Since this is my first post, I’ll start with a little background. I have been in the UNIX community since 1989 professionally. I worked at that time at Digital Equipment Corporation supporting the Ultrix operating system. This is where I learned most of the fundamentals of what UNIX was, how it worked and the guts behind the shell. I learned C programming and system calls, and the various aspects of building, patching, and troubleshooting UNIX problems. I had considered becoming a device driver writer or kernel engineer back in those days, however when I left Digital in 1992 to look for a job outside in the real world I realized that the market for kernel engineers at the time was not so great. And the market for Ultrix was even less.
The recruiter I was working with made it fairly clear that I needed other skills like Sun, IBM or HP to make it in the commercial world. Which sounded reasonable – so I made it my goal to diversify. That is probably the best decision I made – somewhat out of necessity. But it was a similar approach that I have used over the last 20 years that has allowed me to keep current.
Over the course of the last 10 years I’ve had to switch jobs 7 times, some lasting only 2 months as a contractor and as long as 5 years as a full-time employee. This unfortunate circumstance has also been a good thing in a way because I was able to keep practiced in my interviewing techniques, and refine my resume so that it gets attention. It also taught me the second valuable lesson. Your resume is very important in getting jobs quickly. Your ability to interview only comes into play AFTER you get past resume review.
In these blogs, I hope to shed some very important lessons I have learned as a Senior UNIX Professional. I hope you enjoy the insights I plan to share.
Senior Linux Professional 101 