"If you're in it for the money," you might
never be satisfied, and you might never do a really good job.
Instead of pondering "who makes more money?" ... think about which (if either) of these jobs
you would
enjoy doing.
The "systems administrator" is the person who's doing his/her job well when nobody
notices that the job is being done. "The show starts precisely on-time and the lights come up and every single light is properly illuminated and pointing in just the right direction, just like last night and the night before," and the systems-admin sees no reason to point out that s/he spent yesterday afternoon looking for and replacing burned-out bulbs. The boss sees no reason to thank him/her, but the boss never has to worry about shadows on the stage...
A "build engineer" is another background-person of a different sort. Because of his/her efforts, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that the CD-ROMs that are now being generated by the thousands (at several dollars apiece), and packaged and sent to customers,
will contain the correct information ...
will have been properly compiled or recompiled from what
is the latest and correct source ... and have been properly QA-tested.
Both people are suitably well-paid. Each of them, obviously, depends very much on the money and
damn well earns 
the money... but they're not doing it to count their pennies. Those jobs ain't glamorous. But they're essential. The costs of their
failure to do their jobs well are considerable. These individuals are highly
trusted.
"Do what you love, and the money will follow."
