I’m trying to decide whether it would be worth spending an additional 2 years upgrading my associates to a bachelor’s in CS or not.
I don’t see much of a demand for the RHCSA in my area (Toronto, Canada) but I see that basically every job posting has a degree requirement.
I’d be 25 by the time I finish school with the degree but I honestly just want to start applying for jobs I don’t want to waste time.
I have the A+, CCNA and LFCS. I get my associates next week.
I’m aware that I’ll probably get a bunch of responses of people saying “I don’t have a degree or certifications!” but I’m genuinely confused as to how you’re in IT without either of those things unless you knew someone or got in very early so some elaboration would be nice.
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No certifications, no degrees, just good, old fashioned 15 years of experience.
The only certification I have is from the Kansas City Barbeque Society, allowing me to act as a judge in BBQ competitions.
Things are probably different nowadays, but at least 15-25 years ago you could just apply for IT jobs and if someone lied about their skills it would hopefully show during the technical interviews. I don’t know if that counts as getting in very early.
BBQ certs…never knew that was an option and now have something to truly live for!
None, anymore.
Eventually you end up with a resume/knowledge that sells itself.
I’m not talking about government jobs that require certain certs, though.
No certs and degree isn’t in CS. I just have lots of experience.
My pathway was basically:
- Got a low tier job as a glorified intern (paid)
- Switched jobs a few times, pay increasing each time. Chose interesting jobs.
- Left a low paying gov job for contract work. Got hired full time by one of my contractors.
- Have stayed at that job. Golden handcuffs.
I have a WordPress site that I’ve been writing deep-dive linux articles on for about 10 years. Its more useful than any certification.
Portfolios showing experience are always more valuable than any sheet of paper.
everyones just like, “10 years of experience”…nobody is hiring people without experience so people without experience cant get experience…i dont get it…
Yes, it’s actually pissing me off reading these comments a little because it’s not very helpful to tell me to get experience when I don’t have any prior experience. That’s why I have these certs and a degree man
Just a lot of experience.
I’m a self taught child of the 80s that loved to mess around with basic and serial modems when I could finally get 1.
Honestly, I got my first job by low balling the salary and knowing my shit enough to answer questions.
After 1 year I went to a new position paying double. And so on and so forth.
I have an unfinished Software Engineering degree. While studying, I started a small businesses to do some freelance IT work on the side and one client offered me a full-time job, so I put the studies on hold and then never looked back. Been climbing through different positions and companies since then. Experience is valued much higher than a diploma, especially in an industry that evolves too quickly for education to keep up. I quit the industry recently to start teaching, because there is huge need for teachers that can teach programming, and working with people is much more rewarding than a big paycheck (imo).
In all of my job interviews, I’ve been asked more about the company I started while studying, than the degree that I quit. So I guess my tip is to start your own thing or start teaching. Having your own business with a license also makes it way easier for big companies to hire you for contract work.
No certificate now but if I was starting out I would get Red Hat certifications. Also Azure certs.
IMHO, a CS degree doesn’t help you at all for sysadmin work but having a bachelors degree does. It is stupid but many employers have a bachelor’s degree as a minimum requirement…regardless of what it was in.
none, I was just blessed with the role against my will because no one else was around
My rhcsa expired and I only have experience beyond that. Your task right now is to find a job and the easiest way to do that is to leverage your network. If you don’t have a network, you need to prove that you can commit to a long term plan and learn a skill. Most people do that with degrees. Unfortunately a lot of people have degrees and technology is getting more competitive. That’s where you see school competitions and certifications. If you don’t want to do that, you’ll need to be able to speak competently to the role.
Unfortunately right now I do not recommend platform/devops/sre for anyone breaking into the field. If I create an application today, it’s server less or bring your own dockerfile on a provided machine image. So what are you administrating? Legacy shops will be around for decades, but the future here is layered architecture not os tasks.
No relevant degrees, just lots of demonstrable experience and projects.
