[Gllug] Unix sysadmin vacancies

[Kieran Barry]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2001 pjotr at pckassa.com wrote:

> Hi Gllug'ers,
> 
> I have a question. Are there any British Unix System Administrators?
> Over the last weeks I have posted a really cool job description for a
> Unix system administrator building on Linux/Solaris systems with
> CFengine and lots of other open source tools in a nice and creative
> environment for a solid company, both to mailing lists as well as
> monster.co.uk.
> 
> The only callers are agencies and foreigners (not that I have anything
> against them, we employ a lot of expats and I am one too). Only one
> Brit applied so far!! That can't be right.
> 
> What is wrong? Is it the location (High Wycombe)? No, can't be, it is
> brilliant living here, cheaper and close enough to London (I was at
> Telehouse today). Don't sysadmins like Linux, or don't they like Open
> Source? Or are there no British system administrators, and the ones
> that are there work for the banks? Salary? That is open, we need
> quality first.
> 
> I really don't understand it.
> 
This is speculation: nothing more, but I can hazard a few guesses as to
factors.

1. There aren't that many competent UNIX/Linux admins out there.
Sysadminining is thankless work. There's a lot of break/fix where some
moron is breathing down your neck, asking why he can't print from
Powerpoint (for example).

2. Even though there aren't too many admins, employers are very choosy.
In mid 2000 (height of boom), I got to second or third interviews 4
times before I got hired. It is now clear to me that I was asking too
much.

3. From the above, it's a lot easier to let an agency find the vacancies
for you. I used to hate the cycle of sending out CVs and getting PFOs
back time after time when I was younger.

4. Agencies never argue about your salary requirements. They want you to
get hired for as much as possible, even if you are asking for far too
much. This is good/bad for the ego.

5. From 2 also, if you mention something as "useful", I interpret is as
"essential". This comes from dealing with too many HR departments whose
job it is to "filter" candidates before technical interviews. This is
the one you have control over.

6. The perl side of things is a problem for you, because (real) Perl
skills are extremely valuable (and highly rewarded...). 

7. Anything related to EJBs is ridiculous. EJBs are a way for the
programmer not to have to know about concurrency, transactions or
locking. They seem to be the hottest buzzword in town. But there is (I
assert :)) no pool of experience in EJBs, because the tech is so new.

Now, looking back at your job ad, (posted by Dan Kolb at the beginning
of September), you mention EJBs, encryption, stateful firewalling,
intrusion detection, filesystem integrity (I assume Tripwire/AIDE),
Perl, Python, Ruby, CVS, Oracle, Windows, Solaris, Linux, DNS,
Sendmail, Postfix (and I know I left some out).

The spec was well written, thoughtful, and probably designed to whet
someone's appetite. I thought at the time that it was a very interesting
post.

But I think you were a victim of the environment in London, as described
above. Someone presenting an intelligent job spec in London has the same
problems as someone presenting an intelligent discussion about the
Talliban to an american at the moment. 

It's actually very sad. There is a real problem with career structure in 
system administration. Have you ever seen a post advertising for someone
with an interest in the field? The only classes I know of are
vendor-based. There is little appreciation in management of what is
needed. And then they complain about how hard it is to hire, and switch
everything to Windows.

Regards

Kieran


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