Enticing Sys Admins to Small Net Jobs

[nickninevah]

Hello all,

I work at a small engineering company (25 users). We currently use an outside consultant for part time IT services. At this point, we pay the consultant enough that we could just hire a full time sys admin. But several people at the company are worried that anyone we hire will get bored and move on.

So I open it to the sys admins of the forum. Would you get bored in such a small company? (This is not a job advertisement. Just a question for general feedback.) I accept that we may have to hire a new sys admin every five years or so. But I would really like to know what sys admins seek in their ideal job.

Let me also describe our company a little. We are an engineering company. only 25 users. Most user will ask a variety of tier I type questions. Installing new software, pointing our the correct options in MS office, that sort of thing. But we also have a few advanced users, who ask very specific questions and frequently challenge hardware performance and network optimization. Some particulars about us:
- Running windows network, active directory
- 3 main physical servers with VMware virtual servers
- SAN storage network. One primary SAN host, with a mirrored host
- Small high performance computing cluster for advanced computations
- Nightly backups, using a mixture of local harddrives, removable drives swapped offsite, and internet backup service

So I ask you. Would a sys admin be bored at this job? Ideally, we need someone who can watch our network like a hawk and maintain stability. We need a guy with the free time to run diagnostics and do preventative maintenance before they turn into a problem. Someone who is willing to search for creative solutions that minimize our hardware costs, but who will have the time to do that research.

Is this the type of job that would fit a middle career sys admin? Or would everyone find this job boring? Looking for some feedback on what makes a sys admin happy in their job. Thanks.

Based on our user workload, I think this would be maybe 70% of a full time job, once everything was smoothed over.

 

[iParanormalx]

I think a smaller company gives a more personalized approach. Rather than getting bored I'd think it might be nicer; rather than getting calls with random people you hardly know asking for help its likely that after a while he would know all the names and faces.

I would venture to say if you find the right person that grows a passion for your company that position and the relationships made from it could foster good growth and stability for your organization.

tl;dr - Its more about the person you find than the position that will be filled.

 

[Lexluethar]

I don't think someone would get bored, in fact you may run into the opposite - it may be too broad for some sys admins.

In a lot of mid to large size companies people are silo'ed into groups, where you generally work on the same technology day-to-day dealing with the same problems and projects. At a smaller company it's the opposite - you deal with everything from reimaging a desktop computer to implementing SCCM from the ground up.

I'm in the middle, where i don't deal with 100% of the stuff at my work but i touch 90% of it.