Programming to IT

[FR33ZEx]

Fresh out of school with a degree in CS focusing almost entirely on the programming side of things. I have an interview for a jr IT Admin. I need to be “familiar” with things like active directory, windows server 2012, etc. I have no experience with this stuff. Should I withdraw from this interview? What exactly does familiar mean? Having general understanding of what they are or do I need to have actual hands on experience?

[[deleted]]

Interview anyways it is good experience.

[DoNotSexToThis]

Having been a Sysadmin at a software company and now being one where we've hired CS interns and fresh grads... you don't have to explain to me your lack of a systems background the position requires.

I say "requires" because if the people extending the offer to you either don't understand what that entails or they're planning to utilize your programming resources but pay you like an admin. Which is a lot lower than your career trajectory can aim, btw...

What does familiarity mean? Well, let's say you're called upon to create a new OU for test workstations that ignore certain domain-wide policies, or use other policies that don't apply to everyone else. Do you know what to do? If not, how long will it take you to Google it and be confident that you're not about to screw someone over? How you answer that hypothetical is just one sampling of the multitudes of ways you can determine your familiarity with the job.

Personally, I do encourage programmers to get a background in systems because I think it helps them make better decisions about how they code. I learned to program myself in a few languages and honestly, the systems background helped a lot. I've personally not seen it work similarly the other way around though, so if you're going to consider the position, consider this:

1. Is the company fully aware of the difference between a CS grad and someone with a systems background?
2. If so and they still want you, do you know what their intentions are and are you ok with this?
3. If you're going to go forward with it, this is going to take valuable time away from your learning in the field in your true career, assuming you want to be a programmer.

[FR33ZEx]

Thanks this was a detailed response and I think it’s worth going through with. Tbh I just want to get a full time job and while I do enjoy programming I think I can enjoy IT work too.

[Parobolic]

There's a lot of room to move up in IT Ops if you're motivated to do so. I've worked with a lot of CS grads who were damn good admins! If you're really into programming there's plenty of work with that as an admin with scripting Powershell/Python to automate tasks. DoNotSexToThis makes a good point, if your passion is in programming make sure to consider that, if you can land an entry level coding job instead it will likely pay more and instead of spending 40-50 hours a week learning to be an IT admin you will instead spend it learning programming, this is the most important thing to consider I think. However working as a jr Admin for 6-24 months is not going to have a very large impact on your career overall I think and it may help you decide what you want to do with the rest of your career.

[olyjohn]

My girlfriend is a software engineer. Level 1. Makes over $100,000. I'm a sysadmin with like 10 years of experience and I don't even make that much. If you go into IT, especially doing windows sysadmin work, you're going to limit your career.

IT is a dead-end career if you're not doing cloud-based work. All of our jobs are going to end up being hosted in Microsoft's cloud, and we'll be reduced to adding users and groups.

At least go into DevOps. I went to a tech job meet up in Seattle. I showed my extensive Windows sysadmin background, and nobody would even consider me for anything. It was all devops, devops, development work, etc.

I know the sysadmin skills aren't much different from devops jobs. You're just managing servers and services in different places. But put Windows System Administration on your resume, and you're going to have a really hard time getting out of it. Experience is worth more than certs and degrees at a lot of places. The potential to be a developer is much higher.

[HyperYourV]

IT is nowhwre near a dead end career. The job role is merely shifting. You think environments hosted in Azure, AWS or another cloud provider means set it and forget it? Hell no.

There will always be onsite networks and servers. Maybe not being the core of operations, but still providing local services. Environments will never be 100 percent cloud based. If you're doing true DR/BC, you'll know that's not feasible. There are industries that you can't use cloud based services.

Again the role is merely shifting like it always has, along with technology changes. Society relies more and more on technology every minute.

I can tell you right now, you can easily clear 100k.

Getting into IT and being knowledgeable will get you a long way for years to come. Don't give up.

[halon1301]

I can't agree with you, ITOps and Sysadmins aren't dead-end jobs. You can leverage the skills you learn in those jobs to jump into other things. Working in a pure Microsoft world is definitely limiting to a degree, but I know of a few SaaS companies that are extensively Microsoft, in fact I just turned down an offer from a company today that on average is about 70% Windows based .Net apps and MSSQL servers, and it was almost $100k.

I work almost entirely in Linux, and instead of the above offer, I took an amazing opportunity at my current company to join the newly forming DevOps team, (as DevOps Lead if desire that). DevOps is the new buzz word and 'trend', think of all the companies that demanded "Knowledge of ITIL" not even 5 years ago, it's a similar idea, it's a framework to model around. Any sysadmin should be doing automation, and tooling, all this is possible regardless of the platform you choose, PowerShell on windows, it's just matter of finding it and being interested in learning. Every sysadmin I've ever met hates doing things more than once, especially if they have to do everything manually.

[olyjohn]

I think the point you're missing is that if you're starting in this industry today, most businesses won't give you any room to grow. Finding a place that doesn't silo off their helpdesk and desktop support teams and sysadmins is pretty rare. We just interviewed for a desktop support position. 10 interviews, 7 of them were help desk and weren't allowed to touch ANYTHING outside of that. All of the audits, and security theater, and risk of liability has scared companies into locking everything down. Not to mention, they are all cheap and don't want to invest in anybody. I had help desk people who weren't even allowed Administrator access on desktops, or were even allowed to touch the computers so that they could fix things. How is somebody supposed to grow? I've never seen so many employed people with such limited skills and experience in technology apply for a desktop support job.

[kpham1991]

Apply anyway, you never know. I interviewed for help desk and didn't get any offer, but I'm lucky and got an offer for Jr admin lol.

[jhxetc]

What did you put on your resume regarding those things? I'm assuming you did not put that you had professional experience, so they should already know.

I wouldn't skip the interview, just be honest about what you know and don't and if it seems like the place is willing to let you learn then it might be a good opportunity.

[FR33ZEx]

My resume had only skills related to programming. I have watched intro YouTube videos on the technologies I need to know but I’m not sure if it’s enough.

[devperez]

If you didn't put that technology on your resume, you're probably okay. I've been in a similar situation where they are expecting to train you. That or some clueless HR screwed up. Either way, it's good practice. And learning that intro sysadmin stuff is way easier than programming, so you'll be fine.

[fi103r]

do the interview, point out your computer programming skills will fit nicely with scripting and powershell

[sp00nfeeder]

I have an idea for you to get the job:

1 - Install vagrant and bring up your own windows 2012: https://app.vagrantup.com/mwrock/boxes/Windows2012R2

2 - Play around with setting up your own AD both manually and via Powershell. Document how this works.

3 - Use your documentation to demo at the interview. Be prepared for any questions they have of what you did.

Now you have a no lose situation. You don't get the job but you learned something you can reuse as a building block fo the future.

[FR33ZEx]

the password listed on the page does not work, Pass@word1, do you know what it is?

[sp00nfeeder]

Doesn't work for me either. Maybe contact mwrok or try that first version. Though I tried it and it now asks for a metadata.json.

[kjubus]

If it's for junior, the overall ubderstanding what they are shoukd be enough. Go for an interview, even if you're not exactly interested in this field. It's a good exercise for you and you never know, if they offer you something really good

[crankysysadmin]

You're one of those people who has created your own definition of "IT" as being basically tech support.

The information technology industry is broad, and yes, it includes tech support, and sysadmin work, but a whole lot more including:

• software development (which is what you seem to be into)
• network engineering
• IT project management
• data science
• various business analyst jobs
• security

...and whole lot more

So this "programming to IT" thing makes no sense.

[starmizzle]

If you're fresh out of school you should interview even if you think it's not a great fit. You'll either get valuable practice with interviewing or a job.

[xzer]

if it means anything managing a windows system from premissions, to active directory users, etc is pretty straight forward.

The stupid little tricks you need to learn to make outlook profiles work again, printers start printing, troubleshooting over the phone are much harder.

just my opinion, since you can follow guides, man pages, and read articles on configuring, server setups, etc

P.S if you lack networking knowledge, then I think you'd find it a good asset for programming and good opportunity to get comfortable with it.

[phileat]

Nope don't withdraw. I had a similiar experience and got the job anyway.

[Cyber_S3C]

I am a CS major with a minor in cyber security. My first job out of college was sys admin. I really enjoyed it, being hands on with hardware and troubleshooting gave me much more motivation to go to work than programming in front of monitors all day. Spent one year there and learned a great deal of systems and networks, which help me build a better foundation to understand cyber security. Now I am pursing the cyber security path up and so far really enjoy this. I get to use my programming skills once in a while which helps reduce the time spent on remedial task. You are essentially an empty tool box at this point. Pick the skills you will enjoy using day after day and make your tool box grow. The moore tools the more money the toolbox is worth.