I, Sysadmin

My title has changed a bit over the years. Trends have changed, tech stacks have changed. But I know what I am. I haven't changed.

DevOps, System Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Platform Engineer. Cut through it all, and I still am and have always been a sysadmin.

A lot of people look down on the "Systems Administrator" title. Employees don't like it because it doesn't have "engineer" in the title, and employers hate it because it implies the absolute godhood of the one who wields it.

Us sysadmins hold the keys. Maybe that's why some compare us to janitors. But possessing keys is about where the similarities stop. Janitors clean messes up. Sysadmins know what the messes are for. Some messes we untangle. Others we step around. It comes with the territory. We plug things together that were never designed to be plugged together.

And by what can be by God's will alone - they work. Most of the time. And if it's not working, the sysadmin is honor-bound to come running at any time of the day, to get to work fixing, and devote their entire skillset and attention until - well, until it is reasonably mitigated or a warm handoff arrives.

But we don't shirk away. It's _our_ little digital fiefdom, and we often care deeply about the ones who place their trust in us.

They trust that we're competent, that we're trust-worthy, that we're responsive. And we are. Because when a sysadmin falls short in any of those three areas - the result could be catastrophic.

But when could-be catastrophes give way to survivable cataclysms, it's because we care.

We'll be paranoid so you don't have to. We'll be overwhelmed for you to experience stability. We don't ask permission. We don't ask forgiveness.

We live or die by our own awful machinations.

And on bad days you will be glad to have a good sysadmin.

I'll be that person. I'll show up. I'll stick around.

I'm a sysadmin. I'm here to help.