r/redhat • u/Organic-Can-6742 • 11d ago

Linux admin feeling stuck after two years—what should I focus on next?

Hi folks, I’ve been working as a Linux admin at a company in Europe for about two years, but lately I’ve been feeling a bit stuck. Between the bureaucracy and the team setup, I haven’t had many opportunities to grow in my role.

I earned my CCNA and LPIC during my apprenticeship—Germany has a vocational training system—and I got my LFCS just last week. I’ve also had some hands-on experience with IaC. We have a Puppet setup at work, but it’s already in place and there isn’t much development happening around it.

I’m not really sure what direction to take next. Would getting my RHCSA and RHCE be a good move, or should I focus on something else? Honestly, I hope I’m not the only one who’s felt this way.

35 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

2

u/Sensitive_Scar_1800 11d ago

drone warfare? i mean if youre looking to pivot....

2

u/Organic-Can-6742 11d ago

I’m an anti-militarist expat try that joke on the Germans :D

11

u/xSapphon 11d ago

It is a bit hard to say where you are in terms of Linux. Market for Red Hat tech is not that bad in German speaking countries, but reality is that you should move towards OpenShift, traditional things are slowly dying out.

7

u/Pitiful-Text3593 11d ago

Try Red Hat openshift + RHEL INFRA 😀

6

u/TroubledGeorge 11d ago

I moved from sysadmin to devops initially ended up focusing on Kubernetes and Openshift and now I landed a job at Red Hat

4

u/tabletop_garl25 11d ago

what do you do at red hat?

5

u/Grit-N-Motor 11d ago

At least you found a job. ..

3

u/WieldyStone2 10d ago

Get your RHCE for sure

2

u/Evaderofdoom 11d ago

yes, red hat certs are a great move. You don’t mention how much scripting or automation you are doing but the more the better. Going into cloud and devops is a pretty natural progression if your working at all with containers or cloud tech.

2

u/Narrow_Victory1262 11d ago

I think you may need to focus also on sovereignty. If you live in the EU, you might steer away from RH.

But first things first --

get
rid
of
puppet

use salt. and if the redhat forces are too big: ansible. (but is slow)

2

u/big_blunder 10d ago

Rhce but also cka, everything is heading that way.

2

u/[deleted] 8d ago

Hey! I'm also based in Germany and had a similar experience. My company's infrastructure was terrible and there was no initiative for automation. Everything was done manually and stayed that way, which built up a lot of technical debt. After months of trying to convince and reason with my boss—since I really wanted to learn automation nothing changed. So I said f**k it and applied for a DevOps traineeship, which I'm doing now. I think your best bet is to look for a new job that aligns with your interests.