From developer to sysadmin vs. from sysadmin to developer [closed]
Did you start as a sysadmin and later turned a developer? Or viceversa?
What prompted the change? Which career do you like more? What advantages have you found from the transition?
Tell us your story :-)
Graduated as a Sysadmin, then changed into the field of development.
I just had this moment of enlightenment, realizing that PCs are crap. No really. You have hardware specifications that are so unclear, everyone implements it slightly different, causing tiny compatibility issues. If PCs weren't crap, then there would be no incompatibilities when using certain RAM types (As long as their standard match the one on the mainboard - there is absolutely no excuse why DDR3-1066 RAM should be incompatible to DDR3-1066 Mainboards), or with certain USB Devices.
So you have Hardware that is broken by design because the specifications are useless, and on top of that you have bugged Software. I just realized then, that SysAdmin is a job with nothing to win. You can not "fix" issues - you can just use duct tape to temporarily resolve some symptoms, but you're always on the losing side because you don't have a good foundation to start with.
For those of you who don't want to work with x86/x64 crap, YMMV, but I've learned enough in my 7 years of SysAdmin to know that it's not my job.
So instead of always taking the crap when broken hardware breaks, I've switched into the field of actually creating value. Selfish? Maybe. Yes, my software is buggy at times, and in the end build on top of the same flawed foundation, but as a developer, I feel like I'm actually doing something of worth.
That being said: Respect to everyone who does the SysAdmin job with a passion. It's an ungrateful and often unsatisfactory job, but everyone who keeps servers up and running is a hero in my book.
I started as a dev, ended up as a DBA, then a sysadmin and now a sysadmin manager.
I found system administration more interesting because I had an opportunity to work in a large distributed environment with lots of moving parts to integrate and maintain.
Also, IMO a high percentage of dev jobs are all about maintaining crappy applications or customizing commercial packages. Ugh. To me, sysadmin seemed to present more opportunities to be creative and have a visible impact on the systems that keep a business running.
I started as a sysadmin who liked to code. I've found programming skills to be the #1 important skill for a sysadmin. If you don't know how to automate tasks you'll end up in a maintenance nightmare.
- Mundane tasks will kill your brain
- Having automated tasks ensures consistency in your system.
As the years passed, I've done less and less pure sysadmining. And now prefer to do the architecture of new solutions instead. If I do sysadmin-stuff its usually heavy 3rd line debugging, or code to integrate some crap solutions - on boxes some other admin installed for me.