Junior Linux Administrator

[NeonNinja]

I've seen Linux Admin + 5 years clear R500k per annum.

 

[s0lar]

I've seen Linux Admin + 5 years clear R500k per annum.

I am surprised that people would consider Linux Admin a poor paying career. R500K + benefits (i.e. medaid, overtime, 13th, cellphone, broadband etc.) is around average at the corporate I work at. R380K is the entry for a junior here.

That said I remember my first general (M$/Linux/Solaris etc.) sysadmin job payed R3200 BEFORE deductions. My GF at the time who was front desk earned more than me. I am glad I took that salary dive to break into the industry. I am now well satisfied financially and love my job on the command line.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Speak for yourself. I earn a fat salary doing linux, also ALL my linux friends are earning at least 20k and above. My one friend works with linux on HP Blade servers and earns 60k a month in Jozi.

I'm keeping this in context of his experience and the current job market. The current rate for 3-5yrs experience is R15K in technopark Stellies, it was R30K 12 mths back.

And its going to get worse - we are seeing more and more companies closing down or downsizing (most of them are also LINUX houses).

But those that stick it out will reap the rewards when things turn around as before you know it you have those 5yrs plus everyone is looking for.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Here is a good indication of current salary expectations for an admin (rather scary and thought it would be at least double):

Cape Town:

Offer: R10000 - R15000

Requirement: 3 - 5 Years Relevant Experience
Proficient in Linux Server setup
Working on Unix
Able to manage the Linux Servers, maintain the applications on these servers
Maintain the websites on the Linux servers and monitor all issues on these servers
Configuration ie Apache
MySQL / Subversion not essential but recommended
Code repositories
Web environments
V hosts

 

[Kasyx]

I am surprised that people would consider Linux Admin a poor paying career. R500K + benefits (i.e. medaid, overtime, 13th, cellphone, broadband etc.) is around average at the corporate I work at. R380K is the entry for a junior here.

That said I remember my first general (M$/Linux/Solaris etc.) sysadmin job payed R3200 BEFORE deductions. My GF at the time who was front desk earned more than me. I am glad I took that salary dive to break into the industry. I am now well satisfied financially and love my job on the command line.

Where do you work? And, more importantly, can I have a job?

 

[shadow_man]

Hi Guys,

Currently I work for a MS House.

That been said I feel the pull of opensource. I'd like to end up being a Linux admin of some sort. I've read whats been said above and it still appeals to me.

What course can I go and study via prometric / vue etc? Whats good - general Linux courses or vendor specific e.g. Redhat?

What can I teach myself? I've been reading through how to setup up LAMP stacks on various distro's. Anything else I can look at? I need a framework or a path to follow - if anyone can give me advice on reaching this goal it would be greatly appreciated?

Thanks
J

 

[avert]

Some companies are starting to go with ubuntu server (I have no idea why. The day has not yet arrived wherein I trust an Ubuntu server).

Debian with a stable release cycle of 5 years on LTS?

why would you not trust it.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Debian with a stable release cycle of 5 years on LTS?

why would you not trust it.

He is just a hater and not a lover. Our company used Debian then switched to Ubuntu with no pain. Amazon supports Ubuntu well, blah blah blah ... but its like trying to argue with a M$ Fanboi. All I care is we run Linux at the end of the day

 

[Tinuva]

Ubuntu works just fine at the company I work at. Yes CentOS is the big one for most of the webservers, but if you can't see what good ubuntu is doing even for servers...I have to ask whether you are blind or just want to stay a fanboi. At the end of the day, a good Linux Sysadmin can make use of any Distro that is needed to get the job done.

Certain software requires the use of redhat/centos/suse ect, others require others again and it the good sysadmin will just go ok lets get it done instead of going argh but I hate this distro or this and that.

Real skills in my opinion is how good you are at tracking down problems, figuring out permanent solutions and generally do things that is not usually expected. At least that is what worked for me in the past. An excellent sysadmin will be able to tell you the differences in logging styles between distributions, for example ubuntu loves to put authentications in in /var/log/auth.log and I assume debian too, where as CentOS uses /var/log/secure. Simple things like that, because when you need to track down what happened you don't want to waste time figuring out that small difference, you need to know it and jump straight into figuring out what happened.

Of coarse this is all just my opinion

 

[Kasyx]

He is just a hater and not a lover. Our company used Debian then switched to Ubuntu with no pain. Amazon supports Ubuntu well, blah blah blah ... but its like trying to argue with a M$ Fanboi. All I care is we run Linux at the end of the day

Hostile much? I was just saying I don't like Ubuntu Server. I think Ubuntu should stick to the desktop user environment. I'm not saying it's useless, it's just not for me personally.

Chill, dude.