The "DevOps" fad is screwing over a large segment of senior level I.T professionals who are used to specializing. (Databases, Storage, OS, Security, etc.). I've also yet to see any startup that Jez Humble would actually call a DevOps shop.

Now, startups are hiring generalists with 3-5 years of "hacking" experience, or have a popular project on GitHub.

"System administrators" in the traditional sense--and I have hired many of them and consulted on the obsolescence of others--often and generally exhibit that strong get-it-working,-damn-the-consequences tendency that is in opposition to--well, none of us in this industry are engineers, but some of us aspire to engineering. Rigorous, systemic, and repeatable are the watchwords, and to that end those system administrators aren't being "screwed over"--there's a different skillset being prioritized.

Again, I think there's a large talent pool available, but startups who think they'll be the next FAANG act too big for their britches and actively discriminate against older tech workers who are likely experts in several pieces of the tech stack.

I routinely see these folks get passed over for younger, less experienced candidates (often for 1/2 to 3/4 the salary) who look good on paper because they wax eloquent about their pet project on GitHub, facial hair wax and kombucha.

Source: I make damn good money as a "fixer", and my primary customers are 5-30 person startups. I don't "code", and never will (useful scripts, and some automation/cloud API excepted).

I go in and practically beat the managers over the heads with the DevOps Handbook, and "engineers" with the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook. Most of my work is tearing out fucked k8s installs, and cutting AWS spending by 1/2 or more. (A few clients were billed based on how much I reduced their bill).

Have a standing job offer with one client, however it requires Azure certification pretty much immediately. Between not really using much MS stuff, and the exam focusing mostly on the Azure CLI, it might not be worth the trouble for a steady paycheck. They were nice enough to cover a training course though, so I'm willing to see where it goes.

It's great that you can make that money in the role you describe. Before I decided I wanted to stop doing sales work alongside dev work, I used to make very good money as a similar fixer. On the other hand, I do code. I'm very good at it. And I've learned that fixing the situations of companies whose operators don't code is to fix, or replace, those operators. Especially those expensive operators who you're holding up over folks who understand systems as code and as managed resources.

Sneering at kombucha and facial hair wax, though? Aren't you saying you're the adult in the room here? Frankly, you sound bitter. And that sucks. As somebody who has spent his entire career doing both dev and ops and getting to the point where melding them together is natural and the teaching thereof is likewise a basic part of work, I've had to recommend the replacement of people who act like you're acting in this thread. 'Cause I'm happy to teach, and I've never met a hands-first sysadmin who couldn't do what should be done. But I've met a lot who won't, and if they don't retire first it eventually catches up to them.

WRT your “walled garden” quip, employment is about qualifications. No one is entitled to jobs for which they are not qualified, not even sysadmins. If the employer is hiring engineers and the sysadmin candidate can’t or won’t learn how to engineer, then they are not qualified.

I used to have the same problem, but not when writing codes.

I love writing codes, and someday I was put in a lead/management position and the context switching between having to solve technical and managerial was giving me pain.

Then I allowed myself to make some mistake. Giving myself a sandbox to play in. That really helps.

Totally agree about context switching. I'm pretty much worthless at it.

Honestly, given the direction things are heading (Startups wanting generic worker drones, and not specialists) I'm about a hair's breadth from selling everything I own, and buying a $30,000 farm house somewhere in a rural flyover state.

Scripting and automation is one thing, but startups putting ops/architect roles through Fizzbuzz bullshit is a little annoying after a dozen or so interviews.

Not much separating you from a help desk tech.

Losing just an hour of sleep per night results in 30-70% reduction for all of the above, without us perceiving the difference. It’s crazy how underestimated the importance of sleep is in our culture.

Check out this interview with Mathew Locker, one of the lead sleep researchers in the world. Blew my mind.

https://overcast.fm/+RxHE3jC4w

Can't use stackoverflow on a certification exam.

Production programming as opposed to academic programming is about writing as little of your own code as possible. Because we all suck at writing code :-)

Certifications are another matter. I’ve found the ones worth having take a career to prep for and the ones your boss tells you to get can be passed by studying a cheat sheet online for a couple hours.

Based on the labs I've done, and other materials, I'd say it's NOT a "cheat sheet" exam.

It's really sorting out syntax and structures that fries my brain. Code never "sticks" with me, and I'm in a constant state of bootstrapping, for lack of a better term.

Are you taking the cert to get a job or is your job making you get the cert?

Getting your employer to pay for training and the actual cert is definitely the way to go. I have always discouraged anyone looking to get the cert first

There's a lot to the exam I get, simply from experience. I'm getting slaughtered on the Azure CLI stuff since I simply cannot get the syntax to stick, no matter how many times I re-run through the labs.

Do you feel you're not getting it or that you're not getting it fast enough? The latter can evolve into the former. And perpetuate the anxiety loop.

My last actual migraine was in December of 2015