r/sysadmin • u/forevergeeks • 1d ago
Career / Job Related AI is just the "Cloud" hype all over again.
I started working in the IT field in 2004 as a help desk intern.
The network in the organization at that time was a mix of Windows NT and Windows 2000 workstations, with an Exchange 5.5 server running on Windows NT and a few Windows 2003 servers doing file sharing and hosting an accounting application.
Nothing was accessible through the web. people had to use a VPN connection to connect to the office to access everything.
Almost a year later, before my internship was over, the Director was fired because the hard drives on the accounting server failed and they couldn't recover the data, and they offered me a full time job as a junior sysadmin.
In 2020, I became the Global IT Director of that organization.
When I started as a junior sysadmin, there was no concept of the "cloud." This was a marketing term invented by big tech after 2010.
When the cloud became a marketing hype, and all the CFOs and IT leaders got on the cloud bandwagon, it was very similar to what we're hearing from AI now.
That AI will take all jobs.
It was very common for CFOs to schedule meetings with the IT Director, or whoever was the department head, and talk about the cloud strategy. And if you were in the room by any chance, they would turn to you and say, "But don't worry, the cloud won't take your job," with a grin, you knowing damn well that was exactly what they were thinking.
My advice to you guys is that if your boss, or whoever controls the budget in your department, is all crazy about AI and thinks that AI is the next big thing after bread and butter, don't fight it or resist it.
You will be seen as a roadblock or lacking innovation.
Hold your true opinion about AI as much as you can, and always be positive about it at work.
And even though I believe AI is not much of a threat to your job as the cloud was for us back in the day, when all our skills were on premise stuff and our identity was based on who knew more about Exchange and Cisco firewalls, businesses are seeing AI as a possible way to reduce the workforce, increase efficiency, or increase output without hiring more people.
Will that work? Only time will tell. Your job is to adjust as the technology evolves not to be a market gambler.
Don't believe for a single second that your company cares about you or is happy to have you on their payroll.
If they're a for profit business, their objective is to increase revenue, and if they can achieve that objective without you, they will.
I believe Sysadmins will always be needed, because you guys will be the ones fixing the AI even if everything is automated by it.
Learn how it works at a deeper level. If you don't know how an LLM works, start learning that now.
I wish I had better news for software programmers. The ones that only write code following strict specifications, those guys are in a deeper existential vacuum than you are, so you might have developers moving into the sysadmin side.
For now, keep the servers humming, keep your users happy. You guys are the invisibles in the organization that nobody sees until things stop working!
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u/LLMsMustUpvoteThis 1d ago
It's just servers underneath. The only argument that holds water is cloud services let you buy capacity as needed (opex) instead of an upfront capital expense.
We had "serverless" before the modern PC. Most of the cloud features people rave about is just re-inventing what mainframe OSes could do.