I’m trying to decide whether it would be worth spending an additional 2 years upgrading my associates to a bachelor’s in CS or not.
I don’t see much of a demand for the RHCSA in my area (Toronto, Canada) but I see that basically every job posting has a degree requirement.
I’d be 25 by the time I finish school with the degree but I honestly just want to start applying for jobs I don’t want to waste time.
I have the A+, CCNA and LFCS. I get my associates next week.
I’m aware that I’ll probably get a bunch of responses of people saying “I don’t have a degree or certifications!” but I’m genuinely confused as to how you’re in IT without either of those things unless you knew someone or got in very early so some elaboration would be nice.
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No certificate now but if I was starting out I would get Red Hat certifications. Also Azure certs.
IMHO, a CS degree doesn’t help you at all for sysadmin work but having a bachelors degree does. It is stupid but many employers have a bachelor’s degree as a minimum requirement…regardless of what it was in.
everyones just like, “10 years of experience”…nobody is hiring people without experience so people without experience cant get experience…i dont get it…
Yes, it’s actually pissing me off reading these comments a little because it’s not very helpful to tell me to get experience when I don’t have any prior experience. That’s why I have these certs and a degree man
The job market is circular and full of automation
No relevant degrees, just lots of demonstrable experience and projects.
No certifications, no degrees, just good, old fashioned 15 years of experience.
German here, no certs aswell
I got in to IT by just writing on my CV what I know I can do and what I learned in my free time.
Some company interviewed me, I could convince them that I really know a lot of stuff and that got me in.
Ever since then all I had where the companies I worked at and that was sufficient
I have an unfinished Software Engineering degree. While studying, I started a small businesses to do some freelance IT work on the side and one client offered me a full-time job, so I put the studies on hold and then never looked back. Been climbing through different positions and companies since then. Experience is valued much higher than a diploma, especially in an industry that evolves too quickly for education to keep up. I quit the industry recently to start teaching, because there is huge need for teachers that can teach programming, and working with people is much more rewarding than a big paycheck (imo).
In all of my job interviews, I’ve been asked more about the company I started while studying, than the degree that I quit. So I guess my tip is to start your own thing or start teaching. Having your own business with a license also makes it way easier for big companies to hire you for contract work.
Just a lot of experience.
None, anymore.
Eventually you end up with a resume/knowledge that sells itself.
I’m not talking about government jobs that require certain certs, though.
No higher education, no certifications, just 10 years of experience on different IT job positions, raging from junior web dev to big DevOps projects.
In my experience (I’m in EU/PL) what matters most are actual technical skills and ability to demonstrate them on interview. I changed my job like 5 times and each time I aim for slightly more advanced work and slightly better revenue.
none, I was just blessed with the role against my will because no one else was around
I’m a self taught child of the 80s that loved to mess around with basic and serial modems when I could finally get 1.
Honestly, I got my first job by low balling the salary and knowing my shit enough to answer questions.
After 1 year I went to a new position paying double. And so on and so forth.
I got dropped out from university. I got a Microsoft Azure Fundamental cert since then, now I’m a mixed Windows/Linux sysadmin at an SMB. YMMV, I’m in Europe btw.
What’s the pay like for system admins in Europe on an average? Asking for mid-level (5-7 years of experience)
Depends a bit where you live, but my guess is on average € 45-50k, with whatever local benefits there are. Which translates to between 3 and 4k a month, depending on whether a 14th month is included. But this can be a lot higher or lower depending on the location.
Hmm, not bad. I care more about WLB than money so this is fine.
My rhcsa expired and I only have experience beyond that. Your task right now is to find a job and the easiest way to do that is to leverage your network. If you don’t have a network, you need to prove that you can commit to a long term plan and learn a skill. Most people do that with degrees. Unfortunately a lot of people have degrees and technology is getting more competitive. That’s where you see school competitions and certifications. If you don’t want to do that, you’ll need to be able to speak competently to the role.
Unfortunately right now I do not recommend platform/devops/sre for anyone breaking into the field. If I create an application today, it’s server less or bring your own dockerfile on a provided machine image. So what are you administrating? Legacy shops will be around for decades, but the future here is layered architecture not os tasks.
My certs have all expired, but when I started I didnt have any at all.
The thing that worked for me was to apply to small businesses(Look into local MSPs). Places that have ~20 employees have much less rigor about certs and will more likely test that you’re amicable enough to mesh with the rest of the team. From there you can build experience and often get thr company to pay for your certs.
I’m certifiably insane, have a doctorate in frustration, and many studies published of “Oh, fuck, what is this? I don’t have time for this now, I have shit to get done”.
Good luck.
