RE: Resume inflation (was Re: [SAGE] Tests for Systems Administrator interviews.)

["Jenkins, Steven" <JENKINSS@mail.etsu.edu>]

I've looked at Google's job descriptions, and they don't seem odd to me
(caveat: I entered Systems Administration from the technical side, not
'working my way up', and my experience has been biased towards System
Engineering, with SAs as the key customers.).  

I know people who would qualify for several of these positions, most of
whom come from either a large research lab environment (e.g., Argonne,
Oak Ridge, San Diego Supercomputing Center, etc) or Wall Street (which
has benefitted greatly from the various ATT Research & other companies'
ups and downs by hiring former researchers to become Sysadmins and
Systems Engineers). 

The 'more than 500 servers' is somewhat difficult, granted, but large
research labs (and large companies) often have that many (or more)
overall.  

I think a key issue is that Systems Administrators who have primarily
been on the Operational (or Deployment) side look at System Engineer job
descriptions, and they don't see 'How to get there from here' -- they
possess many of the operational skills, but they've never been in a
position to develop some of the developer/engineering skills.  
Those who have worked in health care, for example, understand the
pressures of real-time operations, but they tend to be focused on very
vertically integrated systems, and the total number of server systems is
actually fairly small.  In addition, health care tends to buy, not
build.

My take on Google is that their System Engineer positions are more like
Argonne, Oak Ridge, Wall Street, etc than they are like many System
Administration roles in other organizations. Google puts Engineering and
System Administration jobs on the same page, which blurs the lines
considerably.

The flip side of the 'I have an operational/deployment background' is
that those who may have worked in universities (in particular) may have
many of the technical skills, but they don't have enough of the large
scale operational skills (ie, they may understand large populations, but
the pressures of the real-time demands simply aren't the same in
academia as they are in industry). 

IMO this is a classic career issue.  At some point you may decide that
you want:
	1- to be more technical, and so you become a System Engineer (or
developer)
	2- to be more managerial, and so you become a Manager
	3- to be doing more of what you've been doing, so you either
change jobs or become a consultant (where the challenges come imposing
good practice and structure on the new environments).  
	4- to 'pass-it-on', and you become a teacher, trainer or author.

My conclusion: if you want to work for Google and your skillset doesn't
match up with what they are seeking, then figure out how to acquire
those skills.  Another idea might be to come to LISA 2004 and network --
I'm pretty sure I saw a Google employee or two at last year's LISA... ;)

Steven

-----Original Message-----

...
>                   Well, okay, I think the "more than 500 servers" 
> thing  is a little off-base, but apart from that?

	We had a variety of machines performing various functions for
the Internet mail gateway system at AOL, but as of the time I left that
was only around 100 systems.  I know of very few people that can meet
all the other requirements for this position, as well as having
experience administering clusters of 500 machines ore more -- maybe Lee
Damon, that's about it.

	Looking at Enterprise Systems Engineer, I don't think I could
meet any of the following criteria, and I don't know too many people who
could meet them all (plus the other requirements which I have not quoted
here):

		2+ years doing package management with Linux.
		Experience supporting and/or developing appliances.
		Extensive knowledge of TCP/IP networking, routers,
switches,
			and load balancers.
		Programming/scripting ability (Python, C/C++, JAVA).

--
Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.