I entered the tech world as a junior system admin and can attest to the fact that they could be unappreciated. Back then, I was working within the network operations department, and the company managed all of its own servers. Later on, colocation became a more of a thing and there was a round of layoffs where our department got totally slashed.
Overall being a sysadmin was a lot of fun, although there were definitely some awkward moments. Like fixing an executive's malware infested laptop and finding a huge stash of porn. Or crawling under a woman's desk to test an ethernet port while she was shouting at me and frantically working on a presentation only to find out I was being used as an excuse for why she couldn't upload her late report.
But it seems like sysadmins have become even more invisible, largely outsourced and consolidated into cloud providers.
Yeah, I started in Sysadmin and really loved it. More than programming for sure. Unfortunately everyone moved to cloud, turning most sysadmins in to glorified AWS button pushers. Moved into programming, but still would switch back in a heartbeat.
Overall being a sysadmin was a lot of fun, although there were definitely some awkward moments. Like fixing an executive's malware infested laptop and finding a huge stash of porn. Or crawling under a woman's desk to test an ethernet port while she was shouting at me and frantically working on a presentation only to find out I was being used as an excuse for why she couldn't upload her late report.
But it seems like sysadmins have become even more invisible, largely outsourced and consolidated into cloud providers.