3 ms·
> When I receive calls from recruiters asking if I know anybody who could do the same type of work, I contact my old sysadmin friends who often haven't worked f
by mmt 9y ago
> When I receive calls from recruiters asking if I know anybody who could do the same type of work, I contact my old sysadmin friends who often haven't worked for a few months, some of them who are often younger than me, they say they are not interested in that DevOps and those cloud things, they want to stay sysadmin, and some of them like to blame ageism for their lack of finding work.
It seems to me you're implying that, because they're unwilling to change careers from being a sysadmin to being "DevOps" (for any non-sysadmin meaning of that term), including programming against the APIs of those cloud things, their lack of work can't be due to ageism.
It seems to me you're also implying that, because they're younger than you, their lack of work can't be due to ageism.
Although there's some merit to the first implication, given your general thesis of the necessity of adaptation, the second holds no water. You may yourself be suffering from ageism and not even realize it, and ageism may not even apply in a linear, progressive fashion (nor on actual age versus perceived age).
Personally, I've also found traditional sysadmin jobs are an endangered species, but I'm unconvinced they'll go extinct. After all, those cloud things cost so many multiples more than running your own (even factoring in the cost of sysadmins, which may even be cheaper than the "DevOps" for the cloud services) that managers are bound to wake up and smell the savings.
- dorfsmay 9y ago> you're implying that .../... their lack of work can't be due to ageism. I think ageism is a two-way street. Some people won't hire anybody over 30/40/x years old. Some people don't want to learn news ways, new technology hoping to keep doing the same thing they always did, until retirement. What is traditional sysadmin? Once upon a time we used to re-compile kernel after changing parameters... and monitor handful of machines. There's value to own your hardware for companies that are large enough, but methodologies have changed.
- mmt 9y agoI disagree that "ageism is a two-way street". Ageism is prejudice and/or discrimination based on perceived or actual age. How can that street go the other way? A lack of desire to learn has nothing to do with age. Traditional system administration is approximately as varied as "DevOps", so I won't attempt to answer that question. However, I can easily answer what it isn't, and that's programming, which is what the vast majority of "DevOps" is today. I'm not sure what your point is regarding recompiling kernels. Kernels are just a piece of software, and software (including kernels) still needs to be custom-compiled on occasion for a variety of reasons, though, of course, changing hard-coded parameters for static allocation of resources isn't one of them. My point is that there's tremendous value to operate (not necessarily own) ones own hardware for almost all companies. To whit, "large enough" is actually very small, considering the prices AWS and their competitors charge. As for methodologies changing, that is, of course, true, and not all have changed for the better, but, again, what's your point?