Ask HN: Rent a SysAdmin? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Rent a SysAdmin?

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My startup's team is 2 developers and a designer and we usually can get anything figured out that we haven't done before.

But we don't have anybody that is a real systems administrator and that is starting to cause some issues.

Is there any service that lets you rent a system administrator for a couple hours?

We could use some advice on a few issues as well as some actual system setup work but don't know where to look.

Any advice?

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I don't think you want to "rent a sysadmin" (that sounds real low brow to me). Instead look for a contact sysadmin but first make a list of the tasks you want to hand off. If it's a logical grouping you may find that a managed host can take care of you (like SliceHost or DreamHost). If not, then use that as a job posting a la 'Seeking Linux Contractor' and screen carefully. Your best candidate will likely have a couple long term clients they take care of a little room for a new one.

Also, plan on a long term relationship. "Rent" sounds like you'll toss the sysadmin away and when new work pops up you'll just fetch another one. Don't do that. Establish a relationship as you may grow into needing a lot of work done.

Any tips on where to post that kind of a position?

I suggest you stay away from any of the elance/rentAcoder type sites, even if some of their customers seem to offer the skills you want at a price you find acceptable.

I gave them a try a couple of years ago to earn some beer money (I'm a sysadmin), and the rates that people went for were /so/ damn low that I literally couldn't see the point and just negotiated a raise instead :-)

I somehow doubt the genuine expertise and experience you'll derive most value from during a couple of hours session /won't/ be found at those low, low rates. Sysadmin are expensive ;-)

I see that you are based in London. I'm guessing that's why your rates are much higher than the Elance crowd. There you'll find lots of sysadmins in India/Russia with rates from $5-10/hour. There's no way you or I could (or would want to) compete with that (I'm based in Los Angeles, US). I wouldn't doubt their expertise just because of the low rate...it's just that the cost of living is much lower there. That said, wherever you find someone, you would want to do a certain amount of vetting before you give them access to your server and network, and once you invest the time finding someone, you want to keep them around more than a few hours.

Wearing the sysadmin hat has been the hardest part of my startup. I just don't have the smarts or bandwidth to do some of the stuff I know I need. But on the other side I'm super paranoid about security and insider threats. So rent-a-sysadmin would be intriguing but there'd have to be some chicken and egg rating system in place to vet them.

Mario Danic is a freelance sysadmin, and is quite good: http://vpsbuddy.com/

Put contact information in your profile.

You are wasting money on a designer. Contract the design work and hire a system admin with broader skills.

Without any context about the nature of the start up, the product line and business, this advice is simply nonsense.

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