[svlug] Help me in Defining what a "Sr Linux Admin" is.

[Chris Miller]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Alvin Oga
<alvin at mail.linux-consulting.com> wrote:
>
> hi ya james
>
>> james at linuxrebel.org wrote:
>>
>>    One of the things I want to do (That is polite) before I depart my
>> current position is to leave behind a proper definition of what a Sr.
>> Linux Admin is.  (and thereby explain why I'm no longer wanting to
>> remain with them under the guise of my new "duties" or rather lack of
>> duties.)
>
> ...
>
>>    The PHB's seem to think it has more to do with Time in slot, than
>> knowledge and I'd like to properly define things otherwise.
>
> - yeah, them phb's think its somebody on call when something happens
>  that can come fix it .. no matter what time of the day it is
>        ( it's the wrong view of "Sr" anything )
>
> - beginners and intermediate admins will be asking "howto" questions
>
> my view of the world, sr people should be able to:
>
> - work and get the task done w/o the use of google/yahoo
>        - "what do you know" and what has been your past experience
>
> - can automate their task ( esp silly things like monitoring )
>        "automate" as in write your own tools since most all
>        existing monitoring tools are lacking something or other
>
> - definitely needs to be able to do reliable backups which does
>  not contain the "virus" that killed the corp network
>        - most folks end up overwriting the "good backup"
>
> - sr admin should be using multiple partitions for
>  /tmp, /var, /usr, /opt, /home, /Backup, ...
>
> - sr admins can build a box and not touch it for the next 3yrs
>  and it'd be working fine
>
>  other side of the coin, they can build a box, have it update
>  itself daily, and still be working fine for the next 3 yrs
>
>        - aka, they can buy reliable parts from reliable vendors
>
>        - there is NO such thing as disk failure or power supply failure
>        ( buy something better from better sources )
>
> - sr admins would have been involved or witness near corp meltdowns
>  and have learned what NOT to do ... or allow to happen or exist
>  to prevent their job would be at risk since management needs
>  to point their fingers at somebody
>
> - sr admins can and should manually maintain say 10-30 machines at the
>  nitty gritty level
>
>        - sr admins can also maintain 100 or 500 or 1000 machines
>        in an automated fashion ( 100% hands off except for the initial
>        put the box on the rack and turn it on )
>
> - sr admins can provision new boxes with hands on ( build yourself )
>  or hands off ( automated with scripts )
>        - sr admins will NOT have "this hardware is NOT supported problem"
>
> - sr admins will make do with the computer resources they have on hand
>  and put in a request for the new widgets and if said widgets does
>  not arrive by a particular period, xyz things are at risk
>
> - sr admins can argue the merits and problems of any distro ( OS including MS )
>  compared to another
>
> - sr admins ( the community minded ones ) might be publishing stuff
>  and or have websites and/or volunteer their time/skills at other places
>
> - sr admins have built hobby projects w/ 555 timers, 741 op amps, 2n2222, etc
>  and wrote ( video, kb, disk ) interrupt routines to run with 8080, 6800, z80, ...
>        - aka, solid understanding of computers and how it works
>
> - sr admins know that 80% of comptuer failures will be due to people
>  doing or not doing what they should have been doing to prevent the failure
>
>        - email that cant be sent or received might be a people problem
>        since not everybody is computer literate
>
>        - not being able to print stuff might be a people problem
>        since not everybody can change the printer toner properly
>
> ... endless list of what sr folks should be able to do ??

That's interesting.  I would have defined it as an individual
competent enough in his art to effectively manage junior
administrators.

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