What made you get to that Sr. Windows Server Admin level?

First post in here. Snooped around for a while, decided to make an account.

This is for all of the Windows Server Admins. What allowed you to get to this level?

1. What steps did you take in experience
2. What steps in certs?
3. What labs do you do at home?
4. What equipment do you use for your labs?
5. How much time a day did/do you spend studying?

(Trying to think of other questions to ask)

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Comments

joelsfood

20 years of breaking things and figuring out how to fix them. There are no shortcuts

broli720

Lots of people think certs are a way to shortcut the process. We it isn't. You'll have to put the time in and learn the material and how to apply that knowledge in different situations.

E Double U

The secret handshake followed by the wink and the gun.

iBrokeIT

Certs, studying and labs are helpful but there is no substitute for experience in large Windows environment.

If you want to be a Sr Windows Admin you're going to have to spend time working the lower positions.

systemstech

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I'm in the field and currently working my way up.

I was just wondering if someone could tell me their experiences with the questions I mentioned.

Christian.

In IT the key point is not only having the knowledge, you have to be able to probe you used it in real production environments. It's like a surgeon. You want someone with real experience, not one that has thousands of hours in a simulator and a bunch of papers on the wall. Doing stuffs at home will help you to master a technology, and being able to apply them in critical environments will give you that seniority.

shodown

There are some time saver's but I don't wanna call them shortcuts. If you find the right MSP to work at you can get exposed to a lot of technologies in a very short order. I always say I will take a mid level guy/girl from a solid var/msp than a senior person in a enterprise. Its just so much more exposure the guy/gal is gonna get doing implementations that someone working internal IT is not going to get. The reason I'm saying they aren't short cuts is because those environments are not for everyone. Its a lot of work in a very short amount of time and often unrealistic expectations from customer and management at the same time.

rsutton

1. What steps did you take in experience.
I started doing phone support in a call center. I did this for a few years before moving in to the help desk. I moved up to a senior level help desk position & was able to get enough hands on experience (mostly in doing projects) to move in to a sys admin role.

2. What steps in certs?
I grabbed a few MS server certs

3. What labs do you do at home?
I have VMware ESX setup with a fully functioning domain & Exchange server

4. What equipment do you use for your labs?
A spare desktop computer with lots of storage

5. How much time a day did/do you spend studying?
When I was working on becoming a sys admin I would spend 1-2 hours a day studying/labbing

HailHogwash

rsutton wrote: »

1. What steps did you take in experience.
I started doing phone support in a call center. I did this for a few years before moving in to the help desk. I moved up to a senior level help desk position & was able to get enough hands on experience (mostly in doing projects) to move in to a sys admin role.

2. What steps in certs?
I grabbed a few MS server certs

3. What labs do you do at home?
I have VMware ESX setup with a fully functioning domain & Exchange server

4. What equipment do you use for your labs?
A spare desktop computer with lots of storage

5. How much time a day did/do you spend studying?
When I was working on becoming a sys admin I would spend 1-2 hours a day studying/labbing

+1 Nice breakdown