Systems Administrator versus Systems Engineer (born or trained)
I was titled both as as Systems Administrator and Systems Engineer in the past. I never made distinction between those two until recently.
In a recent team project, the apparent and blatant lack of systematic approach and lack of attention to details appalled me deeply. The shared agony made me think why, why some systems administrators or engineers are better than others.
I came to categorize SA/SE people to two groups. One is SA and the other is SE. I define systems engineers as those who
- have the skill-set of a systems administrator. And, to
- consistently apply engineering principles and practices to the systems administration work.
People came to SA or SE professions from all walks of lives. Some are trained engineers by trade, some are trained musician by trade, while a few weren’t trained for anything. For a large installation managed by a team, it really shouldn’t matter how many RHCE or MCP or OCDBA questions a fellow can answer. What matters should be how he engineers towards a viable and sustainable solution.
On top of the professional training and certification, I believe also into the play are personal traits. I knew a fellow at work. He would throw his hands in the air within five minutes of the first obstacle, and pass the buck to someone else w/o even conducting the most rudimentary checks, which you know and he knows that he’s capable of, at least.
