Just got offered a linux admin position

I just got offered a job as a linux admin after working as a jr sys admin in a noc for a year and a half. I got sick of sitting around for 12 hours not being able to put my knowledge to use and it didn't seem like there were going to be any opportunities for advancement in the foreseeable future. The company I'm going to be working for provides a java based medical application to pharmacies and other medical establishments. Their servers are run on Amazon's AWS cloud service. I'm going to get some experience with tomcat and possibly asterisk. It's about an 11k bump in salary from my previous job.

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networker050184

Congrats and good luck!

shyguyIT

Congrats!

jvrlopez

Nice raise! You didn't say it outright, but it's safe to assume you're going to take it.

lsud00d

Good job W Stewart!

Something to start looking into is JVM tuning. There is a lot going on with the heap management via garbage collector and being able to understand what's going on under the covers and effectively tune is a skill many sys admins lack-- https://www.mulesoft.com/tcat/tomcat-jvm

kohr-ah

Congratulations! That is fantastic

scaredoftests

Congrats!!

SweenMachine

W Stewart wrote: »

I just got offered a job as a linux admin after working as a jr sys admin in a noc for a year and a half. I got sick of sitting around for 12 hours not being able to put my knowledge to use and it didn't seem like there were going to be any opportunities for advancement in the foreseeable future. The company I'm going to be working for provides a java based medical application to pharmacies and other medical establishments. Their servers are run on Amazon's AWS cloud service. I'm going to get some experience with tomcat and possibly asterisk. It's about an 11k bump in salary from my previous job.

welcome to the life of supporting medical applications.. enjoy being called at all hours of the night, every night when a patient in a hospital or resident of a nursing home cannot have their meds passed because your application is acting up.. you've earned it

To be honest I quite enjoy it.. lots of pressure, lots of reward.

-scott

W Stewart

lsud00d wrote: »

Good job W Stewart!

Something to start looking into is JVM tuning. There is a lot going on with the heap management via garbage collector and being able to understand what's going on under the covers and effectively tune is a skill many sys admins lack-- https://www.mulesoft.com/tcat/tomcat-jvm

Yeah I'v been reading up on that. I took the java class at WGU so I've already gotten a little exposure to the memory heap and garbage collection.

W Stewart

jvrlopez wrote: »

Nice raise! You didn't say it outright, but it's safe to assume you're going to take it.

Yeah I accepted it.

YFZblu

Congrats!

W Stewart

One thing I've come to realize is that a lot of these companies will bend on the experience requirements if they feel like you'd be a good fit. It's been said on this board time and time again but it never really clicks until you see it first hand. I've seen it with at least three different companies since I started looking for a job again but it's the same situation. They have experience requirements of say five years but they can't find anybody qualified to fill the position so they end up considering me with my three years of experience for the position.

Both this company and another company I interviewed with on the same day were pretty much relieved when they found I was actually able to knowledgeably answer their technical questions. I got a verbal offer from both companies the same day of the interview. Unfortunately I've got to turn the other company down but it seems like it's definitely hard for these guys to find good linux people.

On the other hand, I have dealt with some horrible recruiters who barely speak English and don't really know much about the job that they're recruiting for so they just go through a check-list and ask you if you have x years of experience with y technology as if they were just checking off boxes. You didn't really need to hire a recruiter to do that job. I talked to one recruiter who asked me if I had x years of experience with RedHat and then had the nerve to ask me if I had x years of experience with RHEL.

Devilry

Congrats on the job, sounds like a good position - a bump in pay is always good also!

finhack

good work there, learning Linux truly pays off.

Jgonz2848

Congrats sir. Always good to get a pay increase and that's quite a healthy increase you made there

mokaiba

finhack wrote: »

good work there, learning Linux truly pays off.

linux jobs tend to pay better too.

xenodamus

Congrats!

I also started my studies with a heavy focus on networking (Cisco specifically). I've since found my way into virtualization, which would be complemented nicely by Linux skills. Working on that now....

What was it that brought you from networking to Linux?

sasnimrod

Congratulations! Having a job where you can really apply your Linux skills as well as expanding on them sound awesome.

coffeeluvr

Congratulations!!! Linux Rocks!!

RHEL

I concur, big dollars in Linux/UNIX...

UnixGuy

W Stewart wrote: »

....Their servers are run on Amazon's AWS cloud service. I'm going to get some experience with tomcat and possibly asterisk. It's about an 11k bump in salary from my previous job.

Huge congrats, that's an awesome experience! Lot's of shops ask for Middleware experience (JVM, Tomcat,...etc). and AWS is obviously in demand too. It'll only get better! you definitely earned it!

W Stewart

xenodamus wrote: »

Congrats!

I also started my studies with a heavy focus on networking (Cisco specifically). I've since found my way into virtualization, which would be complemented nicely by Linux skills. Working on that now....

What was it that brought you from networking to Linux?

I've never really worked on the networking side of things. I got the ccna while going to WGU on-line and applied for maybe one networking job that I didn't get but my first opportunity for a real IT job outside of phone support at a dell call center was a linux point of sales systems job.

linuxlover

Congrats, I'm hoping for the same title in few years.

W Stewart

It can happen. It only took me 3 years. I believe willingness to learn is the single biggest factor that has helped me out.

coreyb80

Congrats! Did you spend your time learning Linux on your own dime?

W Stewart

I got a lot of experience working with point of sales systems and working at a web hosting company but a lot of it was self study. That was what helped set me apart from my co-workers.