Greetings!

I'm recently thinking of changing my career from Electrical Engineering to Linux system administration. I have always had a desire to work with what I love, but I am not necessarily finding joy with hardware lately. I love Linux, I use it every day and have made it a priority to run Linux in an almost all Windows world (at least in my current field). I've been using Debian since Sarge, before that RH 7-9. I've been the sole sys. admin for a small company for almost 10 years in addition to my hardware design experience (although sys. admin was never official, just one of my hats). I have always used linux as my platform for scripting measurement control, automation, and hardware design (some proprietary unix softwares).

I recently (last year) obtained a RHCSA and RHCE certifications as I thought they might be useful. I would say I'm decently proficient in scripting and programming (I started with MATLAB and now use python, good complex matrix capability is important for my hardware design work). I have a MS in EE (RF).

So, I have experience but I don't know that I would call that professional experience. Ideally, I would like to find remote work so that I can work from home, I have my own dedicated office and lab. I don't have a good grasp for where I would fall in the experience category. I'm sure I'm lacking many data-center best practices, but probably excel in other areas.

Is this a bad idea to change carriers at this point? I suspect I will take a major pay cut, but I have no idea what it would be. I'm currently in the $90k area (Dallas, TX). I have a family to support, so I want to make the best decision possible.

If you are working as a Linux system admin., would you try to talk me out of this idea?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Kind Regards,

Welcome to LQ!!!

Yes it is true that you should do what you love to do but that is not always possible, not being pessimist just practical. Changing domain is tricky especially when you have spent around 10-15 years of your career in your current domain. I wouldn't say it is impossible but it will definitely be difficult

Like you said you have responsibilities and famility to support I wouldn't suggest jumping directly into new domain. Reason, it will make your nightmare of major pay cut become true. Usually when they look to hire someone at a higher level according to technical abilities as well as pay grade they expect that person to have real world experience. They would not only expect you to know Linux but how it can be integrated with different technolgies within the infra. These things you would only know when you have worked / handled such infra. So sudden change in the domain is a bad idea.

Instead what you can do is look for internal movement into Linux domain if it is at all possible in your current organization. If not then you might want to look for opportunities outside in the same domain (no domain change now). Once you get are able to get in, spent 2-3 years in the same domain and then request them to move you to the domain you like that is Linux. However, at the time of interview make sure you make them aware about your aspirations so that it will not come as a shock to them when you will ask them for the domain change after 2-3 years.

As you said you want to work from home I am not sure how much helpful it will be to get you an exposure. What I mean is when you operate from office you get the chance to interact with people from different teams. It gives you better chance to understand the infra as whole rather than just knowing your part in that infra. Though in today's world everything is done on email and chat but I personally feel that they can't compete with in-person interaction. I mean I personally don't like to get engaged in long emails and chat especially when it is about informal knowledge sharing. It is always good to have such discussion over the cup of coffee.

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Leave off the bit in the ()'s when you're telling people about that!

If you're doing the role, you're doing the role!

I'd just like to say that I moved from software development in to internet infrastructure admin based on "hobby" level Linux skill and it worked out just fine.

I was also lucky that in the software dev role I was being paid below market value so could transition at a similar pay point.

So good luck, it will happen if you make it, it just takes a bit of motivation to get out your comfort zone and go for it.

Try applying for jobs at or below your expectations and see how well you interview for them. Many companies want to do initial 1st round screening with a technical interview over the phone. In the company I'm with now this consists of 15 questions like "What is DNS", "What is an A record", "Describe each step between you typing a URL into a browser and the page displaying" "How would you get a count of the number of apache processes running on a server".

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All sound advice. You should always tailor your resume for a particular job and you have to sell yourself - so you can put as a bullet point that you have been the sole Linux sys admin for x years under your current position - for example.

Changing careers is always a risk, regardless of the job - unless you work for a company that is not financially stable and actually when it comes down to it, it is often possible to lose your job.

There are some questions to ask yourself:
- Is your current job secure? If it is then you need to be fairly careful and considered in pursuing a new opportunity.
- What is the minimum salary you would take? When you have a family and financial commitments, money may not be the most important thing in the world, but it's right up there with oxygen...
- If you turn a hobby into a living will that take away the enjoyment at all?

There is no harm in looking around though - if the perfect job comes up then great, if not, you have a good job still.

I can thoroughly recommend networking with people in the industry, even using a business/social networking site like LinkedIn (not sure if there are others on the same scale). This is how I got my current job - all I did was connect with pretty much everyone I met professionally, kept my profile up to date and I ended up getting offers. Getting a job through contacts without going through a formal application process really takes the pressure off and for example, I set out my "demands" (in a diplomatic way of course). Basically saying something like "I have a secure job, a family and so to give up the current job would have to worth my while".

You have to remember that when you are looking for a new role casually, you are in the driving seat - if you make demands and that turns the company away, that is good - it means that they were not willing to go the extra mile to take you on. It took me many years to realise that I am looking for a company to make me want the job, not that I want to do anything I can to impress them. In the past I said all the right things and ended up taking jobs that I didn't really want!

You will probably have a hard time if you are willing to take a pay cut to some extent as you may get lumbered with a low-rent job that you end up resenting. It seems like you have the skills and so you should only consider companies that recognize those skills - be confident in what you know you can do - don't look at it from a point of view of starting a new career from scratch!

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Little bit of a slap here, OK? I'm trying to be realistic, not snarky and cruel. But ... you want to change careers, maintain close to a 6 figure salary, and you want to work mostly from home. Gee ... not asking too much are you?

My personal perspectives, also having a family to support even though they are all adults:

1. Family members are there ... at home, and they bug me, hence I don't get much work done if I stay at home to "work" at home
2. Companies mostly want you "there" and especially if you support their employees, and some of my personal observances of people I know who do work remotely as IT professionals:
   1. They did once work as you do and now they're working at home, but not 40 hours and typically as a contractor
   2. They have "an agreement of some type" which is to say they were well thought of by their former employer, or somehow got a situation where some company was happy to use their skills under this agreement form and maintain that, likely also because they don't work and don't charge 40 hours
   3. When you talk to them you do wonder how much they actually "work", because it doesn't seem as if they do much, and further if the subject of future positions comes up they comment that they would never change what they have, they almost sound lazy beyond belief and not hungry for real work/career. Literally I've heard a person say that they could NEVER go back to driving into the office everyday and they were shocked that I suggested that when they started the conversation by saying that their contact would be up in 3 months. Hey, I merely suggested that they update their resume and start a job search ... silly me!
3. You don't have years and volumes of Linux IT experience or other IT experience, hence your skills are not much in demand
4. The grass is not always greener

OK done with my soap box.

You've been working for many years, have a family and likely a home, so you know the deals in life and can evaluate what works best for you. A suggestion that I like, at least if it were me, would be to obtain a position where I could employ my existing skill set, but also expand that skill set in various ways. It's also a bit of a mindset as well as responsibility, and also the right situation. What I mean by that is I have worked for 25+ years in my field, I am an EE graduate, I've never done hardware design, but employed my degree training in my work, I've been software really the entire time. However due to my seniority in places, I'm expected to take on groundbreaking technical efforts, in fact expected to think, research, and define technical directions so that when comes the time to turn out a new product, I'm up to speed on technologies, design methods, languages, basically ready to do relevant new work and drive the direction of a product line, or a major product. But as a result, I do have the leash and license to get out there and explore entirely new technology arenas. To recenter my point, I'm saying that as a senior contributor wherever you are now, you should be able to take on a new talent such as IT support and also maintain your current role.

The litmus test then becomes if you sit there, read about those concepts, and then say "Well, I'm not doing that if they're not going to pay me extra for that!", then forget what I said. Good luck though!

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I think working from home is a big subject in itself although it need not be.

The two main aspects are:

1. Your personal circumstances - are you able to work undisturbed at home? Do you have all of the equipment you need?
2. What is the work from home relationship with the company? Some are allow remote working from day 1. Other companies have the ability to let you work from home occasionally (e.g. you need to go to the dentist so you want to work from home) - over time as you build up trust, you may be able to more often say "I want to work from home 2 days this week".

I think most companies allow working from home in some way, but often for the exceptions. Working for an international company may grant the most flexible working conditions as you may have to work with teams in different geographic locations so there is often little point in going into the office unless they have better facilities than you have at home. This is the case for me - I work with teams in other locations and in the past I would travel and stay in hotels which was very expensive - now I save time and money (for the company and for clients) by working from home. I could go into the office but:

1. The internet is way slower than at home
2. Cell phone coverage is poor (just the building)
3. It is much noisier and I get disturbed a lot more
4. I can either start work much earlier or get some personal chores done before work starts instead of leaving it for the weekend!

For me, working from home was a fairly big deal so I looked at technology companies that are geared up for remote working as the norm.

About the ethics of working from home versus going into the office: You don't necessarily know what someone is up to at home, but their hours should be tracked and results should be coming in - deadlines hit etc. If work is not being delivered then you have a problem. In the office, it is actually easier to hide time wasted. I could go into the office and chat about football for 2 hours per day - nobody would think I was messing around because I am in the office therefore I am at work. The thought of someone at home spending 2 hours of work time doing something other than work would be considered very dishonest. It is about perceptions and trust. As an individual it really does not matter that much as long as you get the situation you want.

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My personal "take" on this OP is that ... a person who so-far as been pursuing "electrical (wires, resistors, things ...) engineering," this being a generally credentialed profession requiring advanced college degrees ... unexpectedly wants to take a 253º shift in his [so-far, "hard-won"] career path to become ... "a [mere] Linux administrator?"

"Uh huh, you-bet that I am now confused-as-hell," and it goes without saying that every prospective hiring-manager would feel exactly the same. (The obvious "solution" to such a "I don't even wanna know ..." can-of-worms is to move the resumé to that pile, without comment. After all, "I just wanna buy a competent joe."

It seems that the real "motivating factor" here ... is "the desire to work from home."

Okay, no problem, got that. (I've been "working from home" for most of my (three decades plus ...) career, and oh-by-the-way it ain't a bed of roses.)

If you are seriously contemplating a major career-change, it's pretty-much just a recipe for disaster to say, "the other side of <<the fence>> looks tastier, therefore, [drop everything and ...] go there." If you are very lucky, Arthur Miller will write a play about you. Otherwise, you will simply starve.

Somehow, you need to cast your future aspirations in [positive ...] light of your to-date career path, and do so in a way that will actually pique the interest of an otherwise-bored hiring manager who is trolling through a stack of equally-anonymous resumes.

"Yeah, you bet. It's a sales objection." Do you even know how to "put on your salesman's hat" and play "this game?" . . .

Uhhh... Have you ... in all of your wire-focused career path so far ... ever learned anything about "this game?" The game of selling?

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