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Sidebar 2: UNIX Admin Job Descriptions

Novice System Administrator

Required skills:

  • Has strong interpersonal and communication skills; is capable of explaining simple procedures in writing or verbally, has good phone skills.

  • Is familiar with UNIX and its commands/utilities at a user level; can edit files, use a shell, find users' home directories, navigate through the file system, and use i/o redirection.

  • Is able to follow instructions well.

Required background:

  • Two years of college or equivalent post-high school education or experience.

Desirable:

  • A degree or certificate in computer science or a related field.

  • Previous experience in customer support, computer operations, system administration, or another related area. Motivated to advance in the profession.

Appropriate responsibilities:

  • Performs routine tasks under the direct supervision of a more experienced system administrator.

  • Acts as a front-line interface to users, accepting trouble reports and dispatching them to appropriate system administrators.

Junior System Administrator

Required skills:

  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills; capable of training users in applications and UNIX fundamentals and writing basic documentation.

  • High skill with most UNIX commands/utilities. Familiarity with most basic system administration tools and processes; for example, can boot/shutdown a machine, add and remove user accounts, use backup programs and fsck, maintain system database files (groups, hosts, aliases). Fundamental understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; for example, understands job control, soft and hard links, distinctions between the kernel and the shell.

Required background:

  • One to three years of system administration experience.

Desirable:

  • A degree in computer science or a related field.

  • Familiarity with networked/distributed computing environment concepts; for example, can use the route command, add a workstation to a network, and mount remote filesystems.

  • Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell).

  • Programming experience in any applicable language.

Appropriate responsibilities:

  • Administers a small site alone or assists in the administration of a larger system. Works under the general supervision of a system administrator or computer systems manager.

Intermediate/Advanced System Administrator

Required skills:

  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills; capable of writing purchase justifications, training users in complex topics, making presentations to an internal audience, and interacting positively with upper management. Independent problem solving, self-direction.

  • Is comfortable with most aspects of UNIX systems administration; for example, configuration of mail systems, system installation and configuration, printing systems, fundamentals of security, installing third-party software.

  • A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging and swapping, interprocess communication, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock").

  • Familiarity with fundamental networking/distributed computing environment concepts; can configure NFS and NIS, can use nslookup or dig to check information in the DNS; understands basic routing concepts.

  • Ability to write scripts in some administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell).

  • Ability to do minimal debugging and modification of C programs.

Required background:

  • Three to five years systems administration experience.

Desirable:

  • A degree in computer science or a related field.

  • Significant programming background in any applicable language.

Appropriate responsibilities:

  • Receives general instructions for new responsibilities from supervisor.

  • Administers a mid-sized site alone or assists in the administration of a larger site.

  • Initiates some new responsibilities and helps to plan for the future of the site/network.

  • Manages novice system administrators or operators. Evaluates and/or recommends purchases; has strong influence on purchasing process.

Senior System Administrator

Required skills:

  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills; capable of writing proposals or papers, acting as a vendor liaison, making presentations to customer or client audiences or professional peers, and working closely with upper management.

  • Ability to solve problems quickly and and completely.

  • Ability to identify tasks that require automation and automate them.

  • A solid understanding of a UNIX-based operating system; understands paging and swapping, interprocess communication, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts ("inode", "superblock"), can use perfomance analysis to tune systems.

  • A solid understanding of networking/distributed computing environment concepts; understands principles of routing, client/server programming, the design of consistent network-wide filesystem layouts.

  • Ability to program in an administrative language (Tk, Perl, a shell), to port C programs from one platform to another, and to write small C programs.

Required background:

  • More than five years previous systems administration experience.

Desirable:

  • A degree in computer science or a related field.

  • Extensive programming background in any applicable language.

  • Publications within the field of system administration.

Appropriate responsibilities:

  • Designs/implements complex local and wide-area networks of machines.

  • Manages a large site or network.

  • Works under general direction from senior management.

  • Establishes/recommends policies on system use and services.

  • Provides technical lead and/or supervises system administrators, system programmers, or others of equivalent seniority.

  • Has purchasing authority and responsibility for purchase justification.

Reproduced from "Job Descriptions for SAGE" USENIX Association: http://www.usenix.org/sage/jobs/ \
jobs-descriptions.html