
Ask HN: Why do I exist as a sysadmin? - vortex_panda
I am currently a Linux administrator at a state university in the US. I do the standard variety of administrative things that one would expect: provision servers and VMs, manage storage pools, use monitoring tools to keep track of systems, use configuration management tools to automate installation and configuration of packages and services, etc, etc...<p>As more and more services and tools are rolled into cloud provider&#x27;s portfolios, I can&#x27;t help but think that there&#x27;s no point for me to exist. Here on HN, in person with other tech-minded people that I know, and elsewhere in the tech sphere, I&#x27;m bombarded with a viewpoint that boils down to: &quot;Be a developer, or get out of the tech industry.&quot;<p>Herein lies the issue. I have thus far been unsuccessful in any programming endeavors that I have attempted. I can manage to throw together bash scripts and other glue that&#x27;s necessary to make automation tasks function at my work, but these are largely cargo culted from various stack overflow posts or other online resources. Whenever I attempt to dive into anything that I would consider &quot;development&quot;, such as python programming, it&#x27;s as if my brain completely ceases to function and all of the words and symbols on my screen turn into an incomprehensible alien language. It doesn&#x27;t matter how long I stare at it or how much I reference the documentation, that alien language never reveals its true meaning to me.<p>This inability to understand syntax is not only saddening to me, it&#x27;s made much worse by a variety of mental issues that seem to amplify the issue, such as: PTSD, anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, and dyscalculia. All of these feed off of each other in a vicious cycle of frustration, hopelessness, self-loathing, and worse.<p>I suppose my question is:<p><i>Has anyone had a similar experience and managed to push through the mental blocks associated with learning to program while having your own mind constantly working against you?</i>
======
cbanek
Okay, first off, being a sysadmin or an ops person is important! You are the
first line of defense, and many times, companies just need eyes on systems
(all the time). It's your ability to analyze a problem that makes you useful.
There are ALWAYS boring repetitive service tasks that aren't rewarded but
someone needs to do (this is true for devs too). Most of this probably doesn't
seem hard or new to you, but I just want to say that even non-programmers are
very important to any org.

Okay, now to the coding part.

"Has anyone had a similar experience and managed to push through the mental
blocks associated with learning to program while having your own mind
constantly working against you?"

All the time. I have the depression, and a few other mental problems most
likely, and I have to say, for as much as my brain helps me it hurts me a lot
too. Especially with programming and engineering, I feel like things are
impossible right up until there's some breakthrough, and then things are fine.
It happens really quickly, and soon you're just onto the next problem - many
times I feel I don't relish the victory of whatever I have solved enough
before moving onto the next thing. You might be doing the same thing too - I
can't tell how much or little progress you've made, but learning is hard, and
it makes everyone feel dumb, not just you.

"I can manage to throw together bash scripts and other glue that's necessary
to make automation tasks function at my work, but these are largely cargo
culted from various stack overflow posts or other online resources" This is
more of the job than you'd think. I honestly think you're on the right track
here.

As a sysadmin, are you good at debugging other people's code when something
breaks (do you try? sometimes there's org boundaries that prevent this)? That
is also a hugely valuable skill. I know some people who are frightened of
writing code fresh, but are great at finding and fixing bugs.

I'm not sure this will be of much help, but I also think as a society we're
all about fixing our problems rather than leveraging our strengths. If coding
just doesn't click with you, that's fine, obviously other tech things do click
with you. Keep working on finding what works for you.

~~~
vortex_panda
"Okay, first off, being a sysadmin or an ops person is important!"

This is the first time that I have heard or read anyone say this in years.
Thanks

~~~
ocdtrekkie
As a fellow sysadmin, I think you have to be careful not to take certain
concepts from HN too seriously. A lot of the HN crowd does seem to act like
there is no role for sysadmins in the future, that developers will manage the
infrastructure for their own software.

...This is bull----, and it probably always will be. There is a vastly higher
demand for implementation and support and _security_ than there will ever be
for people to create the stuff in the first place. While learning to code is a
big plus (I am a hobbyist developer when my caffeine is flowing enough for me
to process code), there will always be a huge need for people who understand
the priorities and needs of the companies they work for who can recommend,
assemble, and manage solutions for them. Even in a fully cloud-based setup,
your average company will still need someone who understands the cloud and the
applications operating on it to support them and ensure they aren't being
taken advantage of.

Sure, plenty of IT jobs are getting shuffled off to blue collar outsourcing
shops, but check out stories about Wipro this week to understand why that is
going to backfire significantly in the long run. Our job is not just to make
it work, but to anticipate problems and provide affordable, workable solutions
that mitigate the risks of those we work for.

~~~
HenryBemis
To quote the wise boxer Tyson: "everyone has a plan until they get punched in
the face". The same applies to any type of system/proceeds. Someone above
correctly mentioned '1st line of defence'. I will add to the 'cloud does
everything' comment that 'cloud is a computer somewhere else'. And THAT
computer (somewhere else) needs sysadmins, netadmins, DBAs, and a bunch of
other xyzadmins to get shit done and fix the many small cracks before they
become big cracks. A company can automate all the way to 11, but you simply
cannot remove the sysadmins completely for the equation (one does not simply
walk into Mordor!). Machines don't do things by themselves. Skynet is not
imminent.

------
_bxg1
"Whenever I attempt to dive into anything that I would consider "development",
such as python programming, it's as if my brain completely ceases to function
and all of the words and symbols on my screen turn into an incomprehensible
alien language. It doesn't matter how long I stare at it or how much I
reference the documentation, that alien language never reveals its true
meaning to me."

For what it's worth, I've been a developer professionally for 5 years and I
still have this experience whenever I first look at code written by other
people, no matter its quality.

~~~
vortex_panda
Thanks, this is good to know.

~~~
ThJ
It's definitely the case that reading other people's code is much harder than
reading your own. It's also the case that, if you write some code and let it
sit around for a year, and then accidentally come across it, you're likely to
wonder what kind of madman or idiot wrote it, until you realise that you're
reading your own code.

It helps to keep your code so simple and peppered with comments than even an
idiot (you) can understand it.

You don't learn to code by reading code, much like you don't learn to do math
by reading equations, or carpentry by looking at houses. You have to get your
hands dirty. Start with something "Hello World" level simple and add more bits
as you go along. That's what we all do, really. The end result of such an
iterative process will look inscrutable to others, but make perfect sense for
you, because you made it.

Big dirty public secret: One guy's code being inscrutable to the next guy is
why the next guy always argues for getting rid of the system that the previous
guy developed. It's usually not because it's a bad system (your new system
eventually becomes the next guy's "bad old" system, after all), but because no
programmer thinks the same way.

Programming is very much a reflection of how a person thinks, of a mental
model, and mental models are extremely individual things. Reading someone
else's code is an exercise in empathy, and empathy isn't something programmers
are known for. Programmers love to exist on their own little islands where
everything works according to their internal logic. Teamwork means
compromises. I once had to quit a job because I couldn't understand the
internal logic of the team I had been hired to work with, as reflected in
their codebase.

The main trait needed in a programmer is the ability to endure mind-bending
levels of frustration. You have to keep hammering that nail until the problem
is solved.

~~~
ThJ
I've been at this since 1990 and I'm not only blind, but stupid! That's why
I'm a programmer. You have to ask really dumb questions to be one, because
computers aren't very smart, and you have to point out obvious things, because
computers are blind to them. You have to think like a computer to talk to a
computer, and since they are blind and stupid, so am I.

------
apenney
You know, I feel like the perfect person to answer this. I used to be a
sysadmin, then a devops engineer, then a "VP of Infrastructure", and I'm
currently doing some hands on work again as a "lead devops engineer".

Like you, I used to be frustrated at my inability to program, and I felt like
I could never make sense of any of it. I spent years in my earlier career
sticking to "sysadmin things" because of that limitation.

Eventually, as automation hit the industry, I started writing more and more
ruby code (we were Puppet users) and eventually I took a full time job for a
year writing ruby code.

It was never an inability, it was always a confidence thing. I was scared to
try and fail. By taking a full time position as a developer I -had- to
succeed, and I like to think I did. I found it's not nearly as hard as I
imagined, and the fact I did not have sysadmin duties competing made a HUGE
difference. I was able to dedicate all day to what I was doing, not fit it
into the corners of my life.

From what you wrote above, it's pretty clear that your personality woes
(anxiety probably is the big one here) is convincing you that you can't do
this.

I wasted years convinced that it was "too hard", but in reality I just didn't
have the motivation to push through my discomfort. I don't actually write a
lot of code these days, but I'm no longer afraid to pick up some code and
modify it if I need to because I know it's just a matter of being patient and
figuring things out as I go.

------
bennybob
On the programming front, I ve worked as a programmer for 12 years. I consider
myself as not smart at all. I worked hard at learning my trade. I'd suggest
you take things really slowly, some things you are going to have to rote
learn.

I wish I had found this book when I was starting out:
[https://www.htdp.org](https://www.htdp.org)

I've only browsed it, but it looks like the best way to get started to me.

My brother worked through
[https://learncodethehardway.org](https://learncodethehardway.org) python
book, he liked that. I used the learn c the hard way and I like the guy's
teaching style. He makes it clear that this stuff can be hard and you need to
take your time.

I was constantly overwhelmed by programming, but I just kept going. I'm now at
the point where I realise coding isn't the hardest part of the job anymore.

------
pier25
You need to write code so that your brain can assimilate this alien language
and you'll be able to "think in code".

Coding is difficult, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's completely
normal to struggle. How long did it take you to learn to read and write
English properly? 15-20 years?

------
arpa
The majority of the comments fail to miss one important thing: the cloud _is
not_ an abstract magical thingy which provides _whatever you need whenever you
need_. It merely abstracts away the underlying infrastructure - on hardware,
network, sometimes even the OS level.

It runs on the same(ish) hardware you can find in your own server rack. It
runs the same Linux (or some customly patched Linux derivative), it is
connected by twisted pair or optics, it still uses the same tech you, a linux
administrator, use underneath the whole shiny packaging. Kubernetes is a
collection of scripts. Docker is just a script written in go to easier
leverage linux kernel cgruops and namespaces.

To reiterate: cloud just _hides_ this instead of replacing it completely.
Worst case scenario, nobody (outside of amazon/google/azure/baidu) knows how
to set up a simple webserver on a linux box in their closet - then your skills
become invaluable for people not willing to keep their data/code/service god
knows where with god knows who. There are still some people that value "on-
premises/bare-metal" setup. So there's one venue. Another would be to deepen
your sysadmin skills to the point where instead of working _against_ the
cloud, you could _join_ them. As far as I know, they are constantly looking
for good sysadmins.

Now if you really want to become a dev... Well, i would suggest probably to
start with what you know best: bash scripts probably. Start there. Start by
small chunks. Take a small script, try to understand how it works. Try to
write a small script. Try to find tasks that would be useful / interesting for
you, e.g. make a script that starts playing music in the morning, constantly
and slowly increasing the volume until you wake up - just make stuff: the key
here is to have fun while doing it and achieve the result, not make everything
perfect.

And try to do this without any pressure on yourself. Sysadmins have value, and
will continue to have value. You're doing this not because you're being
obsoleted, but because you wish to better yourself.

~~~
AstralStorm
Alternate approach that works is to start simple and low level. Twiddle bits,
read hardware manuals. Code your own window blinds controller. Play a chiptune
directly from hardware.

Skip all the abstractions and push the numbers and currents.

Then when you get it, it is easier to go up in stack.

------
rajangdavis
If you have some experience with bash, I would recommend learning more bash.

If you want to get into development, the next step might be to learn a new
language. Ruby, Python, and Javascript are pretty popular scripting languages
that will have some overlap with bash that you can connect to. Pick a language
that works closest to how you think and work with it in place of what you
would normally do with bash.

Most importantly, understand that you are in technical role but that role is
not the summation of who you are.

Additionally, not all developers have sysadmin skills, so understand that what
you provide is valuable. Don't be hard on yourself, you have your entire life
to keep building on what you know and who you want to become.

------
stunt
Sysadmin is an important role but don’t forget that what we call DevOps is an
essential step for most of the SysAdmins these days.

If you stick with the traditional definition of SysAdmin, your job market
becomes smaller every year. That doesn’t mean you won’t find a high paying
job, it just means there are less opportunities and more competition. Are you
good at it? Then perhaps you don’t need those DevOps skills. There will be
enough opportunities for your lifetime. Then instead focus on branding
yourself. Write online about your skills, share your knowledge on internet to
create a strong and visible profile that you can reference to it. Don’t keep
your knowledge on your head. Make it more visible even stuff that you think is
obvious and easy. Then you always have a better chance in the market and it is
very likely that good offers knock your door.

But, If you do feel that your career is at risk and you see kess chance in
competing other SysAdmins, Then definitely invest on learning Cloud focused
DevOps skills. And I think grasping the next step isn’t hard for a SysAdmin.
Stuff like Modern CI/CD pipeline, Monitoring and integration with Cloud
providers and different services, Cloud migration, some level of scripting
probably in Python, etc.

And about coding, first of all you don’t have to become a programmer, . so be
careful what resources and courses you take as some of them might be
unnecessarily overwhelming. and secondly, like everything else, there is a
learning curve. You just need to pass it and be patient.

~~~
leowoo91
DevOps is also shrinking fyi.

------
proxygeek
You are not alone.

I'd guess at least over 50% of folks here would have gone through a similar
phase at some point in their lives (learning block wise).

Based on my experience, especially over the past couple of years, I've
realised that even if I can power through some of the subjects/topics which I
find arcane (e.g. linear algebra, tensor calculus), I quickly lose what I've
learnt if I don't get to apply the learning on a _real_ project, not a toy
one.

In your case, I think once you've familiarised yourself with the absolute
basic syntax structure if python, go find couple of real world projects and
just try to get them done, without worrying too much about code elegance. That
would give you the necessary confidence and understanding for moving up the
next step.

You can find small volunteer projects it participate in competitions (on
platforms like kaggle) which may require you to use at least a portion of
python.

But most importantly, don't lose heart. Learning takes time. It's just as
important to take a step back from it for a while as it is to keep at it.

I strongly recommend a series of 4-5 video lectures on Coursera by a MIT prof
I think. Course was called "Learning how to learn". You don't have to take
everything in it but I still believe the overall approach may help you.

Cheers and all the best!

~~~
vortex_panda
Thanks

I think that some of my issues possibly stem from a combination of my previous
job being a hostile work environment as well as repeatedly being told by other
coworkers (and even a former manager) that: "The work that I was doing wasn't
valuable."

I still haven't come to terms with it I think.

------
lousken
What do you mean? Doesn't matter if it's on premise or in the cloud(someone
elses computer) - someone still has to manage it from the company's point. If
you leave it to the devs it'll be a disaster.

With that said, this industry is moving fast and if you wanna keep up you need
to learn bash/python or powershell on windows, eventually... this is true. Or
you can move to smaller companies with fewer assets to manage.

If you say you can throw a bash script together than that's a good start. When
doing that, try to understand what the author has done - check how the script
was made, look up each function and try to remember what they do.

Once you remember functions you can always use that knowledge and look up
syntax and arguments in the docs and start writing your own code. Bash is not
a good place to start though, because it has a lot of weird syntax but python
is rather clean.

Also take your time, don't think it's something you can learn within a week or
month, give it 6months - year, don't push it. If you can't figure it out
today, it's ok, try another day.

~~~
scarface74
I disagree, if you leave it to the sysadmins that take their same mentality to
the cloud, it’s a bigger disaster.

I straddle both sides and I’d much rather deal with a seasoned software
architect who comes to the cloud from that side than a sysadmin who comes from
the other side.

A sysadmin doesn’t want to automate his job and let the cloud provider manage
what they can manage. A good software Architect is mich more likely to be push
as much off on to manage services as possible and automate as much as
possible.

~~~
lousken
Sysadmin doesn't wanna automate his job? Where did that come from? I am trying
to automate as much as possible, because doing repetitive tasks is boring,
I'll much rather read HN instead :)

But I see your point, the problem with cloud services is that they don't share
the same features so if you know AWS and then you move to azure you have to
re-learn not just the naming but also how to work with a new toolset which is
annoying, so most sysadmins will automate, but just not at the cloud provider
level but below. I think this isn't wrong though because setting up an
environment can be a lot more painful if you need to switch providers for
whatever reason.

But I haven't worked in a large company, only below 200 employees so my
thinking might be a little different.

~~~
scarface74
Fair enough.

I guess the larger issue is how much is the entire organization willing to
rethink their architecture - hopefully led by the cloud experts - to be cloud
native? If you are just hosting a bunch of VMs and not taking advantage of the
providers manager services, from my experience, it will always cost more than
just staying on prem.

------
anbop
Why try so hard to learn something for which you have no aptitude, when you
have other valuable skills? A 5 foot 100 pound guy shouldn’t be trying to
learn football at the pro level no matter how high the NFL salaries are. Focus
on what you’re good at. There will still be sysadmins by the time you are
dead. Get better at your skill set so that you’ll be one of the ones standing.

~~~
setr
Its still valuable for a sysadmins to have some ability to program/script, if
only to improve his own utility and sanity (automating out trivial/mindless
things); however, its not clear to me why sysadmins seem to often have trouble
breaking into programming — afaict, they’re extremely similar in practice.
Particularly when you accept that most of software engineering is just
composing libraries, while system administrators compose programs and os’s.
Both rely on incantations held together by poor documentation, arbitrary
configuration, and convoluted tooling. Programming is a bit more structured in
its language.. but otherwise they’re rather similar requirements (and half of
why you have SEs trying to eat SAs lunch); it’s not obvious to me that the
inverse task should be a significant hurdle.

Or rather, the experience of an SA _should_ translate decently into SE

~~~
vortex_panda
I'm not sure why it's as difficult as it is for me. I'm sure there are people
for whom it's not as much of a herculean task.

------
akarki15
It has helped me immensely to change my perspective. I don't see programming
problems/blockers that I encounter as _my_ "mental blocker". I see them as
problems that stand themselves. There is nothing wrong with _me_. I see the
problems as these little (and sometimes big) challenges. Like a level in a
game. Not clearing a level doesn't mean that the character you are playing is
weak. It just means that the character is not using the right tool, or
mechanics. The root cause is lack of information; there is nothing wrong with
the character itself. If you can detach yourself from the problem and view
yourself as a player in a game, you won't get frustrated. I have even come to
like it. When I finally figure out why that sneaky race condition was breaking
on prod after days and nights of debugging sessions, I feel like I have
defeated a big boss in a game. I actually fondly recall these kinds of
victories from my past years like a life event. Hope you can do the same :)

------
georgebarnett
I want to echo the sentiment of other posters. I’m a senior architect on a
team of several hundred people and I can without a doubt say that Sysadmin
skills are hugely valuable and SAs normally have a very distinct and useful
perspective on the end to end process of software delivery (of which coding is
only one part).

My advice would be to explore more areas of self improvement. It’s not only
code out there!

You could look at continuous integration, focus on deployments, learn
networking, go deep in cloud config management.

There’s also the people side, like project managing technical implementations,
managing vendors, or doing budgets and planning.

You might also consider database admin which is really interesting work.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t feel limited by coding not being you thing.
If you can learn enough to get by, you’ll find many roles where it’s not the
core skill.

------
NoInputSignal
First off, I think you should give yourself more credit as what you do has
importance and you are valued.

> "Be a developer, or get out of the tech industry."

I don't agree with this. There are plenty of jobs in operations that require
the skills you have (e.g. standing up servers and automating the heck out of
things)

Writing code and creating software was one of the few things that really
clicked for me, so I can't share advice on that. One thing I can say is that
all of the operations work is where I feel myself spinning and getting
nowhere, I push through when I have to, but I don't always have hours to spend
debugging an environment--i leave that to someone who can solve the same issue
in minutes.

~~~
vortex_panda
I do enjoy automating infrastructure. I guess I feel somewhat obligated to
dive into the development side due to the industry trends and the constant
"Anyone can code", "Coding bootcamps", and such.

------
sergiotapia
My man you are the other side of the coin as far as I'm concerned.

Instead of being on premises, you should dive into cloud orchestration and
management. You are still desperately needed as an IT person.

The analogy I like to use is: when building a house, you need a civil engineer
and an architect. You wouldn't hire someone who does both right? Two very
separate disciplines.

It's the same with programmers and IT. We both need each other. We write the
code, you make sure that baby has enough room to grow and be secure. I would
never attempt to set up AWS for anything serious because that's just asking to
be hacked. I would recommend we hire a proper systems IT person.

------
fuzz4lyfe
I was a sysadmin and moved to software development. A big part of the
difference is mindset. When I used to work with sysadmins often solutions to
problems are "google for a while and then call the vendor". You need to get
out of that mindset and become more self reliant. That machine you are using
was built by humans, that language was designed by humans and you are likely
attempting to solve a problem that isn't dramatically different than problems
solved by tens to hundreds of thousands of other humans. You can do it.

Without perseverance and mental toughness it's going to be an uphill climb to
become a programmer.

~~~
vortex_panda
"google for a while and then call the vendor"

This is unfortunately how most of our organization works. For certain types of
things, we're actually required to do this due to regulations, bureaucracy,
and what not.

------
aSockPuppeteer
I suggest finding a language that you can learn online.

It does not have to be what you really want to learn, just one you can get
stared with. Ruby has some decent lessons out there where they tell you what
to type, you type it, and see the results.

First, like an essay, create an outline. Write what you want the output to
look like, search stack overflow for examples, and it will get easier.

I learned Matlab, essentially deleted it from memory, and felt as you describe
a few years later. I had to relearn it and just pushing myself with the
pomodoro technique (20 min on, 5 min break) worked.

Good luck.

------
quickthrower2
What about learning devops. Take your bash skills and apply them to cloud
architecture, containers etc. that stuff will be in demand for a few years.
Cloud Architect might be something to aim for.

~~~
vortex_panda
I have been wanting to try out things like AWS and containers and such, but I
haven't had the chance yet. I think part of it is that I haven't had the
chance in a work setting to check those things out. We have thousands of
physical machines and on-prem VMs. Sometimes I feel like we're kind of "old-
world".

~~~
sl1ck731
Physical infrastructure isn't going away anytime soon. I work in migrating
people to public cloud and we are seeing a resurgence of people moving to
"private clouds". Mostly vMware and OpenStack. Most people have begun
realizing their CTOs cargo-culted AWS for their resumes and its costing more
than owning DC or colocating does.

~~~
vortex_panda
I was wondering about that. Every time I looked at AWS pricing, it seemed
insanely expensive for the people that just forklifted their on-prem services
into the cloud without re-architecting it to fit that type of environment.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Most cloud solutions costs 2-3 times more than the on-prem equivalents. The
selling point that's usually trotted out is "but it just works and you can
fire your IT staff".

...Most people who move to the cloud end up still needing IT staff to manage
it, and are now, by proxy, paying for the cloud provider's IT staff too.
(Hidden underneath all of those cloud providers are a silent army of IT
people.)

A recent conversation I had was whether to replace a server (five figures)
when a neighboring organization was on the cloud for the same technology
(three figures per year per device). The latter sounded a lot cheaper until
you multiplied the devices by that three figure amount, and multiplied it by
the five years the server's contract covered. The cloud solution became more
expensive that the physical service in a little over a year.

I have similar conversations about Office 365. It costs twice as much as
buying on-prem Microsoft Office, even if you buy Office every version. There's
really no reason not to skip every other release of Office, which makes it
practically four times the cost of on-prem.

~~~
scarface74
The thing is that yes you do need IT people and there is an army of IT people
hired by the cloud providers. But, you don’t have to pay the full cost to hire
them. Between Managed Service Providers that allow you to outsource your
support and the (excellent) business support plan of AWS you can get away with
a lot fewer employees in the IT department and their job just becomes managing
communications between the business and managing the relationship with the MSP
and the cloud provider.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
From the perspective of an IT employee, the market has not shrunk. Because
companies need IT staff, MSPs need IT staff, and cloud providers need IT
staff. And while they've shifted a lot, I would argue that it's largely been a
zero sum change.

I can definitely say last time I was in the job market, the majority of
available IT jobs in my area was with MSPs, but there were tons of jobs
available.

~~~
scarface74
I’m speaking from the side of a business who is deciding between on prem or
cloud.

If you move to a cloud provider, change your processes, and reduce your number
of IT people and use a combination of an MSP and a business support plan, you
can save some money. If you only move to the cloud and don’t do either of the
other two. You will spend a lot more money.

From the side of an IT person, it can go either way. Now that companies don’t
need on prem IT people. The MSPs can rural source (get people a lot cheaper in
lower cost of living areas) and outsource lower level IT folks. Either way
there will be a lot of jobs, but there will be more people who can do it and
wages will be lower for commodity IT folks.

On the other end, the true customer facing consultants can make a lot more.
But if all you can do is click around on the AWS Console, don’t expect to make
a lot.

I’m mostly a $long_time developer but I know my way around AWS and my next job
will probably be a around AWS consultancy but I really want to stick to
developing/architecting on top of AWS and not just doing “lift and shifts”.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I have significant doubts on cost savings with either moving to the cloud or
moving to an MSP. I've already commented a bit on the cost hike of moving to
the cloud. I think there's a lot of benefits to MSPs (disclosure: I work for
one) in terms of access to a larger resource base of IT professionals at the
drop of a hat, but if you want a good MSP and a high quality of service, you
are probably not saving money compared to hiring, since at the end of the day,
you are still paying for the amount of employee time to solve the issues that
crop up in your organization plus all of the management staff and profit
margin of hiring an outside business.

~~~
scarface74
But you can get cheaper “good enough” service by hiring overseas where the
cost of labor is cheaper. Most work done by IT people is not rocket science
that takes a whole lot of skills - it’s “undifferentiated heavy lifting” that
can be automated or outsourced overseas.. You do need a few experts. I’m
saying that you are seeing jobs being bifurcated- low pay commodity jobs and
high paying consultants.

MSPs can also standardized procedures across clients, automated processes at
scale, etc.

If you’re just doing a lift and shift and porting a bunch of VMs it will cost
more and unfortunately that’s all most outside AWS consultants know how to do.
They were usually IT folks who managed some on prem resources, watched a few
ACloudGuru videos, got one AWS cert and now market themselves as “Digital
Transformation Consultants”, who can click around on the AWS website.

------
wodenokoto
You transition to being a "Cloud Engineer", which is basically the same, but
in the cloud. You'll be running bash scripts through a terminal emulator _in
your browser_ , and define settings for _managed_ vm's using yaml. There's a
brand new cloud world out there and it looks pretty much the same.

I think the next hot thing after devops and datascientists are gonna be cloud
architects and engineers.

~~~
scarface74
God no. Don’t tell him this. There are already too many sysadmins that take
the on prem, non automated, lift and shift mentality to the cloud, and leave
in their wake an infrastructure that costs more than if they had just used
bare metal at s colo.

If you’re hosting a bunch of VMs “in the cloud” and doing the same stuff you
did on prem you’ve just gotten the worse of both worlds - you’re spending more
and not getting any of the benefits of letting your cloud vendor do any of the
“undifferentiated heavy lifting”.

My experience with “cloud architects” who don’t know anything about
development is that they are actually a liability.

~~~
vortex_panda
I'm aware of the "lift and shift" mentality that some people have. I know
several people who work at another company that decided to just uplift their
on-prem VM-based software stack into AWS. It went very poorly.

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pryelluw
Email (address in profile) me if you want to do some pair programming
sessions. I've helped others get unstuck this way.

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rambojazz
> As more and more services and tools are rolled into cloud provider's
> portfolios, I can't help but think that there's no point for me to exist

Are you thinking that _everybody_ is migrating to cloud? For a business there
is a lot of value in having their own local servers and infrastructure, even
if small. Especially if they own data.

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aerojoe23
I wish we had a competent dedicated sys admin at work. I say competent because
we've had tech support guys try to fill the sys admin role and the knowledge
gaps...

Anyway I'm supposed to be a software developer and I end up spending a good
chunk of time on sys admin stuff.

------
p0d
You seem quite articulate. Have you thought of blogging or writing? There may
be other avenues for your creativity other than coding.

I have been a sysadmin for 20 years and imagine I will be for another 20.

~~~
vortex_panda
Thanks. I have thought about something like that, but I wouldn’t know what to
write or blog.

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jressey
> Has anyone had a similar experience and managed to push through the mental
> blocks associated with learning to program while having your own mind
> constantly working against you?

Yes, each of us.

------
m3nu
Knowledge becomes redundant all the time. Look for interesting problems around
you and build up useful skills.

Maybe try Kubernetes and container tech as a bridge before building actual
apps?

------
davidmott_
An sysadmin can be critical in so many aspects of a project. I think its best
you appreciate this and avoid this vicious cycle at all costs.

------
omnifischer
Linus Torvalds once said in an interview with the "IBM Kid - from future is
open" that he appreciates all sysadmins. You are one of those. Cheer up!

------
NoCanDo
There's no exist, there is only power.

That said, sysadmins will never become obsolete in your lifetime.

------
laughingbovine
I think you may be going about learning programming wrong. I've seen this
several times (source: am DevOps/programmer) where my non-CS-degree
sysadmin/IT coworkers will sort of "force it" when trying to learn
programming. This includes things like reading technical docs way above their
head, copy/pasting a lot from SO and not fully understanding things, and
diving into complex code bases. It's a slog for the guys who do it this way,
and I think its because there are some in-between steps that they skip over.

I usually suggest tutorials, but I get the impression from them that the
tutorials they use are long, boring, and worst of all.. too easy. Then they
dive into real-world work and get overwhelmed. I feel like this is akin to
showing them how interlocking gears work for the first time and then asking
them to fix my car.

What helped me was being in that setting where I would get small not-real-
world problems to solve over and over. IOW homework, classwork, etc.. I think
is what helped. Eventually I did enough small things that when I saw real-
world code, I could pick it apart into pieces that I understood because I've
actually programmed those pieces before. Having written it before was a huge
help as well because I already had to be familiar with the concepts to get it
to work... reading it was then a matter of comparing what they have to what I
wrote in the past and incrementing my knowledge (rather than starting from
zero understanding).

TL;DR I think there is a gap between beginner/intermediate tutorials and real-
world coding. I think you may need to find yourself a path through this gap
that involves solving a lot of practice problems and working your way up.

HTH and Good Luck

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amriksohata
Sorry to hear about the latter, please give yoga, chanting aum, meditation and
vegetarnism a go, seriously google the gut brain axis, it might help.

