Hello, I am currently a second year university student studying amongst other subjects Unix.
I am interested in pursuing Unix into a future career, specifically as a network administrator.
I was wondering if you can provide information on how to pursue a career in Unix, i.e. what general paths would be worth while to pursue and any other advice you may wish to share.
The best way to learn this Unix stuff is to do it. A lot of companies are looking for people with a few years of Unix/AIX/Linux experience. Learn as much as you can in school but the best way is to DO IT!!
Find some hardware and build out a few different systems. Keep in touch with the job board sites (monster, computerjobs) and see what they are looking for exactly. That should narrow down a scope for your study path.
Good luck
SeaCros
Yeah I have been learning a lot 'bout general Unix commands in lectures and I seem to be getting the hang of it, as you said it just takes practice (going over the commands again and again).
Is there a lot of competition in the business, or is it a pretty friendly area?
Thanks for the help anyway.
Hello, I am currently studying a Unix module in my second year of university and I find it extreamly interesting.
I have learned about basic Unix commands and though I am aware that I still require practice I would like to know how to go about persuing a career in Unix?
Any advice would be much appriciated.
The unix job market is quite different to the windows one in that qualifications are usually treated as a positive point but the actual subject of the qualification is largly irrelevant - it's more of an indication you can study and learn. The windows makret is generally interested in seeing a list of certifications and quals to get your foot in the door.
Unfortunately, this means that it's quite difficult to get into an interview for a good unix job. As well as knowing your stuff, you need to find the opportunity to show it. Without getting lucky or knowing someone, you might well have to work your way up from a lowly sys-admin or operator.
The job markets that put more weight on certs are easier (for those that have the certs) to get to the interview stage where they can sell themselves.
Skills that are sought after in a unix engineer that might help get you onto the interview list:
- Experiance: Ok so that's not going to be much of an option for you but try to get some part time work (even free work) to give you exposure to unix in the 'real world'.
- Understanding that Unix isn't DOS and Linux is not identical to all other Unix'es.
- Hardware: Do you want to get into this? If so, start learning what's what and the various platforms and their architecture. You don't have to know the latest stuff but being in a position to appreciate how something new works will be very vaulable to employers.
- System V vs BSD vs The hybrids - understanding the differences - try and get some time on several different unix's. Irix, Solaris, Digital Unix (AKA Tru64), AIX and HPUX would be a good start.
- A solid understanding of server security: Get the hang of the basic concepts of security under unix - both at the network level and at the filesystem level. Learn how to user the multi-user nature of unix to seperate all the different subsystems from each other to minimise the damage of a security breach.
- Knowing the commands is nice but knowing a wide range of ways to find the syntax for a new or unknown command quickly is better.
- The phrase "No, I'm not familiar with that one but I'm keen to learn about it!"
- Documentaion - Most engineers are crap at it, try not to be like most engineers
Does anyone else who has recently entered into a career in UNIX after leaving University have any suitable tips??
If anyone has recently entered into a career in UNIX would they please give me any more advice that they have?
All advice is appreciated.
Thanks.
in what are you interested? develop software... user/system administration... network admin... storage/san/nas... virtualisation... there is so much to do this days!
A more fulfilling and rewarding career will be probably be in networks or application development.
just my opnion
I was thinking of going into the area of user/system administration as I have found that to be the most interesting area while I have been learning about it.
Thanks
o yes... the problems have being straight out of school. i know because i am/was still there. i've found the hardest thing is not what you know but getting into that first interview. usually employers are looking for 4-6 years experience in unix sys admin admin type work. so how do you get there? i still have yet to figure that out. but what i can tell you is you have to be patient. most likely, you won't get that sys admin job right from the start (unless you know someone). i have been a sys admin for 2 years (3rd year out of college). my first year as a linux admin was nothign more then a glorified operator. my next year as a solaris admin was because i found the right company at the right time. they needed someone and they couldn't find a unix admin. i just happened to know a good deal about unix from my studies, reading and as everyone else has said... doing. unfortunately, the project got cut and i was well.. back in the market again. currently i am a hardware engineer. its not pure SA work but it teaches me a great deal about architecture and i get to expand on my OBP (forth) commands as well as other unix commands. i've had nightmares about HBAs from this job!
point being, you got to be patient about getting to those SA jobs. Or you have to really be smart in your unix knowledge. read as much as possible and always have servers at home to work on. keep up with technology and read the forums. its hard to find a good job right now. so again, be patient. my recommendations for you:
- read and execute. know your commands and different ways to get the info you need.
- learn apache, php and mysql.
- look at the big companies that have the money and resources to allow individuals to learn and grow with the company. small shops need the experience now and don't have time for you to catch up.
- submit your resume to everything. you need to get exposed to all types of employers and their silly questions. unix interviewers like flex their unix knowledge. don't be scared. just be honest and always always seem eager to learn. tell them how you can find info you dont know. if a guy is a real jerk to you in the interview, just think about how big of a jerk he will be when you work there.
- look up unix interview questions. i've had people read off a list of questions straight from the internet in front of me.
- be patient. it will happen.
- become friendly with your professors. they have some industry ties. look for the ones that used to be in the industry. my assembler prof. got me my internship at IBM.
- find a head hunter. they can really help out. however, keep the head hunter within the technology market. their are a million tech hiring firms out there. i'm sure you can grab someone to help you out.
- read read read!
hope this helps somewhat. it really is a crazy time trying to find a job out of school. its not fun and can be really crappy at times. just stay positive. you'll make it happen.
A couple other remarks, just to maybe help you look in other directions, too.
If you're comfortable with scripting languages and databases, there's a whole web business world full of incompetent people to impress. I don't think it would be very gratifying in the long run, but this is one of the areas where you don't necessarily need to be strong on C / systems programming, which is often otherwise a baseline requirement for Unix-y jobs. Personally I would not touch PHP, but of course, that's where a lot of the buzz is right now. Ruby on Rails might be more interesting, but I'm not too familiar with that.
And of course, there's a lot of "real" development shops doing real products on Linux or Unix. The ones I've been looking at tend to work on Internet appliances and stuff like that, where probably systems programming is an important skill, too; but in actual practice, from what I've heard, some of these shops mainly use Python in practice. (I guess Google, too?)
era points out another thing.
there are so many different types of programming languages its hard to just pick one. one shop will use php, another python. yet another will be all c and another will use all java. what one do you learn, god only knows. i think if you can program in c, you're probably a good candidate for a junior systems programmer position. i don't program so i never looked in that direction. i just do scripts. bash, ksh, csh... you all know the drill 
I was required to interview some candidates in my former company (I was in the management post then but I have moved back to technical now). The most important criteria we looked for were:
-
Attitude of the candidate - we looked out for rudeness, selfishness, unable to work as part of a team, etc
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Flexibility of the candidate - we preferred someone who was flexible in picking up new skills, able to communicate effectively and flexible in duration of working hours. Once we turned down a top student after we told her sometimes we needed to work till 8pm and her response was "So late?". In reality, sometimes we worked till past midnight
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Ability in communication - must be able to listen and communicate effectively.
Technical skill was actually at the lower priority but it's one of the important criteria.
Honestly, I am not good in any specific programming language but as long as you're willing to learn, it's no big deal. I have to admit that I was a job hopper and I am not a specialist. I was in both UNIX and windows environment...moving from one language to another. Here are the list of languages/database/operating systems I have to pick up for over 10 years in my career:
Dos/ Windows/UNIX/Linux
SQL Windows/Centura
Sybase - stored procedures and triggers
Powerbuilder
Oracle - stored procedures
C
C++
Natural
Java
C Shell
now...Bourne shell
I even moved from technical to management and back to technical.
I also admit that sometimes I lost hope in my career, fed up and looked for opportunity to get out of IT industry. I don't love this industry...it's just my bread and butter. It's definitely better if you love it.
After many years as a system engineer in both enduser as well as field services I find that it's not very rewarding career being a unix engineer in either. I find that the best place if you want a career in is either application development or doing networks security.
As a network security engineer you have to learn new things all the time as new threats emerge but in reality once the corporation network is setup and running in production there is very little to do except every once in the while install some patch add some rules on the firewall, maybe every once in a while your network gets hit by a new worm and you are busy but most times I observe network engineers are quite free, and you most certainly won't see them arguing with application people over application performance problems as compare to the system administrator.
Also a system person in an enduser environ, you do not bring much value as compares to a application developer. What you are doing is just maintaining the existing infrastructure, sure maybe you rollout a new system every now and then but that's what your mgt expects of you anyways?
The application developer on the other hand brings in a lot of value in terms being able to understand the business needs and requirements and delivering those needs hence when it comes to getting bonuses better apraisals, pay increments the application guy usually gets more. You will find that in many environments the system and application are always fighting each other and very often the application guy will get the ear of the mgt to see things his/her way and thats the reality. In many environments I've been to i've observed that the applicaiton guy if he/she stays long will eventually become the Head of IT department.
In vendor field services environment here you get to touch many systems but the learning curve is very steep and competition is very intense and the work is like preassure cooker, you're busy all the time, doing standby's, upgrades for paying customers implementating new projects sometimes even handling more than 5 projects on hand concurrently But not all engineers are built the same, some are very good in storages, some good at servers, some network oriented but very few are all rounders, you won't have any applicaition developers to fight with instead you are competiting your careers with each other and only the very best engineers get rewarded.
One last thing, these days when corporations are outsourcing for cheaper services you will find that most often jobs that go are mostly system related , application usually not much affected.
my 2 cents
GET EXPERIENCE.....experience will give you the most knowledge. After two years in college I thought I knew a lot, but as soon as I got out in the real world, I realized how little I knew.
Get registered with a couple of staffing firms in your metro area as soon as you can. Its really good for finding temporary work that will be geared toward your interests. You know what you are getting into before hand, and it isn't permanent. I got a lot of experience very quickly by having contracts that were no more than 2 months long. Each environment was different and focused on something unique. It is a great way to find out where you want to specialize before you are done with school.
Here are some impressions from a european AIX admin:
I am a freelancer for more than 10 years now and my speciality is data center automatisation. My main occupation is to develop procedures (read: scripts) for all sorts of things admins would want to do in a (big) data center. For instance: if you want an always up-to-date list of all the SAN shares in all machines in a data center i'm the man to develop such a script.
The market is of course competitive, but: the business is relatively small. Once you are "on the tour" going from project to project you know many to most of the people doing the same in your area either from personal experience or from second hand knowledge because one of your colleagues has already worked with the guy.
As it is nobody is perfect and everybody has some things s/he won't know. Of course you can find it out by reading manuals and using google, but usually you have a colleague who can explain that to you because it his speciality. If you have shown adequate manners and are treating your colleagues generally nice they are inclined to help you out (which is usually faster than studying some manual). This social network works both ways: the colleague helping you out this day might well stumble upon something which is your expertise and you will return the favor.
I have seen a lot of "super-competitive" (read: anti-social) people in this business come and go. They usually do not last long. They do some projects, maybe getting a few euros per hour more than the others, but once the word gets out that they are not willing to participate in this netowrking they are left to their own resources - nobody is that good. Nobody compares well against a dozen of specialists willing to help each other - if only by asking the right questions over the phone. I have easily not one but 4-5 dozens of colleagues and former colleagues in my phone directory and several of them call me or i call them regularly.
Most of the times i find out what a project i get offered is like by asking around - this sometimes saves you months of frustrating work because you know where better not to go even if the payment is good.
Bottom line: a team beats an assortment of single specialists any time and real experts know that. Time spent on building such a team, on socializing with colleagues and taking time to help them so they will be willing to help you when you need it is well spent.
(By the way: about the same is true for the consulting companies i work for. Several have tried to press out more revenue from their specialists by all sorts of tricks. Invariably they went out of business when the word spread and many consultants (especially the real cracks) decided to not work with them.)
I guess that could be called a "friendly business".
I hope this helps.
bakunin
I would agree with a lot of the comments made here, but would like to add my own personal experience.
My opinion is don't let them judge you and sell yourself short to please others, instead look for people who are cool and you can work with.
The Unix forums are a good place to hang out and learn.