probably couldn't have gotten away with Linux) and I slowly but sorely started removing my Microsoft skills from my resume and beefing up big time on my Linux skills and haven't regretted it a day since.
Later on I got killed in the dot-com crash, and it was hard, but because of my Linux skills I eventually recovered and am now in demand more than I ever was. My friends who stayed with MS skills simply haven't fared too well at all and many were forced to get new carrers outside of IT.
One company I worked for, which was mainly a Novell joint at the time, would actually automatically trash any resume that came in with certifications on it.
Sure, we probably missed some good candidates here and there, but the CIO passed down the mandate when he came on board as a result of his prior company being staffed by "paper" CNEs who had never actually laid hands on a Netware server before walking in the door.
Now, I don't necessarily agree with that policy, but I bring it up for a couple of reasons. First, just to point out that such things DO happen. Second, and more importantly, because even with that restriction (or because of it???) we were staffed with some absolutely top notch people, none of whom held a single certification, but who are still the very first people I call if I need a pointer in their particular area of expertise.
Another little anecdote: Several years back a friend of mine took some classes and got his MCSE (Win2K days). Passed the tests with flying colors. A few weeks later I had to go install a network card for him because he had no clue how to do it. (Not a dumb guy by any means, but he was definitely better off staying in marketing.)
In my current role I take sort of a middle of the road approach. I won't automatically disqualify a resume because it lists certs, but I do ignore them. It's evidence of being able to get things done in the real world that I look for.
I wonder if you have the right kind of persective on this stuff. To use an analogy which another poster used in this thread, it seems as though you're looking at the job with the eyes of a carpenter, rather than with the eyes of an architect. Take a look of that list of skills you listed for the 'web developer' position. Now, consider if you were to look at a similar job posting for a 'carpenter'. The skillset of a 'carpenter' might be "NAILS, PowerSaw, Router, HAMMER, LEVEL, TableSaw, JigSaw, MeasurTAPE, SANDER".
Now, if I posted such a job description, because I needed the floors and doorframes in my house redone, you can bet your bottom dollar that I wouldn't give the job to somebody who applied for the job with a resume listing "PAINTBUCKET, BRUSH, SprayGun, Plaster, PaintThinner, Stiring Stick".
And you know what? If I wanted to build a house, the skillset of things I'd want would be a half mile long, and include an architect who is familiar with carpentry, masonry, electricity, plumbing, and more. Then I'd want an engineer to be a project manager, who has all those skills, and who can supervise the other workers. And it's really not all that tough to find people out there with all that experience.
What you may be forgetting is that there are people out there who have photographic and videographic memories, who happen to be attracted to jobs involving digital photography, video editing, 3D design, and networking. There are lots of people out there who, for a school project, teach themselves how to build an entire website or film a movie short, and come away with that entire list of skills you just mentioned, plus tons more.
In my opinion, your perspective isn't wide enough and isn't giving due consideration to people who make home movies, run ezines or blogs just for the heck of it, or a zillion other hobbies which teach them those skills. Nor are you giving due consideration to any number of traits which are commonly found in geeks, ranging from obsessive compulsiveness, to perfectionism. Yes, there are people out there that have mad skills in all those areas that you listed. And those people often just run a weblog. Their real job might be to light stageshows or to teach highschool or whatever.
Anyhow, the point is, those skills listed for 'web developer' position are roughly on the same difficulty level as the skills needed to use a powersaw, or a torque wrench, or a welding torch, or a multimeter.
...whereas a lot of Windows admins I meet are "Next, OK, Apply, Cancel" kind of guys. Plus Windows is becoming more command line oriented (Thank God!).
I agree, I went from UNIX/LINUX only to woking with Windows servers as well and I must say I'm rather glad of it. Expanding into Windows has made me more employable and having started out in the UNIX world made me a better professional than I would have been if I had taken the Microsoft certification route and then moved into UNIX. Having worked mostly with Win 2003 rather than Win 2000 Server (thank god because the latter really sucks) I am constantly amazed by how the WinOnly admins worship the graphical tools. The first thing I did to my Win 2003 boxen was installing some of the Gnu tools and Gvim (hint: if you really want to have some fun introduce a freshly hatched MCSE to vim). Since then I have written several command line utilities in C#, which is not really all that hard if you know a little Java or C++, just to fill in some of the blanks in the Windows command line toolbox. I can now administrate those Win 2003 boxes completely from the command line which surprises many (though by no means all) Windows admins. The concept of solving time consumig tasks with custom scripts and programs seems to be alien to many Window guys whereas it is commonplace in the UNIX community.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I grew up with PCs, did 6 years in college which was heavy on UNIX, supporting WfW 3.11 labs, Sun Workstations, and dumb terminals connecting to UNIX mainframes (as a lab support guy). Did a 6-month internship supporting WfWG and NT 3.5 at a *huge* industrial site. Worked 3 years supporting Win95/NT4 workstations and NT Server, SCO Server, and AIX at a shop of 50, where I got certified an MCSE in NT4. Worked five years at a large University, supporting primarily Redhat and Solaris at the senior-admin level, though a fair bit of AIX and IRIX, too.
You'd think I'd be able to name my price, but it ain't so! In *addition* to all this crap, companinies want all of the above, plus, an experienced DBA and a developer who speaks Java, SQL, and C++. Oh, and they want someone who's an expert in networking hardware.
I don't mind being a jack of all trades type of admin, but isn't there a point where one can be *too* diluted with skills?
I'm a "systems guy" through and through -- and a pretty damned good one, if I do say so myself. I *can* bang together the occasional bash/perl/sed/awk script to automate *systems* administration, but I'm no code jockey (and I really don't want to be one). I know enough about TCP/IP and routing to help dedicated network staff trouble-shoot network problems by way of ping, traceroute, and packet dumps, but I'm noenterprise-level network guru (and I don't want to be one).
I feel this person's pain, as I've been in the job market for a while. It seems comapanies -- of a surprisingly wide range of sizes -- want people that can do it all. AND... they don't seem to want to pay what just the senior-level admin skills in one platform alone are worth, never mind the programming and hardware networking expertise.
I mean, how many contractors expect people who are experts in plumbing, electrical, *and* HVAC to be the same person for hire? It's getting silly out there.
Method of processing duck feet
>> I am (as an employer looking to hire) less interested in certs than I am in quantifiable skills
.sig file - but I digress.) Most businesses large enough to pay well for a skilled professional also have hiring processes that hinder selection of real talent.
You, Sir are in the minority.
Most large companies have HR staff that think Excel is a programming language and that MCSE means something. (I work with many MCSEs - you need to force an admission out of the competent ones, but the useless ones all put it in their
If I sound bitter, I am. Not cuz I'm looking for work, but because I have to work with the results of a broken hiring process...
http://request-header.info
However, after coming from large enterprise environments, where the UNIX boys do the UNIX stuff and the NT guys do the Windows stuff [snip]
After watching friends in the IT industry deal with difficult employment situations in Silicon Vally, I have to say that cross-functionality is a must. One friend in particular has been forced to accept positions at relatively small companies, and the people that run these places just don't understand, well, much of anything about computer infrastructure. One choice quote: "If the CEO isn't having any problems, he thinks that no one else is either." The same guy that thinks a four-hour per week IT consultant can keep their systems, network infrastructure and Windows boxen all running happily. Decisions are made more through egotistical and micromanagerial mechanisms rather than entrusting the computing environment to the ones knowledgeable enough to make those decisions.
So while the enterprise may have more vertical job functions, the smaller shops have a variety of needs dictated more by the (lack of) knowledge of the management than the real needs of the computing infrastructure. You should probably increase your employability by getting your MCSE, but at the same time be wary of those smaller shops. Without wanting to be a pessimist, I'd assume the worst if you're going to be the sole IT guy/gal, or even part of a team of three or less.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
It boils down to this: do you want to be the world's greatest Unix admin, or do you want to be extremely employable at a good salary in a place that's not a sweatshop?
I've been a Unix sysadmin/engineer. I've managed the Windows/email group in a large corporation. I manage the network architecture group in another large corporation.
I look for demonstrated technical ability (expertise). I also value cross plaform ability. I also look for someone with a open mind, who can work well with others.
Someone who comes in and says 'there's no way a corporation can run Windows systems and survive' doesn't last through the interview - even for the Unix group. The answer I'm looking for is: UNIX is more securable in an Internet-facing environment. If you have to run Windows (even IIS) for business reasons, you will have to patch more often. You may get rooted more often. You may have to look harder for Windows admins who can properly secure the environment, but we can do that, if it's imperative.
The Windows groups also need people who understand scripting, remote shell and managing fleets of servers through systems rather than putting a CD in each box and running setup. Gee.
Small shops also have a lot of crossover between Unix, Windows and network groups.
If you want to be the most employable person, learn some of all of these. You will be more valuable to more organizations.
Certifications are also useful. I get ten resumes on my desk, all from people who *say* they are great admins. I only have time to interview in person 3-4 of these. If one has taken the time to get Red Hat (or Sun) certified, that may mean he considers himself a professional, and wants to do more. It may also mean he's a paper RHSE, but the interview will pick that up. He/she is more likely to make the short list. And, if he/she has an MCSE as well, it makes it even more likely.