I started in help desk more than 15 years ago, spent several years as a Linux system administrator, and then moved into programming, infrastructure as code, DevOps, cloud engineering, and SRE. For the past decade I've mostly worked at startups wearing many hats.
I still know the fundamentals of physical infrastructure: wiring closets, cable termination, server racking, provisioning, and troubleshooting. However, it has been more than ten years since I worked regularly with physical servers, and I haven't used enterprise VMware or SAN products outside of a home ESXi lab. My recent experience has involved AWS, automation, large Elasticsearch and MongoDB clusters, and infrastructure management across thousands of machines.
The cloud and DevOps market seems extremely difficult right now, and I'm having trouble getting interviews even for help desk or sysadmin roles. I'm willing to take a lower salary to get working again, but I'd prefer not to discard the experience I've built.
Would it make sense to target traditional sysadmin, infrastructure, platform engineering, network, or security roles? Are on-premises and colocation jobs any more stable than cloud positions? I'm also considering Security+ and possibly moving toward cloud security or DevSecOps. I recently lost a sysadmin opportunity because I lacked direct SAN and enterprise VMware experience, despite having managed much larger and more complex cloud and distributed systems. How is the market treating everyone else right now?
5 Answers
Your background is stronger than a typical sysadmin profile, so I wouldn’t lead with help desk applications. Target infrastructure engineering, SRE, platform engineering, cloud engineering, and cloud security roles. It took me about ten months and roughly a hundred carefully tailored applications to land an Azure Engineer position, with only a small number of interviews. Certifications weren’t required because I could demonstrate substantial hands-on Azure and Microsoft 365 experience.
The market is rough in a lot of places, not just for cloud engineers. In the UK, people are staying put unless they have to move, while companies leave vacancies open and expect existing teams to absorb the work. That makes fewer positions available even when organizations have aging infrastructure and experienced staff approaching retirement.
That seems to be happening everywhere: sometimes it’s lower demand, but often it’s simply cost cutting and assigning more responsibilities to the people who remain.
Don’t assume you need to start over. Your automation, Linux, infrastructure-as-code, distributed systems, and compliance experience can transfer well into platform engineering and DevSecOps. Kubernetes is common in platform postings, but you can build enough practical familiarity with a small local lab or lightweight cluster without buying a large cloud environment. Security work involving PCI, HIPAA, SOC 2, identity, and cloud controls may also be a better fit than entry-level security roles.
Kubernetes is the main gap I keep running into. I had limited exposure at my last job but was laid off shortly after the rollout, so I never got deep operational experience. I’m interested in cloud security because I’ve spent years around SaaS security and compliance, but getting that first role still seems difficult.
The market is favoring people who can connect multiple areas together rather than candidates who only know one narrow tool. Your experience across Linux, cloud, automation, databases, compliance, and large-scale infrastructure is valuable, but your resume may be getting filtered because it looks too senior for help desk and not specific enough for narrowly defined sysadmin roles. Tailor each version toward the actual job, and be ready to explain any gaps in VMware, SAN, or Kubernetes without minimizing the scale of what you have done.
Network engineering may be another direction worth exploring. Infrastructure fundamentals, troubleshooting, automation, and cloud networking are useful there, and demand can be steadier than some startup-focused DevOps work. You may need to present your networking background honestly, though—experience with cabling, patching, and physical troubleshooting is valuable, but it isn’t the same as several years of configuring enterprise Cisco environments.
I’ve worked as a network technician doing patching, toning, and related tasks, but I haven’t held a dedicated network engineering position. I may still apply selectively, especially where the role combines networking with systems or automation.
That matches what I’m seeing. Azure may be worth adding because some employers seem to have fewer qualified candidates there than in AWS, although it’s frustrating how job postings now treat exact tool experience as a hard requirement.