Actual Career Name Question

Greetings folks!

I happened to stumble upon this forum while browsing many things related to the career field I want to enter. Since you all seem quite helpful AND knowledgeable, I will put my question out here.

I am just about to start college at 27 (Yes, late, but I recently settled on a career choice), and am now wondering exactly what to call my chosen profession. I know exactly what I want to literally do, I just haven't found a "set-in-stone" name for it as far as I can tell. So here I am relying on your experience.

I want to physically install, run, and maintain both the hardware and software involved in running the servers that keep MMO (Massively-Multiplayer Online) Games up and running. For instance, EvE Online or even World of Warcraft.

I have found many things online that talk about careers that do these things, but there seems to be massive overlap from my own research. I'm not sure if that is me misunderstanding things, or if the field in general actually has massive overlap. System Administrator, Network Administrator, Network Technician, System Engineer... etc etc. Looking through MMO companies hiring sites, all of these things are listed, and most have (from what I can tell) a lot of what I want to be doing involved in their day-to-day.

So, can anyone here tell me definitively what this career would be called? I'm leaning toward SysAdmin, but I would like to be certain.

And for the record, I am about to start toward a BS in Computer Science, which I discovered is all programming. I then found out about the IT side of things, but most of the major for IT focuses on Business/Econ/etc. So I decided to minor in IT, and pick/choose the networking courses that seem relevant.

Thank you all for your time.

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Comments

VAHokie56

You will most likely have a number of labels stuck on you as you move through your career but a Sys admin sounds about like what you have your endgame set for. Good luck getting a job with Blizzard right out of the gate

Everyone

Systems Administrator/Systems Engineer. You have a long way to go before you'll reach either.

SteveLord

If you really want to work at Blizzard, better move to Irvine. They also have a huge internship, but I bet it's competitive as hell to try and work there.

DigitalZeroOne

Everyone wrote: »

Systems Administrator/Systems Engineer. You have a long way to go before you'll reach either.

I agree, I don't think there will be anything unique about the name...yes the company may be fun, and if you are a gamer (sounds like you are), of course that would be a dream job, but what you would be doing probably won't be any different if the company were in the finance industry, or healthcare, etc.

I just checked on LinkedIn, and I saw a position for a Senior Systems Administrator, the job details sound just like any other Sys Admin Job: Know UNIX/Linux, Windows, Scripting, have a bachelors in Computer Science, or something related...Masters preferred.

I'm a contractor, and I have worked both in the Private and Public sector, and I have never met all the requirements that an employer details in a job description, but I usually have most of the requirements. I don't know if an entertainment company would be any different. Like "Everyone" said, you will have a long way to go. You should have the mindset that you are going to have to have a Masters degree, plenty of experience in Windows and UNIX/Linux, scripting in Perl, maybe Powershell (Windows components will most likely be built on top of it), and a solid work history, i.e., experience.

You will most likely need to live near the area, and it would be great if you had some type of contact there. Good fortune with your journey, if my advice turns out to be true, you can transfer some gold into my account..or at least some epics.

Oh..almost forgot. Of course Virtualization is huge, as well as storage so even though you specified what you want to initially do, you may find that you have a talent, or at least a big interest in a certain area. I have no clue what type of servers MMOs use (Physical, Virtual, a mix), but virtualization and SAN technologies are huge, and of course all that data needs to have a great DBA to manage it...think about those avenues as well.

MiikeB

Systems Engineer sounds about right, though I am not sure why you are so focused on the MMO aspect.

I have worked as a Systems Engineer on systems running everything from Healthcare management systems to Aviation Simulators. As far as being a systems engineer, for the most part its all the same. You have a Windows/Nix box of some sort running application which spits out logs of all sorts you sort through to help troubleshoot problems. I doubt there is anything more interesting about maintaining a WoW server than there is maintaining a SQL/Exchange/Remedy/AirWatch/Citrix server.

ptilsen

Yeah, systems administration with a good focus in SAN and storage technologies would be a good bet. Virtualization is a must in the industry, but I doubt you'll see actual game infrastructure running on VMs. Most MMOs are built on heavily utilized server clusters, and virtualization's disadvantages outweigh its advantages in such an environment. But SANs probably are in use or should be.

Keep in mind, to get to the level of skill and experience needed to get to work with such an environment, it's going to take at least five years, perhaps closer to ten. Also, you're talking about a relatively small niche industry that's bound to have lots of competition and few openings. I'm not trying to discourage you; I'm just saying don't count on jumping right into your dream job. You'll probably work in a different industry before you find an opening in gaming. And as others have said, systems administration is not fundamentally different between given verticals. There are some nuances, but ultimately you're supporting the same software and hardware 90% of the time.

Mishra

I would read MiikeB's post..

Also, It sounds like you want to target a specialization industry inside of an industry. I understand your desire but you are spreading yourself way too thin. It's totally achievable, but has a varying degree of time it will take. It might take 30 years to get where you want to be while those 30 years feels like a waste.

I feel that you want to be a part of a gaming company because it would be cool to learn the internal infrastructure of how it works. So I would suggest thinking of other things that would be -near- as cool. Maybe supporting Ebay/Amazon's computers? Or how about the Department of Justice?

If you are focused on your target, then you are going to have to spend a LOT of your time being one of the best in the industry so you can sell yourself to anyone. Not saying that's a bad thing, but to just expect it.

MiikeB wrote: »

Systems Engineer sounds about right, though I am not sure why you are so focused on the MMO aspect.

I have worked as a Systems Engineer on systems running everything from Healthcare management systems to Aviation Simulators. As far as being a systems engineer, for the most part its all the same. You have a Windows/Nix box of some sort running application which spits out logs of all sorts you sort through to help troubleshoot problems. I doubt there is anything more interesting about maintaining a WoW server than there is maintaining a SQL/Exchange/Remedy/AirWatch/Citrix server.

Rawblin

Thank you all for the information.

I do indeed realize that it will take quite a while before I am actually involved in a gaming companies servers, I just wanted to throw down everything I had envisioned for you all to work with.

It is interesting that people hooked onto Blizzard's servers so tightly from my description. I am far more interested in working for CCP (who runs EvE Online), and simply threw WoW out as a well-known.

From what you all are telling me, the job is basically the same no matter which servers you are "admin"ing, so it may turn out that I don't need to slide into the gaming environment to be happy. I just have an idea in my mind that being part of maintaining that/a virtual world will be a great motivator for me. Not to mention that the EvE universe is run on one massive continuous server. Anyone logged into the game can talk to and interact with anyone else at any moment. I don't currently have a lot of server knowledge, but it seems that this would be different/funner/more difficult to maintain than the standard WoW server setup. But I honestly am just guessing.

So again, thank you very much. I'll tailor my studies to System Admin and Engineer (For the record, is the Engineer the more "grunty" version, for lack of a better term? More hands on, less running people?).

CCP is run out of Iceland, but their EvE servers are in London from what I have gleaned, and I am more than happy to move to either place, so there is no issue there.

I think like almost everyone else in this industry, all the heartache will come from trying to land a job that will garner me the experience needed for upward mobility. So here is to the future! Cheers.

ptilsen

"Administration" focuses more on the maintenance of systems, while "Engineering" focuses more on the design and implementation of systems. "Engineer" is generally a "better" title, but the definitions are loose, subjective, and there is a lot of overlap. "Analyst" is another popular title and can involve any combination of admin and engineer responsibilities. All three can be purely technical or highly managerial.

CCP would probably call a "Server Administrator" or something similar.

VAHokie56

Rawblin wrote: »

It is interesting that people hooked onto Blizzard's servers so tightly from my description. I am far more interested in working for CCP (who runs EvE Online), and simply threw WoW out as a well-known.

That's because every IT person is a closet WoW geek