Thursday, June 11, 2009

Today, on a very special Standalone Sysadmin...

I named this blog Standalone Sysadmin for a very good reason. Since 2003 or so, I have very much been a standalone sysadmin. I have worked on networks and infrastructures where, in some cases, the only single point of failure was me. This is not an ideal situation. My bus factor is through the roof.

I have previously complained about the amount of stress that I have at my current position pretty frequently on here (too frequently, really), and I've felt for a long time that it was caused by being the sole point of contact for any IT issues in the organization. The 2008 IT (dis)Satisfaction Survey backed up my beliefs.

After some extended discussions with management about my predicament, they have agreed to help me out by hiring a junior administrator to assist me in keeping the infrastructure together. Horray!

So, here is the job description. We're posting this on Craigslist and Monster. The emphasis is on junior administrator, because of the lack of money we have to put toward the role at the moment. Chances are that if you're already an administrator and you're reading this blog, you are probably more advanced than we're looking for, but maybe you know someone who is smart, young, and wants to get into IT administration, and located somewhere around Berkeley Heights, NJ. It might not be a lot of money, but it's definitely a learning experience, and whoever gets the job will get to play with cool toys ;-)

Here's the original post from Craigslist:

Small, growing, and dynamic company is seeking a junior administrator to enhance the sysadmin team. Responsibilities include desktop support, low level server and network administration, and performing on-call rotation with the lead administrator.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced Linux user who has performed some level of enterprise Linux administration (CentOS/RedHat/Slackware preferred). A history of technical support of Windows XP and Mac OS X is valuable, although the amount of remote support is limited. A familiarity with Windows Server 2003 is a plus.

The most important characteristic of our ideal candidate is the ability to learn quickly, think on his/her feet, and adapt to new situations.