It really depends, in smaller companies you often have to wear multiple hats - I've had a combined systems administrator/programmer roles, worked in embedded sy

It really depends, in smaller companies you often have to wear multiple hats - I've had a combined systems administrator/programmer roles, worked in embedded systems programming, done devops roles, now I'm a technical manager. The majority of "devops" people I have worked with can't program their way out of a paper bag. Meanwhile back in the 1990's we had system administrators that knew how to program in shell, C/C++, Perl, use a CI/CD system, and debug shared library symbol issues with ease that would leave your average devops (or even web or Java developer) blushing. What you are referring to as "system administrator" today, is not what it was in the past. And what you are referring to as "devops" today ... is not all that.