Starting with running a 24x7x365 e-commerce site, to supporting cable operators with revenue impacting problems, to preparing technical demos for trade shows, being a systems administrator has given me great insight into the operations of many different applications.

• MisterArt.com (e-commerce site)
• Trade show engineer

MisterArt.com

MisterArt.com taught me how all the different components fit together to create a complete application. This allowed me to get to the root cause of a problem much quicker than if only knowing one part of the system. Also running a web site that needs a high level of availability also taught me to err on the side of caution. Making sure everything was tested and retested before implementing.

Trade show engineer

At this position I got to setup many different types of applications:

• VoIP
• Internet Applications
• Cable System Applications

These varied applications really gave me insight into the different problems and technologies they use, allowing me to expand my understanding of all these different types of solutions.

Conclusion

The greatest skill I learned from being a systems administrator was troubleshooting. Troubleshooting when you understand the end-to-end system becomes much easier. This skill greatly increased my abilities in my other roles. For instance my troubleshooting skills are invaluable when developing. If there is a problem in the code that I am working on, I can usually find it quickly. This frees me up to spend more time creating and less time hunting for bugs.