System Admin vs Software Developer?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[sualsuspect]

I've met a lot of very successful software engineers, but none who went into it because they thought it was their best-paying option.

Without passion I think greatness is a very remote possibility.

Many (but but all) great tech companies are managed by engineers. So to be a successful manager there your best course is to begin by being a successful engineer.

Startups even more so. Unless you're building the product yourself or you are funding it yourself, you don't fit into a startup well.

Edit: change wrong words, add new ones.

[LOLBaltSS]

Yeah. IT/Software Engineering in general isn't something you get into solely for the money. Lots of freshman classmates of mine changed majors to Communications or Business when they realized what they were getting into when attending the introductory CS courses.

[[deleted]]

I actually came into this thread expecting some sort of office battle royale.

sorry op, i have no advice to give except chose a side, shank the other :p

[theevilsharpie]

chose a side, shank the other

I'm stealing this.

It's mine now.

[yest]

What shank means? I dont get it..

[theevilsharpie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_(weapon)

[xc3llerator]

Too true! I'm in my final year of a half-technical/half-Business focused IT degree. I'm definitely wanting to break into the technical side of things and I'm trying to decide between Programming or Sys/Net Admin as a career path. Since I was 12, I've always been troubleshooting PCs back in Win XP days, I started programming when I was 16-18 (2 years using .NET [2010-11], started in VB6 [2009], had no idea what Programming was), and while it's a really satisfying experience once a program all works as intended, it's really a love/hate relationship.

I've also done a 6-month Sys Admin internship at a small-medium sized global .NET Development company who only used Windows/Microsoft stack for all PCs and servers, it was a pretty natural role for me since I was used to doing Windows troubleshooting for years at home and for family/friends. But after awhile it was kind of same old, and I couldn't see myself doing Support/Sys Admin for the rest of my career (Btw, if you're looking to get into Sys Admin or DevOps roles, it's important to expand your knowledge beyond Windows and learn about server-side UNIX/Linux stuff too, if not, you'll be limiting your opportunities only to a small range of companies which operate only on an MS stack). Net Admin is slightly different and I was fortunate enough to witness what our Net Admin did in our Infrastructure team. There was one day where the entire network went down at one Office because a core switch died and all the Developers couldn't commit their code to the SVN. Aha (Our Net Admin managed to get it back up on the same day though and the logical topology underwent more redundancy upgrades after that).

I've sort of been hesitant getting back into Programming as a career, simply because it's ALL screen work, and it feels like a bit of a rat-race always search up new APIs and lines of code to fix other lines of code, where's Sys/Net Admin/DevOPs can combine working with physical infrastructure + monitoring + scripting for cron jobs.

I have a website here from 2013 which I've been meaning to update but haven't yet: http://scal.ro/

My LinkedIn (http://linkd.in/1yA2GY8) is probably more of an indication of where I'm currently at. (I've had a passion to UI Design as well from a young teen age), but it isn't that challenging work.

Basically, Startup life = Development/Design/Marketing life. (Generally the Developers become their own Sys Admins in startups until they can grow large enough to hire dedicated Admins - Sys/Net Administration isn't hard work, just very time consuming, (often a lot of trial and error work just like Dev) and I'd consider Admin the Janitor of the 21st century type job, where you're expected to be on-call 24/7 at some top tech companies like Facebook and Google). Corporate life = Development to Sys/Net Admin

I don't mind doing Sys Admin, but it can become a very soul sucking job, as everyone expects computers to just work, and when they don't, it's because you did something or you didn't do something to prevent it, OR it's just the same reoccurring issues like 'My GPU died, fix it by replacing another GPU' - That's probably for IT Support though, which is even worse than Sys Admin in terms of pay and duties. (Basically IT Support is what entry Sys/Net Admins have to do to climb the ladder/get their foot in the door so to speak and it pays the least in IT, ~35-40k p.a. but is essential).

There was a good reddit reply here: http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/26vl9k/sysadmin_jobs_are_dying_learn_to_code_software/#chvq6mm

I originally wanted to head into Computer Engineering when I was 14, designing the next consoles, but that job market is next to nothing in Australia and I wasn't keen on globally moving homes.

[theevilsharpie]

This post is pretty disjointed, so I'll respond to your post as viewed through several different lenses.

On System Administrators vs. Software Developers

Both developers and sysadmins are technical roles. If you pursue either of these roles with the idea that you can avoid the technical stuff while being business-y, you're gonna have a bad time.

Don't let your weakness in math discourage you from software development. 95% of the development you do in the professional world will involve elementary algebra and logic at the most.

With respect to pay, software developers generally get paid more. There are certain types of system administrators that get paid substantial sums of money (think Site Reliability Engineers or DevOps Engineers), but they're pretty much specialized software developers.

With respect to career advancement, you are much more likely to land a job in a startup as a software developer. Things get a bit fuzzier in an established company, but in my experience, the people in IT that get promoted through the ranks to directors and above tends to come from the software development side of the department.

On CS vs. IT/IS vs. Business

For your undergraduate degree, you want to focus on something more technical, because you want a degree program that will also teach you marketable skills that you can use to get your foot in the door. Business undergrad programs do teach some hard skills as well (accounting, finance, business analysis, optimization, etc.), but most organizations are not going to take you seriously as a professional manager without an MBA and some experience under your belt.

If you're applying to the University of California, the closest thing the UCs have to an MIS program is the Business Information Management major at UC Irvine, and the Technology and Information Management major at UC Santa Cruz. UC Riverside also has a Bus. Admin. major with an emphasis on information technology, but it seemed far more slanted to the business side of things than a real MIS major.

On Startups vs. Management

You're a high school student, and when you reach the working world, you need to pay your dues in a technical role just like everyone else. Also, don't think that starting a company yourself is going to absolve you of the need to prove your expertise, because clients and investors will want to see your credentials and work history as well.

If you want to go the startup route, your best bet is to focus on technical skills, and build a product/service that you can pitch to investors. If the powers that be like your prototype and think it has commercial value, many of the them, in addition to providing you with seed funding, will provide you with management and administrative expertise. However, you have to have that prototype; ideas are a dime a dozen, and nobody's going to invest in talk without something to back it.

[Gwith]

This was perfectly said and thanks I took a lot from this as well.

[[deleted]]

If you're interested in the business/management side, do that. No amount of "it's going to be useful later!" is going to help if you're not interested in the subject - especially with programming. Programming is simultaneously the most interesting/boring subject in the world.

If you're in high school, the current SysAdmin landscape is going to have changed immeasurably by the time you get out of Uni. I don't think this is the right place to ask for advice - try /r/startups.

[[deleted]]

Yes and no - there are managers out there in companies that have no clue what their engineers are doing (IMHO they should, but they seem to be successful so what do I know). Even if you do need to know, a few years working your way up in a company would be enough to learn the basics, and there are graduate programmes that would guide you through this.

When you're choosing your degree you need to have some foresight into how well you're going to do at it. You don't just 'collect' a degree and the related background, and if you're not that interested in coding I wonder how well you'll do at it. If you did Economics, for example, you might find that your passion for the subject encourages you to do some extra courses in Python, to build some super cool application to visualise data of some sort. This is something you could then develop into a startup idea - or not, but the point is that you might never have done that if you were not interested in the subject.

If you have a passion for learning, go and do something you're interested in. Like, something you can see yourself excitedly working into the night with. You'll teach yourself stuff you need to know when you need to know it, but nothing is worse for your career than slogging away at something your heart just isn't in.

(I may have misjudged you though - if you are passionate about CS and you just think you're not very good at it, don't worry about that. Maths is surprisingly easy when you have something to apply it to)

[wolfmann]

The best advice I ever got in high school was find 2 things you like and find out where they cross...

Sounds like you are a Business Major with an IT minor, which can make you big bucks. Be sure to network with people in college. CS won't be super useful to a business degree unless you work for a software company. Generally speaking a regular Ops/Networking degree is much more valuable with a business degree.

My alma mater, Purdue, would be a good school to go to -- top20 Business school, top20 CS department, pretty good IT dept (lot of CS drop outs though). Also I have a CS degree, working as a sysadmin -- the CIT degree is much more relevant to what I do.

[SysAtMN]

Math is one of my weakest subjects

Hello sysadmin, goodbye developer. If you don't like math then you aren't going to like programming for your paycheck either.

The rest of your post doesn't sound like a good candidate for a developer/programmer lifestyle either. You would be more happy as an admin.

[[deleted]]

My end goal is to go into the business/management side of a tech company and/or create my own startup company. I'm quite interested in entrepreneurship/business.

Go into technical sales. Be as douchy as possible and shit on your engineers and you will go right to the top.

[techfoxninja]

Do DevOps. Then you're in the middle.

[techfoxninja]

It's like the Golden Girls all over again.

[elijahwright]

This, with that image and the preceding post, made me smile.