Making assumptions (and why I'd think IT people would know better)

I don't have a single cert.

My undergrad degree was not in Computer Science, or any field even remotely related to digital technology.

I have never been admin or assisted on any Microsoft product/project.

I am the Senior Admin of approximately 50 servers running various applications; most of which are related to web services.

All servers for which I am responsible are some flavor of *-nix, including one oddball OSX Server.

I am less than 30 years old.

Nearly everything I've learned about being a good Sysadmin I determined by reading multiple sources on online, reading man pages, using some critical thinking, reading more sources, building multiple test instances, doing more googling about the specific security implications of a given config or option, building more/reading more, and immediately owning up to my mistakes when they occur so that everyone involved, myself included, can learn to do it better the next time.

I don't participate here in /r/sysadmin very often because I don't think the community is very welcoming or acknowledging of admins from different backgrounds. Praising the cliched "I've been braking tech since I was a toddler, it came naturally" is kind of a larger problem in the startup/tech realm. A lot of us that are now in tech have come from very different, even non-technical backgrounds and that doesn't make us less capable or less knowledgable but perhaps that's a discussion for elsewhere.

Long story short; You don't have to be and wiz-kid with a BS in CS or a cert hungry Paper Tiger to be a good Tech or good Sysadmin. If you want to get started in the *-nix Sysadmin realm, grab some cheap spare hardware or a VM environment and start building and refining some services. Avoid working in Paper Zoos and Boxing Factories if you can.

/r/sysadmin Thread