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I'm located on the opposite side of the world with respect to Silicon Valley, and admin jobs are disappearing quickly here. This may surprise you but we have he

I'm located on the opposite side of the world with respect to Silicon Valley, and admin jobs are disappearing quickly here. This may surprise you but we have heard about this "cloud" thingy. ;-)

pesfandiar 4y ago
There are industries much slower to adapt new technologies right here in North America. The HN bubble is not just geographical.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  But the question is, would you like to get a job at those companies relying on outdated processes where you take care of a pet server? Maybe even running on an old flavour of proprietary UNIX?
  - butlerm 4y ago
    Almost no one has a job taking care of a pet server. They would be bored to tears when any decent sysadmin can take care of dozens to hundreds.
Annatar 4y ago
It's like every fashion fad in IT: stuff hits, everybody goes gaga over the toy examples until it's time to put it in production. Then they finally find out what kind of a dumpster trash fire the newfangled fashion fad is, and start looking at tried and true technologies. It's always the same.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Not really. The cloud won. So did microservices and NoSQL databases and containerization. The industry is not going back.
  - nickcox 4y ago
    The web has been pretty successful too.
  - hans1729 4y ago
    And machine learning. And JavaScript/Python. Things that win always do one of these: - reduce complexity - decrease friction - improve results either qualitatively or quantitatively SQL is not dead or dying by any means. Its just not the only kid on the block anymore.
  - ojhughes 4y ago
    NoSQL didn’t win thankfully, relational databases are still the dominant technology.
    - datavirtue 4y ago
      Yeah, and everyone is trying to normalize their mongo schema. The only thing the cloud got us is faster provisioning, and perhaps greater reliability due to that. It didn't magically solve scalability and integrity.
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        Pretty sure we have a legacy product using MongoSB, but for certain processes we ETL stuff into SQL Server first.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    Both at the former working place and the actual working place we use SQL as the major part of our data storage strategy for microservice based apps. We also use NoSQL but will never give up on SQL.
  - dagw 4y ago
    I agree with the cloud and to some extent containerisation, however I don't think NoSQL and microservices "won". Over past couple of years I'm seeing a huge move away from NoSQL and renewed interest in SQL databases in general and Postgres in particular. The same with microservices. I've seen several projects that went all in on microservices a few years go slowly backing away from the approach, as well as newer projects that are being much more cautious with taking a micro service approach to their architecture.
ThrashBeard 4y ago
Ah yes, the magic cloud where you don't need to lift a finger and everything is safe and works and everybody is having a good time! The only ways I have seen admin jobs disappearing is that they're renamed to "DevOps Engineer" or a company starts in a magic cloud with no admins and devs doing everything which more often than not turns into a dumpster fire and then they start searching for admins. You may need less people to manage the cloud but someone certainly has to manage it. Unless someone has a specific responsibility to manage infra or someone personally cares about those things then things go unchecked, ports open to the internet that shouldn't be, no backups, etc., devs are usually concerned with making their app work and not those things. And this isn't a knock on developers, there's only so much info you can retain and focus on so many things on a day to day basis that there's a need for people to specialize in certain areas.
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  This. DBAs are being replaced with a mix of Devops and Data Engineers.
trhoad 4y ago
SysAdmins are now called DevOps Engineers (or SREs), and that market is booming. It's all swings and roundabouts.
pjmlp 4y ago
No they aren't, they are now labeled by HR as "devops".

I'm located on the opposite side of the world with respect to Silicon Valley, and admin jobs are disappearing quickly here. This may surprise you but we have heard about this "cloud" thingy. ;-)

pesfandiar 4y ago

There are industries much slower to adapt new technologies right here in North America. The HN bubble is not just geographical.

raverbashing 4y ago
But the question is, would you like to get a job at those companies relying on outdated processes where you take care of a pet server? Maybe even running on an old flavour of proprietary UNIX?
- butlerm 4y ago
  Almost no one has a job taking care of a pet server. They would be bored to tears when any decent sysadmin can take care of dozens to hundreds.

Annatar 4y ago

It's like every fashion fad in IT: stuff hits, everybody goes gaga over the toy examples until it's time to put it in production. Then they finally find out what kind of a dumpster trash fire the newfangled fashion fad is, and start looking at tried and true technologies. It's always the same.

twblalock 4y ago
Not really. The cloud won. So did microservices and NoSQL databases and containerization. The industry is not going back.
- nickcox 4y ago
  The web has been pretty successful too.
- hans1729 4y ago
  And machine learning. And JavaScript/Python. Things that win always do one of these: - reduce complexity - decrease friction - improve results either qualitatively or quantitatively SQL is not dead or dying by any means. Its just not the only kid on the block anymore.
- ojhughes 4y ago
  NoSQL didn’t win thankfully, relational databases are still the dominant technology.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    Yeah, and everyone is trying to normalize their mongo schema. The only thing the cloud got us is faster provisioning, and perhaps greater reliability due to that. It didn't magically solve scalability and integrity.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      Pretty sure we have a legacy product using MongoSB, but for certain processes we ETL stuff into SQL Server first.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  Both at the former working place and the actual working place we use SQL as the major part of our data storage strategy for microservice based apps. We also use NoSQL but will never give up on SQL.
- dagw 4y ago
  I agree with the cloud and to some extent containerisation, however I don't think NoSQL and microservices "won". Over past couple of years I'm seeing a huge move away from NoSQL and renewed interest in SQL databases in general and Postgres in particular. The same with microservices. I've seen several projects that went all in on microservices a few years go slowly backing away from the approach, as well as newer projects that are being much more cautious with taking a micro service approach to their architecture.

ThrashBeard 4y ago

Ah yes, the magic cloud where you don't need to lift a finger and everything is safe and works and everybody is having a good time! The only ways I have seen admin jobs disappearing is that they're renamed to "DevOps Engineer" or a company starts in a magic cloud with no admins and devs doing everything which more often than not turns into a dumpster fire and then they start searching for admins. You may need less people to manage the cloud but someone certainly has to manage it. Unless someone has a specific responsibility to manage infra or someone personally cares about those things then things go unchecked, ports open to the internet that shouldn't be, no backups, etc., devs are usually concerned with making their app work and not those things. And this isn't a knock on developers, there's only so much info you can retain and focus on so many things on a day to day basis that there's a need for people to specialize in certain areas.

CuriouslyC 4y ago
This. DBAs are being replaced with a mix of Devops and Data Engineers.

trhoad 4y ago

SysAdmins are now called DevOps Engineers (or SREs), and that market is booming. It's all swings and roundabouts.

pjmlp 4y ago

No they aren't, they are now labeled by HR as "devops".