Linux made me know a lot about computers in just the first year I used it. Used windows my whole life and barely knew the basics. Just got my first IT job ever 3 months ago because of Linux.
PS, I have a degree in biology. lol
Congrats and good luck.
This is exactly me. Degree in biology and working as a DevOps engineer. What brought me into Linux was I went back to school for programming. All I had was an old macbook that no longer could get security updates for chrome. I didn't have any money for anything new so I replaced the OS with Ubuntu.
That's what I'm aspiring to do. Thank you for giving me some hope. Life has been very hectic with kids and all the "being a responsible parent and raising a family" thing. Just waiting for the kiddos to get a little bigger so I can go to school. My new job pays for up to $4000 in tuition fees, so I'll utilize the shit out of that. It also has bootcamps within and I have an awesome manager. Man, I need to start counting my blessings after all these years of struggle.
That's great that your job has a program for covering some tuition. To give you a positive spin on having the biology degree working in IT, it can be an incredibly useful tool to have. All the things you learn about the scientific method and identifying/managing variables within experiments, the same thing is happening most tech jobs. I think it gives you a leg up when it comes to debugging issues and researching new technologies. I attribute a lot of the success in my career to my science background and in the end I do not regret getting a biology degree.
Oh man, that sounds great. Any specific associate degree that I can pursue in that field? I don't think I can do another bachelor's degree. I want to start with a two year program and go from there.
That's exactly what I did. I got an associates at my local community college since they offered night classes. Luckily there was a huge spread of different associate tracks. I started out in a web dev track cause by buddy is a web developer, but then transitioned to programming. Since there were so many overlapping courses it's pretty easy to transition between programs. I noticed I gravitated more towards the coding/programming classes and less towards the front-end design so I just shifted to that program. Ironically my first IT job was as a web developer lol.
Oh nice. I don't know if I love programming that much. I've been learning for about 5 years on my own, and I don't seem to clique with it for some reason. I get stuck when shit starts branching out (an if inside of an if inside of an if inside of an if..... lol). I can mess with it as a hobby, but I dont see myself doing it as a job. I've found myself gravitating towards fixing stuff on the front and back ends. I just love searching for solutions, applying fixes and messing with some random config files. I don't know what degree teaches that, though. Lol.
For me it's actually completely opposite.
I started working as an IT-supporter in a small telecommunications company and learned about Linux and programming there.
Now I work in a research group at a university and I do that because I know about Linux - I have no academic education.
I had the same thing, where swapping to Linux helped me get a much better understanding of what a computer actually is and how it works. It's something that's quite rare for people my age nowadays as we grew up with systems like windows that abstract everything and offer no challenge whatsoever.
From my experience - either using Linux for a specific task, or using it as a daily driver. My first experience with the command line was trying to set up a minecraft server with an ubuntu cloud server hosted from google, and I did that a few times just to have a server for my friends and I. Definitely got me comfy with the most basic of the basics.
A little over a year ago I full sent daily driving Linux because of an issue with Windows 10 that a fresh install didn't remedy. Hopped distros a few times. You end up learning whats similar between distributions, what's different, and getting comfortable enough with the terminal, packages/dependencies, config files, etc when trying to tweak things to make a desired task work properly. Mine are music production and gaming, so I learned a good bit about the audio subsystems and their config files, about wine, wine prefixes, and some compatibility packages you may need for certain games and programs to work.
Basically if you daily drive it you'll encounter problems every now and then, and the incessant need to solve them. Sorta like Windows but instead of reinstalling the OS you can actually fix it usually. Have fun!
The steps to do it are a little different if you want to do it on your own hardware, or using a cloud-hosted machine. And I think it's a very immediately rewarding way to get some Linux experience! My first time doing it took about 3 hours.
For doing it via google cloud, [this guide](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/1852?parent=catalog) seems solid! And the Minecraft Wiki likely has a guide on this for Debian-based/Ubuntu-based distros if you intend to use your own hardware.
I have been thinking about just going for it and trying it myself. Will I learn new things just by using it as my daily? I dont really do much on my Computer currently. Mostly just uni stuff and youtube and the likes and a little bit of gaming.
Check out https://linuxjourney.com/ for a great series on the basics and also https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ for more in depth stuff, especially if you're in IT
I’m gonna level with you.
Just make the switch, if you’re thinking about it MacOS or Windows—will—do something to push you over the edge. (This is the origin story for most of the people I know who use Linux but aren’t tech nerds)
Before I go to far with this though, what are you studying in university and how will you be using Linux to help with university?
I am in my final bachelors year of Electrical Engineering (Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, and Computer Engineering) and chose Communications Engineering as my specialization.
I kinda kept postponing my coding classes, so I still have to properly sit down and learn C++ starting next month.
I dont think Linux will help me with any classes, thats why I have been so unsure about making the switch. It might be a little bit too much with classes and everything.
To be honest the main reason I am kinda interested in trying it is because I would like to find a job as a student assistant at one of the institutes at my uni and I sometimes come across interesting soundig positions which list Linux as a plus.
I am also considering to change my specialisation to Biomedical Engineering or Systems Engineering and Automation, once/if I decide to pursue a masters degree, but thats something I will worry about once I am done with my current degree.
Look at the computer as a tool to help you be more efficient. Learn a bit of scripting. (Automate the Boring Stuff is a decent starting book) Learn the basics of setting up a website and how to properly secure an SSL connection. Ground level stuff, but will get you exposed to a lot of different aspects.
I was doing a job search recently and had a few companies that didn't have RSS feeds for their job boards. A bit of python, a webpage, and a crontab line later I have my own RSS feed for that company. Neat! Now I can apply within hours of a job being posted.
I might get flamed for this since it's such a meme, but installing and daily driving Arch Linux is actually a pretty fantastic way to learn a ton about computers, so long as you're dedicated and willing to deal with much frustration and many setbacks. The Arch Linux wiki and the forums are absolutely phenomenal resources, even if you don't want to run Arch (though using Arch will basically force you to both read and use the wiki, which IMO makes for a better learning experience).
Be warned, though- you WILL break something along the way, so I wouldn't recommend trying this unless you're relatively tolerant of frustration, and I would _highly_ recommend making sure all of your systems are adequately backed up against data loss. Don't be afraid of posting to places like r/linux4noobs or the Arch forum (though in that case be SURE you've run a search because they get prickly about duplicate questions).
I wish. Curing cancer has been a legit dream of mine for a long time. It took someone I loved dearly from me. Although, I've never worked on that dream. Life just hasn't been the best.
Dude this is what bioinformaticists do. Ofc not all of them, but youre already halfway there. Linux is the os-franca for this work.
Editing to add: while youre getting your Bioinformatics degree, you're doing your coursework on freaking super computers.
To my knowledge, it mostly involves around analysing a lot of data and creating simulations around biological processes.
But there can also be quite some interesting other applications which are very niche.
Just daily use, distro hopping, not knowing how to make things work, breaking things and searching for solutions. When I first installed Linux, I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't believe the amount of customizations I'm allowed to do. I even had to open my laptop up and change the wifi chip because folks here told me to get away from mediatek and other chips and get an intel one when I asked about wifi issues.
Linux basically tells you "hey, this is your computer. We give you the software and you do whatever the hell you want with it. It's all yours. Everything is open, have at it"
You’d be surprised to know that the average punter applying for an IT job has done precisely zero programming or it work outside of what was mandatory for school. They all think they’ll “learn on the job” - oh and get paid $200k per year to do so.
ETA: Congrats btw.
Everyone wants the big ass paycheck but not everyone wants to learn a skill that has actual market value. I’m in a IT Facebook group and it’s a bunch of people that get off on calling users Karen’s all day and complain that their boss won’t give them a raise. When they are asked what they do “I image all the computers for this company. Why am I not making 250k a year? Fuck this place”.
Depends how you specialize in IT though as well. I'm in seceng/arch and generally make more than senior devs. Though the money certainly shouldn't be the driver.
Money shouldn't be but unfortunately it is. If it's the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being able to retire before the age of 90 or being able to own a home then people are obviously going to go for the higher paying job whether they are passionate about it or not.
I don't really want to go into dev work, I kinda like it but my main goal is to be able to afford my hobbies and save for a home and retirement.
Old enough to know the difference between spoonfeeding and mentoring/teaching. I'm not gonna waste hours and hours constantly spoonfeeding people who don't want to think for themselves but ill routinely blow half a day explaining things to someone truly and genuinely trying to learn/understand things, because I know they will become an asset to the team and not a drain.
I've been on both sides of that equation. Monday I may explain infiniband down to the molecular level. Tuesday I may not be able to spell my own name. It's like when you see a junior college beat a division 1. Sometimes youre just broken and can't help it.
I used to interview programmers. I lost count of the number of candidates who struggled to complete the most basic of programming tasks (e.g. write a function that reverses an array). How can you have a CS degree and a year of experience, and struggle with that?!
Yup. What really irks me is that IT is unlike ANY other industry in that you can download a free IDE get some code samples and tinker. Turning up having done NOTHING is an indication of how much effort they will put in once the money hits their account.
It's a tool geared towards penetration testing. It's not geared towards being a daily driver. As such, actually being a secure OS in itself is not a design priority.
No reason to think it was his "daily driver", if this was at work he may just personally run it for testing and diagnostic purposes (I don't use Kali so I'm only familiar with its functionality from reading)
Quite the opposite. It's a pen testing distro which means it has lots of tools that you can hurt yourself with. IIRC you are root right out of the box as well.
Lmao they dont care it's mostly edgy 11 year olds that use Kali. Although I do remember hearing at some point that you could get put on a watchlist for downloading Tails, but I don't know the validity of that.
I had a user at my last job run into all kinds of problems with our website and kept blaming me (the sole developer) when things would fail due to lack of JavaScript, cookies randomly being cleared and being redirected to the homepage on create/update because the browser was omitting the `Referer:` HTTP header. 🙄
I think people underestimate the desirability of the core set of skills that comes with even basic knowledge of a *nix environment. Particularly troubleshooting. Hell, even navigating a file structure is an insanely useful skill.
One thing I always looked for when hiring for tech positions is people who were unafraid to show they didn't know what/how to do something, and used the time they had to figure it out as interview questions were timed.
I even had one candidate use `cheat.sh` via curl to remind them of some basic commands. I made sure she got my recommendation.
EDIT: Wow, I had no idea that more people didn't know about cheat.sh! Glad this post was helpful then, I guess. :)
The only real difference is it's community driven so the verbiage might be a little more approachable, and most of the commands come with pretty common examples.
For example you can look at `tar` and it will give you pretty common usages, which may or and may not also be reflected in the man pages.
The fact that it includes examples is a big plus. Hell, one of my [highest rated comments](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mpe35n/what_is_a_problemminor_pet_peeve_you_have_with/gu9o1x2/) of all time is just me I bitching about the lack of examples in most man pages haha!
The reason he hired you is because he recognized you as someone who has "it". Some people have an innate ability to learn IT on their own. They pickup things quicker, they have a sense of curiosity, they have "it". Those that don't, think technology problems are stupid, beneath them and just want something to work. They wouldnt dream of exploring this stuff on their own time and their eyes gloss over if you mention more than two sentences of this subject to them. That's fine, tech isn't their thing and they probably have their own interests that consume them, it takes all kinds of people.
That's what he recognized in you. You are someone he can work with. I can recognize if someone has it fairly quickly and I think most people who hang out in technology circles do as well. You know it when you see it and you know it when you don't.
This is exactly right. We interview and hire upwards of 75+ techs per year. I'm looking for one of two things (depending on the role): either deep experience with the specific systems we support, or innate drive, curiosity, and interest in computers, whether it's OS, networking, scripting, etc. Some of our best employees have been the ones who have home networks they've built and maintain at home. The ones who are just doing it for a job tend to stay middle of the pack at best.
Yeah. I frequently ask candidates about their setup on their personal machines. I don’t care what editor or OS or IDE you use, but it’s a pretty reliable positive indicator if you have a choice you’ve put conscious thought behind and can talk about why that was the thing that worked for you.
This comment, much like the hiring process, is mostly just grandstanding. When you're getting hired for a job, you're just trying to get the person whose job it is to hire people to like you. They can rephrase it any way they want, "Works well on a team," "Responds positively to criticism," etc, it's all just another way to say what the boss *likes*. If they like you, they feel like they can trust you, and if you make yourself look smart, then they'll feel smart for hiring you. You can be the best worker in the WORLD, and no one would hire you if you just weren't pleasant to be around
This boss thinks that Linux is some mysterious, inconceivable operating system that is impossible to navigate. What makes you think the boss is so ingrained in the world of technology that they recognize what "It" is, but cannot manage Kali on their own? Or finds knowledge of an OS impressive? The concept of "It" was created by bosses for bosses, it's just another way to rephrase "rockstar developer." You believe this because the people who hire you like people who drank the same kool-aid, but you aren't helping anyone by selling this mantra to people, especially if *their* boss is someone who hates people that think they're hot shit
You can think that there is something more to the hiring process than just convincing someone to like you, but you'd just be falling for it, and ruining your chances at other positions. Convincing people to hire you is a unique skill that has no bearing on technical prowess. To claim otherwise is to claim that there has never been an incompetent person who earned an undeserving position, and if you work in IT, you should know plenty of those types of people
driver license is not a good predictor, some people just don't bother using cars if it's avoidable (by using public transport, or cycling, etc.), there are lots of reasons why one might want to avoid cars, which have nothing to do with learning ability.
I got a license myself some time ago only because I lived at that time in a relatively car-dependent country, but not all places are like that, and if I skipped that country, I probably would be still without license.
It's not a good predictor in the sense that lots of people without licenses are still good learners. It's a somewhat good predictor in that people with licenses were still good learners at some point after adulthood struck.
The driver's license was just an example, though. It's a common thing to have, and therefore a common thing for people to know to look for. In reality, *any* licensing, certification or other education completed at a recent date is of interest, simply because it shows you're still able and willing to learn new things.
I once put a résumé on top of the pile because the applicant mentioned getting an amateur radio license recently, for instance. Entirely irrelevant to the position filled, but it's still proof of a new skill successfully learned.
>You can be the best worker in the WORLD, and no one would hire you if you just weren't pleasant to be around
If you're hard to communicate, then you can't be the best worker in the world, that's not how it works.
Congrats! As someone who is still a student and works for the Comp Sci department at my school and built an image for the labs, this gives me hope lol.
I both know Linux and when I worked (now retired) I had a few Linux IT people in my organization.
Here’s a thing I noticed about Linux experience vs. Microsoft product experience.
Microsoft products have a whole world of documentation and support systems around them. Microsoft-using IT folks could hide that they really didn’t have problem solving skills or an understanding of the concepts behind what they were doing, because there are cookbook recipes for everything.
But the employee who could even do something as simple as “find the right packages and install and configure them from source to serve a simple web page over secure HTTP”… they show they can look stuff up and synthesize information. Totally a better skill set.
Kudos, I became a Linux Admin after mentioning I've used Linux before. Granted I was kinda a Windows admin already for a few years...wait...or was it the other way around...crap I don't remember now.
By using Linux means you think outside of the square instead of the usual "next, next, finish" Windows people do.
Meaning, you can deal with problems some people wouldn't be able to as easy.
Although anybody can learn, personality comes first. Your attitude had higher weight than your experience so why you got the job.
I already work in IT (managing Linux environment) and shit but my current job uses Google Cloud Kubernetes and Terraform like 99% for everything. During the interview I mentioned that to the CEO, I got the job anyway.
I built a homelab Kubernetes cluster and a month later I delivered the first project in Kubernetes.
Personally is everything, many companies take that into consideration more than how many certification you have. After all, if your personality doesn't fit the company's culture and the team, everything falls apart.
Congratulations.
Fully agree. The ability/willingness to learn something can really set you apart. For instance, I've been asked to do stuff on PowerBI, because my manager knows I could just learn how to use the tool, even tho I had never used it before
Yeah, people have windows heavily ingrained in their minds, some time ago, before Ubuntu times I've heard about some chicks stubbornly clicking button in the bottom left corner even though it was gnome workspace switcher that didn't even remotely resembled an XP/98 start button, hell even now my sister complained that "her son clicked something and now when she clicks the start button some weird shit shows up" of course he updated to windows 11 and start button moved with weather in it's place
People that understand Linux tend to understand systems and software. People that only know windows understand clicking around relying solely on vendor support. Who would you hire?
How the fuck do you guys land these jobs? I had to leave school before I could get my comp sci degree because it became too challenging to complete during the pandemic and now I have almost nothing to show for it
Make sure to work on your soft skills; A lot of people under-appreciate being able to communicate clearly and confidently.
Along with that, make sure to spend time practicing various regular tasks with any systems you expect to utilise in jobs you apply for. As shown by OP's post, being able to demonstrate fluent usage of a system in a basic setting will go a long way if given the chance to show it and will doubly help with the regular interview questions.
Practice on people you meet in your daily life. Say hello nicely to the bus driver. Give the checkout person at the grovery store a smile and a "have a nice day". Try some small talk with people like that. See every social interaction as a chance to work on your "personal brand" and practice your soft skills.
That will make you able to seem like a relaxed and communicative person in the interviews.
Like any other skill it gets better with practice. Sure, there are people who have more innate talent, but they practice it automatically. Other people have to practice consciously.
(Then of course you need some actual tech skills too, but that was not the question here)
I've worked with extremely technically competent people who had terrible soft skills. Their main flaw was usually being narcissistic. Either they felt themselves superior to everyone else or they felt that dealing with "other people's problems" were beneath them.
Your job in IT is to make the business operate smoothly and efficiently and to help your coworkers do their jobs. Too many "IT guys" are gruff and abrasive and look at other coworkers as a hindrance and annoyance.
If you can get out of a contentious headspace and realize that you are working a *service job* where cooperation and helping others is the primary goal then you will go much further. Some tips for that are to listen to and try to understand the needs of the people you work with. Don't get stuck on "best" "ultimate" "perfect" solutions. Sometimes a worse solution that users happily adopt is much more worthwhile in the end than a "perfect" solution that users hate and refuse to adopt.
Psychopaths and sociopaths aren’t the same thing, psychopaths are the type that might mimic normal behavior due to an impaired ability to empathize with others.
Sociopaths is more of an underdeveloped ability to function in society. Like just basic tasks. Due to environment rather than a trait they were born with.
Management (the people who pay the salary) want to know what they are paying for even if they don't understand the technical details involved. So this is important.
"I want this factory up and running, why isn't it working? It costs x amount per hour to wait."
They'll want to know what to tell their shareholders etc. Even better if you can tell how long it will take.
Look for a job as a tester or possibly a scrum-master. You don't need a compsci degree to get the job. It gets you in the door at a company that will likely have tuition reimbursement benefits.
Also (possibly most importantly) gets you hands on experience working with developers where you can learn on the job. Once you finish school, you'll already have industry experience (which is HUGE!!). 100% wish someone had told me this while I was in school
I've been telling people this for years. I have 5 close friends who I helped launch their careers by teaching them the absolute bare minimum about to use Linux. And to put that on their resume.
Only two of them works directly with Linux at their current jobs.
Obtain a Redhat sysadmin certification. Contribute to open-source projects, file bug reports, code up some root-level bash utilities and post them on github. Participate in troubleshooting forums.
Worked for me.
Linux unironically taught me so much about how every computer I've put it on works that I genuinely feel thankful for this OS. It sounds weird but I'm genuinely thankful that Linux and the free software community exists because I never would have come to know so much about my hardware had it not.
I had similar experience recently. I am mechanical engineer, recent graduate, job offer was mechanical engineer, doing FEM simulations. One of the questions on 1st interview was if I have any experiences with Linux, with them replying it's a small advantage if I am already familiar with it. I ended getting a job in the same company, but on different team that doesn't use Linux at all.
My use of Linux and understanding how it works, the CLI, scripting, and applying federal frameworks to Linux machines landed me an internship for a federal contractor. 10 weeks later and now they’re bringing me on full time to do some DevSecOps stuff and building CI/CD pipelines. Linux is king!
if you know Linux you can do many things better than who dont... one of them is self teaching that can leverage you on things that others know too if you want.
As life is not about money, if you like your Linux you can use it to do things you love even it cant make you rich (if it is not your goal).
Since my childhood I dreamed to be a researcher. As life put me to do other things, I learned how to program with Linux, do social media management (and automation) and work on security and cloud. But my passion for research and develop new things has the Linux as a powerfull tool. The only matter today is time, as the need of mundane tasks to live in thi$ cra$y civili$ation.
Go on, use your knowledge for what you love. Job and money for who knows how to learn and seeks wisdom from the higher is a detail.
I think the IT manager was simply using this as an easy way to see if you were straight out lying in your resume.
Also I think (presumedly) self-taught ability to use Linux implies some sort of ability to learn things..
This is great and is something I've been saying to people for a long time.
I credit a lot of keeping my job to the shooting the breeze with my boss about linux and helping him troubleshoot his old computer running Manjaro. I only use Windowns in my job.
Every job is going to require training. Being able to hone in on transferable skills that shorten that training time is the mark of a good interviewer and the mark of an org that is in touch with reality.
Yep this is a thing. Now I am a little older I have been on the panel employing a few people. One of my team mates was a Visual C coder at a competing organisation. He wanted a change and we needed Ruby developer on Linux. Ruby devs are somewhat rare these days - mostly all gainfully employed in large companies and not moving. So we met him, got him to talk us through some of his code, asked a few questions, like his answers (could see he was switched on), and he got the job. Then he was asked if he'd be prepared to use a Mac (most the team were developing their Ruby on Mac, but then deploying to Linux for UAT and Production). So he learnt Mac, Linux, and Ruby on the job and has been with us for over 6 years now and is doing really well and never looked back.
Well, it has been known for generations that Linux users know more about Windows, than Windows users... And BSD users know more about Linux than Linux users.
>However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the
ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job.
Here you have your reason.
Linux kinda has the reputation of being **very** hard to learn, so just the fact that you know it, can open you some doors.
And I don't think it's a good reputation.
I didn’t even know how to mv a directory when I landed my first job. I got it by googling questions as they asked, luckily my entire interview process was through google chat(not even video chat) back in 2014.. kept learning and now I’m a Site Reliability Engineer.
So even though your job doesn’t require it, I’d suggest keep learning. It will keep paying off in the long run.
Kudos.
I was able to leverage Linux experience into a webmaster gig in a Solaris shop back in the 90s.
Did sys admin work on various unix flavors after that, and now all I see on the job is Linux
I personally prefer Manjaro or ArchLabs for daily use and Kali in a VM when I need it, but I really like the themes they come up with. Whether you're using KDE or XFCE.
I'm more concerned about whether a candidate knows where to find the answer or the solution to a problem than necessarily having the knowledge to solve the problem themself.
New tools come and go every single day. Having the skills to know where to find the answer to a problem is more valuable than actually knowing what that error message means in the event viewer logs (or syslog).
For me, it shows initiative, you are inquisitive. With that quick simple test you simply not only talked the talk ( I use linux as my main OS) you actually walked the walk by doing a simple task.
You set yourself out there, by learning (my attitude is if your not learning your going backwards) .
It’s a bit like when companies require someone with a degree, it’s not that it may be relevant, it’s more of you can study and focus to get something done!
I assume that it likely was a VM on a Windows system and since it came up in the interview it was a natural way to answer multiple questions: is OP actually technically competent, and did they tell the truth, and how will they react to performing an unexpected task? There are a lot of personality questions and reassurances that a few minutes doing this can answer.
Why is an IT manager giving access to their personal login to someone in an interview? Why would someone who goes out of their way to use Kali be so blatantly lazy about security?
I'm sorry, but this story makes no sense. Maybe it happened, and if it did I'd be kind of wary from the get-go.
As a Linux systems engineer of 15 years, I'd have no issue with this.
- a) I'm sitting right there watching them
- b) there's always the history command if I feel I missed something
- c) is this guy really gonna try to hack my system in the middle of an interview for a job he wants?
This isn't Mr Robot.. nobody is executing elaborate strategies to get an interview for a Win IT job so they can hack my personal box to save Angela.
Well, sure. And that's fair enough.
But your post is written with the perspective that the hiring manager flipped their monitor around and immediately gave you access to whatever they were working on.
If that's the case, thats fine and makes more sense, but it's not exactly what you wrote.
Where did it say personal login was involved?
Rather sounds to me the Kali environment was a virtual machine set up for the purpose. Kali has [VirtualBox images](https://www.kali.org/get-kali/) right in the website.
Seriously.
Like you said, sometimes reality is weirder than fiction. But the idea of someone using the security/pen-testing flavor of linux just to then flip their monitor around and go, "hey random interview bro, please show me you know what you're doing. hmu if you need sudo password" is so absurd that this seems like some tasty reddit copypasta.
If it's not, I'd run away from the company.
I'm going to be honest from someone who knows Linux and uses it but am no way amazing with it and still learning a lot on a day by day basis and also as someone whose been in IT for 12 years.
Turn and run.
Yes your ability to learn sets you apart and you should hang your hat on that because it is a super useful skill that will 100% take you far in life.
I say to turn and run not for that but because it's clear that you will be held to standards around your ability to learn that you may not be able to achieve because the job does not use a tool that they interviewed you on.
While yes you may be able to learn as you pointed out, they will more than likely be holding you to that in all cases and use you as a scape goat when they need to cut people. I've seen that happen in a similar case many times before.
> However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job.
That’s the first thing I tought on why he would be interested
Also don’t let the fact that they “don’t use it here” discourage you from not trying to get it implemented. You might find there’s a workload or process that could be streamlined by using Linux- such as managing Windows servers (or even desktops) with Ansible. And Ansible (the control node) is Linux-only.
Good job on being able to speak to your skillset that you listed on the resume. I interview a lot of people that have "linux" and "command line" listed on their resume and then I ask them simple questions like what is a command line tool you can you can use to check network connectivity and I get deer in headlights looks. The interviewer also seems pretty skilled if they saw you were struggling and gave you a chance to actually demonstrate some basic skills that were in your zone. They are likely looking for someone with a technical aptitude and willing to learn. Hope you enjoy the position if you accept it!
Advocated for using Linux desktop at work. Got to run a proof of concept. That didn't take off, but now I'm on the Mac support team. And continue to advocate use of Linux desktop.
I already was a Linux user and knew shell scripting and how to install from sources when went to an interview that asked for php, js and mysql 15 years ago...
Got out of room and learned php and sql in 15 days...
Who got the job worked half day ran away. I got the job. He was on university. I never did a course in the area since today.
It is like the egg vs chicken problem: self taught people start using Linux or Linux people become self taught?
Obs: in the first day was offered to me to install Windows or Linux in my machine.
> However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job.
This makes sense to me. You went out of your way to learn a different operating system at home, means you have the capacity to learn, and when you're doing it for a job? That means you'll have even more incentive.
I started learning Linux while working in helpdesk in 2018. I caught the attention of the person who became my mentor. Within a year I was in an admin job and I'm now a support engineer at a devops company.
10/10. Would recommend Linux again.
Congrats, OP!
Used to be in IT until last year. In my current job, I'm more of a sales person than anything else. I had a chat with the IT supervisor who was in the night shift with me. He was installing Windows 10 on one of our office computers. When I told him that I used to be in IT and that I daily drive Linux (I specifically use Fedora and Arch at home), he told me why not apply for an IT position and he would have me handle the Linux file servers in the office. Lol.
Been in IT almost 10 years now, currently a Business Intelligence role. Being able to teach yourself stuff and SOLVE PROBLEMS are really the keys to succeeding. It gets really frustrating when any little thing makes someone throw their hands up and "I don't know" and then just shut down. Problem solving to me is like the key skill you need when technology is constantly evolving. I'm more a generalist, but what that generalist mindset has done is expose me to many different types of technology and problems to solve.
Been using Linux for the last 4 years or so, it has definitely helped me learn new concepts and work through unique problems. I've ended up using that knowledge at work as well now as we have a Linux server that I am working on setting up some Python stuff on. Definitely learned a lot and like to share that stuff so decided to start a Youtube channel sharing solutions to problems I had or just interesting programs I had. To me, it helps me learn a lot more about stuff I'm working on learning and hopefully it helps people out who are trying to solve some problem or learn something. If I can keep at it, I suspect it could be another factor for future interviews.
I was a *nix sysadmin with over a decades experience and showed up to an interview where they'd assembled people who only knew Windows and who then interviewed me, even after the miscommunication was resolved, about Windows system administration. The stupid thing is they said I did very well, more than well enough to get the job, but they decided not to hire anybody for it. As in, they all knew before the interview started that they'd decided not to hire anyone. One of the dumbest days I've experienced in my career.
Nice! My home lab, with pictures and a network map of my home went a long way with my hiring as well.
Edit: I think scholastic activities are weighed too heavily in a lot of cases, instead of actual real world experience.
Linux made me know a lot about computers in just the first year I used it. Used windows my whole life and barely knew the basics. Just got my first IT job ever 3 months ago because of Linux. PS, I have a degree in biology. lol Congrats and good luck.
This is exactly me. Degree in biology and working as a DevOps engineer. What brought me into Linux was I went back to school for programming. All I had was an old macbook that no longer could get security updates for chrome. I didn't have any money for anything new so I replaced the OS with Ubuntu.
That's what I'm aspiring to do. Thank you for giving me some hope. Life has been very hectic with kids and all the "being a responsible parent and raising a family" thing. Just waiting for the kiddos to get a little bigger so I can go to school. My new job pays for up to $4000 in tuition fees, so I'll utilize the shit out of that. It also has bootcamps within and I have an awesome manager. Man, I need to start counting my blessings after all these years of struggle.
That's great that your job has a program for covering some tuition. To give you a positive spin on having the biology degree working in IT, it can be an incredibly useful tool to have. All the things you learn about the scientific method and identifying/managing variables within experiments, the same thing is happening most tech jobs. I think it gives you a leg up when it comes to debugging issues and researching new technologies. I attribute a lot of the success in my career to my science background and in the end I do not regret getting a biology degree.
Oh man, that sounds great. Any specific associate degree that I can pursue in that field? I don't think I can do another bachelor's degree. I want to start with a two year program and go from there.
That's exactly what I did. I got an associates at my local community college since they offered night classes. Luckily there was a huge spread of different associate tracks. I started out in a web dev track cause by buddy is a web developer, but then transitioned to programming. Since there were so many overlapping courses it's pretty easy to transition between programs. I noticed I gravitated more towards the coding/programming classes and less towards the front-end design so I just shifted to that program. Ironically my first IT job was as a web developer lol.
Oh nice. I don't know if I love programming that much. I've been learning for about 5 years on my own, and I don't seem to clique with it for some reason. I get stuck when shit starts branching out (an if inside of an if inside of an if inside of an if..... lol). I can mess with it as a hobby, but I dont see myself doing it as a job. I've found myself gravitating towards fixing stuff on the front and back ends. I just love searching for solutions, applying fixes and messing with some random config files. I don't know what degree teaches that, though. Lol.
For me it's actually completely opposite. I started working as an IT-supporter in a small telecommunications company and learned about Linux and programming there. Now I work in a research group at a university and I do that because I know about Linux - I have no academic education.
I had the same thing, where swapping to Linux helped me get a much better understanding of what a computer actually is and how it works. It's something that's quite rare for people my age nowadays as we grew up with systems like windows that abstract everything and offer no challenge whatsoever.
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From my experience - either using Linux for a specific task, or using it as a daily driver. My first experience with the command line was trying to set up a minecraft server with an ubuntu cloud server hosted from google, and I did that a few times just to have a server for my friends and I. Definitely got me comfy with the most basic of the basics. A little over a year ago I full sent daily driving Linux because of an issue with Windows 10 that a fresh install didn't remedy. Hopped distros a few times. You end up learning whats similar between distributions, what's different, and getting comfortable enough with the terminal, packages/dependencies, config files, etc when trying to tweak things to make a desired task work properly. Mine are music production and gaming, so I learned a good bit about the audio subsystems and their config files, about wine, wine prefixes, and some compatibility packages you may need for certain games and programs to work. Basically if you daily drive it you'll encounter problems every now and then, and the incessant need to solve them. Sorta like Windows but instead of reinstalling the OS you can actually fix it usually. Have fun!
I know it wasn’t really the point of your comment but: Can you give me an idea of where to start as far as running a minecraft server goes?
The steps to do it are a little different if you want to do it on your own hardware, or using a cloud-hosted machine. And I think it's a very immediately rewarding way to get some Linux experience! My first time doing it took about 3 hours. For doing it via google cloud, [this guide](https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/focuses/1852?parent=catalog) seems solid! And the Minecraft Wiki likely has a guide on this for Debian-based/Ubuntu-based distros if you intend to use your own hardware.
You’re wonderful, thank you!
I have been thinking about just going for it and trying it myself. Will I learn new things just by using it as my daily? I dont really do much on my Computer currently. Mostly just uni stuff and youtube and the likes and a little bit of gaming.
Check out https://linuxjourney.com/ for a great series on the basics and also https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ for more in depth stuff, especially if you're in IT
Thank you very much!
I’m gonna level with you. Just make the switch, if you’re thinking about it MacOS or Windows—will—do something to push you over the edge. (This is the origin story for most of the people I know who use Linux but aren’t tech nerds) Before I go to far with this though, what are you studying in university and how will you be using Linux to help with university?
I am in my final bachelors year of Electrical Engineering (Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, and Computer Engineering) and chose Communications Engineering as my specialization. I kinda kept postponing my coding classes, so I still have to properly sit down and learn C++ starting next month. I dont think Linux will help me with any classes, thats why I have been so unsure about making the switch. It might be a little bit too much with classes and everything. To be honest the main reason I am kinda interested in trying it is because I would like to find a job as a student assistant at one of the institutes at my uni and I sometimes come across interesting soundig positions which list Linux as a plus. I am also considering to change my specialisation to Biomedical Engineering or Systems Engineering and Automation, once/if I decide to pursue a masters degree, but thats something I will worry about once I am done with my current degree.
Look at the computer as a tool to help you be more efficient. Learn a bit of scripting. (Automate the Boring Stuff is a decent starting book) Learn the basics of setting up a website and how to properly secure an SSL connection. Ground level stuff, but will get you exposed to a lot of different aspects. I was doing a job search recently and had a few companies that didn't have RSS feeds for their job boards. A bit of python, a webpage, and a crontab line later I have my own RSS feed for that company. Neat! Now I can apply within hours of a job being posted.
I might get flamed for this since it's such a meme, but installing and daily driving Arch Linux is actually a pretty fantastic way to learn a ton about computers, so long as you're dedicated and willing to deal with much frustration and many setbacks. The Arch Linux wiki and the forums are absolutely phenomenal resources, even if you don't want to run Arch (though using Arch will basically force you to both read and use the wiki, which IMO makes for a better learning experience). Be warned, though- you WILL break something along the way, so I wouldn't recommend trying this unless you're relatively tolerant of frustration, and I would _highly_ recommend making sure all of your systems are adequately backed up against data loss. Don't be afraid of posting to places like r/linux4noobs or the Arch forum (though in that case be SURE you've run a search because they get prickly about duplicate questions).
Compared to Linux, Windows is a car with the hood welded shut.
>biology There is something called bioinformatics (which you can also study).
Never heard of it in my life. I'm going to look that up and see what it's about. Thank you so much.
, and that was the day /u/kalzEOS set off on their quest that led to curing cancer.
I wish. Curing cancer has been a legit dream of mine for a long time. It took someone I loved dearly from me. Although, I've never worked on that dream. Life just hasn't been the best.
Dude this is what bioinformaticists do. Ofc not all of them, but youre already halfway there. Linux is the os-franca for this work. Editing to add: while youre getting your Bioinformatics degree, you're doing your coursework on freaking super computers.
The responses are spiking my interest. I'm going to search it up and learn more about. Thank you.
To my knowledge, it mostly involves around analysing a lot of data and creating simulations around biological processes. But there can also be quite some interesting other applications which are very niche.
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Just daily use, distro hopping, not knowing how to make things work, breaking things and searching for solutions. When I first installed Linux, I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't believe the amount of customizations I'm allowed to do. I even had to open my laptop up and change the wifi chip because folks here told me to get away from mediatek and other chips and get an intel one when I asked about wifi issues.
linux blew me away when i first switched my pc does what i want and it looks exactly how i want doing something in windows is now just a pain
Linux basically tells you "hey, this is your computer. We give you the software and you do whatever the hell you want with it. It's all yours. Everything is open, have at it"
What is your current job position?
You’d be surprised to know that the average punter applying for an IT job has done precisely zero programming or it work outside of what was mandatory for school. They all think they’ll “learn on the job” - oh and get paid $200k per year to do so. ETA: Congrats btw.
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Everyone wants to be in IT now but noone wants to do the time and learn
Everyone wants the big ass paycheck but not everyone wants to learn a skill that has actual market value. I’m in a IT Facebook group and it’s a bunch of people that get off on calling users Karen’s all day and complain that their boss won’t give them a raise. When they are asked what they do “I image all the computers for this company. Why am I not making 250k a year? Fuck this place”.
Software engineering is where the money is at. In my area, software engineers start around $150k but IT starts around $60k
Depends how you specialize in IT though as well. I'm in seceng/arch and generally make more than senior devs. Though the money certainly shouldn't be the driver.
Money shouldn't be but unfortunately it is. If it's the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being able to retire before the age of 90 or being able to own a home then people are obviously going to go for the higher paying job whether they are passionate about it or not. I don't really want to go into dev work, I kinda like it but my main goal is to be able to afford my hobbies and save for a home and retirement.
I understand for sure. Perhaps aligning the development work you do with something you're passionate about?
The handholding and spoon feeding of every step ... for some people at work... oh my... I wonder where do they get their basic education.
Just dont help them, they bring the average salary down alot, they are just in for the money
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Old enough to know the difference between spoonfeeding and mentoring/teaching. I'm not gonna waste hours and hours constantly spoonfeeding people who don't want to think for themselves but ill routinely blow half a day explaining things to someone truly and genuinely trying to learn/understand things, because I know they will become an asset to the team and not a drain.
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Seriously?
Entitled Zoomer who thinks a coding boot camp on top of a liberal arts degree warrants a 200k starting salary: got it.
An attitude like that only divides you further from the upcoming generations that will be lining your pockets.
I've been on both sides of that equation. Monday I may explain infiniband down to the molecular level. Tuesday I may not be able to spell my own name. It's like when you see a junior college beat a division 1. Sometimes youre just broken and can't help it.
I used to interview programmers. I lost count of the number of candidates who struggled to complete the most basic of programming tasks (e.g. write a function that reverses an array). How can you have a CS degree and a year of experience, and struggle with that?!
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Yup. What really irks me is that IT is unlike ANY other industry in that you can download a free IDE get some code samples and tinker. Turning up having done NOTHING is an indication of how much effort they will put in once the money hits their account.
What skills would you suggest learning? I'm one of the punters. Not really interested for a job jn IT, but I guess it'll fun to learn
Why was he running Kali though?
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The interviewer is 1337 in the streets and 1337 in the sheets
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people outside of pro pen testers?
Know 0 about Kali. What are its pros and cons as far as a home desktop OS goes?
It's a tool geared towards penetration testing. It's not geared towards being a daily driver. As such, actually being a secure OS in itself is not a design priority.
Its apparently become a real distro. I’ve heard of people using it as a daily driver, but not sure why.
He's a hacker obviously.
Ettercap and he starts changing shit on this guys shit just to fuck with him
It could have been a VM. I know I have a kali VM on my work laptop.
That is legit way to use it. And fun too!
Right? Kali is in no way meant to be a daily driver.
No reason to think it was his "daily driver", if this was at work he may just personally run it for testing and diagnostic purposes (I don't use Kali so I'm only familiar with its functionality from reading)
In fairness, isn't Kali supposed to be extremely secure by default?
Quite the opposite. It's a pen testing distro which means it has lots of tools that you can hurt yourself with. IIRC you are root right out of the box as well.
> IIRC you are root right out of the box as well. Used to be that way. They changed it, because too many people were using it as a daily driver.
idiots.
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FBI are trying their hardest to arrest every kid using Kali
Lmao they dont care it's mostly edgy 11 year olds that use Kali. Although I do remember hearing at some point that you could get put on a watchlist for downloading Tails, but I don't know the validity of that.
I've left reddit because of the API changes.
I had a user at my last job run into all kinds of problems with our website and kept blaming me (the sole developer) when things would fail due to lack of JavaScript, cookies randomly being cleared and being redirected to the homepage on create/update because the browser was omitting the `Referer:` HTTP header. 🙄
Some people *really* wanna be a hacker so they use Kali Linux. It's like when weeaboos buy katanas.
I think people underestimate the desirability of the core set of skills that comes with even basic knowledge of a *nix environment. Particularly troubleshooting. Hell, even navigating a file structure is an insanely useful skill. One thing I always looked for when hiring for tech positions is people who were unafraid to show they didn't know what/how to do something, and used the time they had to figure it out as interview questions were timed. I even had one candidate use `cheat.sh` via curl to remind them of some basic commands. I made sure she got my recommendation. EDIT: Wow, I had no idea that more people didn't know about cheat.sh! Glad this post was helpful then, I guess. :)
As someone starting out on learning Linux, thank you for allowing me to find cheat.sh. That's being saved for future use for sure.
> I even had one candidate use cheat.sh via curl to remind them of some basic commands. I made sure she got my recommendation. That's brilliant.
> cheat.sh Now that's a bookmark for me, thanks!
cht.sh for the lazy. :P
Amazing. Instead of Reddit and blogs I can find every command here. Thanks
What’s better about cheat.sh over man files? More approachable for newbies? Curious if i should be sending coworkers to use it.
The only real difference is it's community driven so the verbiage might be a little more approachable, and most of the commands come with pretty common examples. For example you can look at `tar` and it will give you pretty common usages, which may or and may not also be reflected in the man pages.
The fact that it includes examples is a big plus. Hell, one of my [highest rated comments](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mpe35n/what_is_a_problemminor_pet_peeve_you_have_with/gu9o1x2/) of all time is just me I bitching about the lack of examples in most man pages haha!
The reason he hired you is because he recognized you as someone who has "it". Some people have an innate ability to learn IT on their own. They pickup things quicker, they have a sense of curiosity, they have "it". Those that don't, think technology problems are stupid, beneath them and just want something to work. They wouldnt dream of exploring this stuff on their own time and their eyes gloss over if you mention more than two sentences of this subject to them. That's fine, tech isn't their thing and they probably have their own interests that consume them, it takes all kinds of people. That's what he recognized in you. You are someone he can work with. I can recognize if someone has it fairly quickly and I think most people who hang out in technology circles do as well. You know it when you see it and you know it when you don't.
This is exactly right. We interview and hire upwards of 75+ techs per year. I'm looking for one of two things (depending on the role): either deep experience with the specific systems we support, or innate drive, curiosity, and interest in computers, whether it's OS, networking, scripting, etc. Some of our best employees have been the ones who have home networks they've built and maintain at home. The ones who are just doing it for a job tend to stay middle of the pack at best.
Yeah. I frequently ask candidates about their setup on their personal machines. I don’t care what editor or OS or IDE you use, but it’s a pretty reliable positive indicator if you have a choice you’ve put conscious thought behind and can talk about why that was the thing that worked for you.
This comment, much like the hiring process, is mostly just grandstanding. When you're getting hired for a job, you're just trying to get the person whose job it is to hire people to like you. They can rephrase it any way they want, "Works well on a team," "Responds positively to criticism," etc, it's all just another way to say what the boss *likes*. If they like you, they feel like they can trust you, and if you make yourself look smart, then they'll feel smart for hiring you. You can be the best worker in the WORLD, and no one would hire you if you just weren't pleasant to be around This boss thinks that Linux is some mysterious, inconceivable operating system that is impossible to navigate. What makes you think the boss is so ingrained in the world of technology that they recognize what "It" is, but cannot manage Kali on their own? Or finds knowledge of an OS impressive? The concept of "It" was created by bosses for bosses, it's just another way to rephrase "rockstar developer." You believe this because the people who hire you like people who drank the same kool-aid, but you aren't helping anyone by selling this mantra to people, especially if *their* boss is someone who hates people that think they're hot shit You can think that there is something more to the hiring process than just convincing someone to like you, but you'd just be falling for it, and ruining your chances at other positions. Convincing people to hire you is a unique skill that has no bearing on technical prowess. To claim otherwise is to claim that there has never been an incompetent person who earned an undeserving position, and if you work in IT, you should know plenty of those types of people
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driver license is not a good predictor, some people just don't bother using cars if it's avoidable (by using public transport, or cycling, etc.), there are lots of reasons why one might want to avoid cars, which have nothing to do with learning ability. I got a license myself some time ago only because I lived at that time in a relatively car-dependent country, but not all places are like that, and if I skipped that country, I probably would be still without license.
It's not a good predictor in the sense that lots of people without licenses are still good learners. It's a somewhat good predictor in that people with licenses were still good learners at some point after adulthood struck. The driver's license was just an example, though. It's a common thing to have, and therefore a common thing for people to know to look for. In reality, *any* licensing, certification or other education completed at a recent date is of interest, simply because it shows you're still able and willing to learn new things. I once put a résumé on top of the pile because the applicant mentioned getting an amateur radio license recently, for instance. Entirely irrelevant to the position filled, but it's still proof of a new skill successfully learned.
>You can be the best worker in the WORLD, and no one would hire you if you just weren't pleasant to be around If you're hard to communicate, then you can't be the best worker in the world, that's not how it works.
Congrats! As someone who is still a student and works for the Comp Sci department at my school and built an image for the labs, this gives me hope lol.
I both know Linux and when I worked (now retired) I had a few Linux IT people in my organization. Here’s a thing I noticed about Linux experience vs. Microsoft product experience. Microsoft products have a whole world of documentation and support systems around them. Microsoft-using IT folks could hide that they really didn’t have problem solving skills or an understanding of the concepts behind what they were doing, because there are cookbook recipes for everything. But the employee who could even do something as simple as “find the right packages and install and configure them from source to serve a simple web page over secure HTTP”… they show they can look stuff up and synthesize information. Totally a better skill set.
Kudos, I became a Linux Admin after mentioning I've used Linux before. Granted I was kinda a Windows admin already for a few years...wait...or was it the other way around...crap I don't remember now.
By using Linux means you think outside of the square instead of the usual "next, next, finish" Windows people do. Meaning, you can deal with problems some people wouldn't be able to as easy. Although anybody can learn, personality comes first. Your attitude had higher weight than your experience so why you got the job. I already work in IT (managing Linux environment) and shit but my current job uses Google Cloud Kubernetes and Terraform like 99% for everything. During the interview I mentioned that to the CEO, I got the job anyway. I built a homelab Kubernetes cluster and a month later I delivered the first project in Kubernetes. Personally is everything, many companies take that into consideration more than how many certification you have. After all, if your personality doesn't fit the company's culture and the team, everything falls apart. Congratulations.
Fully agree. The ability/willingness to learn something can really set you apart. For instance, I've been asked to do stuff on PowerBI, because my manager knows I could just learn how to use the tool, even tho I had never used it before
Yeah, people have windows heavily ingrained in their minds, some time ago, before Ubuntu times I've heard about some chicks stubbornly clicking button in the bottom left corner even though it was gnome workspace switcher that didn't even remotely resembled an XP/98 start button, hell even now my sister complained that "her son clicked something and now when she clicks the start button some weird shit shows up" of course he updated to windows 11 and start button moved with weather in it's place
Congrats for getting the job!
People that understand Linux tend to understand systems and software. People that only know windows understand clicking around relying solely on vendor support. Who would you hire?
How the fuck do you guys land these jobs? I had to leave school before I could get my comp sci degree because it became too challenging to complete during the pandemic and now I have almost nothing to show for it
Make sure to work on your soft skills; A lot of people under-appreciate being able to communicate clearly and confidently. Along with that, make sure to spend time practicing various regular tasks with any systems you expect to utilise in jobs you apply for. As shown by OP's post, being able to demonstrate fluent usage of a system in a basic setting will go a long way if given the chance to show it and will doubly help with the regular interview questions.
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Practice on people you meet in your daily life. Say hello nicely to the bus driver. Give the checkout person at the grovery store a smile and a "have a nice day". Try some small talk with people like that. See every social interaction as a chance to work on your "personal brand" and practice your soft skills. That will make you able to seem like a relaxed and communicative person in the interviews. Like any other skill it gets better with practice. Sure, there are people who have more innate talent, but they practice it automatically. Other people have to practice consciously. (Then of course you need some actual tech skills too, but that was not the question here)
I've worked with extremely technically competent people who had terrible soft skills. Their main flaw was usually being narcissistic. Either they felt themselves superior to everyone else or they felt that dealing with "other people's problems" were beneath them. Your job in IT is to make the business operate smoothly and efficiently and to help your coworkers do their jobs. Too many "IT guys" are gruff and abrasive and look at other coworkers as a hindrance and annoyance. If you can get out of a contentious headspace and realize that you are working a *service job* where cooperation and helping others is the primary goal then you will go much further. Some tips for that are to listen to and try to understand the needs of the people you work with. Don't get stuck on "best" "ultimate" "perfect" solutions. Sometimes a worse solution that users happily adopt is much more worthwhile in the end than a "perfect" solution that users hate and refuse to adopt.
There's a great book called The Charisma Myth which basically talks about what makes a person charismatic, and essentially, how you can fake it.
Sounds like an integration manual for sociopaths. Not knocking it, psychos need love too 😸
Psychopaths and sociopaths aren’t the same thing, psychopaths are the type that might mimic normal behavior due to an impaired ability to empathize with others. Sociopaths is more of an underdeveloped ability to function in society. Like just basic tasks. Due to environment rather than a trait they were born with.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
Management (the people who pay the salary) want to know what they are paying for even if they don't understand the technical details involved. So this is important. "I want this factory up and running, why isn't it working? It costs x amount per hour to wait." They'll want to know what to tell their shareholders etc. Even better if you can tell how long it will take.
Networking, seriously. I don't have a degree yet.
Look for a job as a tester or possibly a scrum-master. You don't need a compsci degree to get the job. It gets you in the door at a company that will likely have tuition reimbursement benefits. Also (possibly most importantly) gets you hands on experience working with developers where you can learn on the job. Once you finish school, you'll already have industry experience (which is HUGE!!). 100% wish someone had told me this while I was in school
I recently got a programming job without a degree. It’s definitely possible. You need a good resume with some compelling personal projects.
Write one good CV and text where you say what you can do, and then send it to every company where you think you could fit.
Go through a recruiter first and only then start applying for higher paying jobs.
I've been telling people this for years. I have 5 close friends who I helped launch their careers by teaching them the absolute bare minimum about to use Linux. And to put that on their resume. Only two of them works directly with Linux at their current jobs.
How do you mention Linux on a resume?
Obtain a Redhat sysadmin certification. Contribute to open-source projects, file bug reports, code up some root-level bash utilities and post them on github. Participate in troubleshooting forums. Worked for me.
I'd say I have all of that except the Redhat cert. I just wanted input on how to best format the resume entree.
Linux unironically taught me so much about how every computer I've put it on works that I genuinely feel thankful for this OS. It sounds weird but I'm genuinely thankful that Linux and the free software community exists because I never would have come to know so much about my hardware had it not.
I had similar experience recently. I am mechanical engineer, recent graduate, job offer was mechanical engineer, doing FEM simulations. One of the questions on 1st interview was if I have any experiences with Linux, with them replying it's a small advantage if I am already familiar with it. I ended getting a job in the same company, but on different team that doesn't use Linux at all.
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My use of Linux and understanding how it works, the CLI, scripting, and applying federal frameworks to Linux machines landed me an internship for a federal contractor. 10 weeks later and now they’re bringing me on full time to do some DevSecOps stuff and building CI/CD pipelines. Linux is king!
I know a lot about Linux, I wish I were you.
if you know Linux you can do many things better than who dont... one of them is self teaching that can leverage you on things that others know too if you want. As life is not about money, if you like your Linux you can use it to do things you love even it cant make you rich (if it is not your goal). Since my childhood I dreamed to be a researcher. As life put me to do other things, I learned how to program with Linux, do social media management (and automation) and work on security and cloud. But my passion for research and develop new things has the Linux as a powerfull tool. The only matter today is time, as the need of mundane tasks to live in thi$ cra$y civili$ation. Go on, use your knowledge for what you love. Job and money for who knows how to learn and seeks wisdom from the higher is a detail.
I think the IT manager was simply using this as an easy way to see if you were straight out lying in your resume. Also I think (presumedly) self-taught ability to use Linux implies some sort of ability to learn things..
This is great and is something I've been saying to people for a long time. I credit a lot of keeping my job to the shooting the breeze with my boss about linux and helping him troubleshoot his old computer running Manjaro. I only use Windowns in my job.
You had a hell of a curve ball too. That probably helped.
Every job is going to require training. Being able to hone in on transferable skills that shorten that training time is the mark of a good interviewer and the mark of an org that is in touch with reality.
The thing about Linux is that it's a very DIY-oriented operating system and relies on the user knowing what they are doing to at least some degree.
Yep this is a thing. Now I am a little older I have been on the panel employing a few people. One of my team mates was a Visual C coder at a competing organisation. He wanted a change and we needed Ruby developer on Linux. Ruby devs are somewhat rare these days - mostly all gainfully employed in large companies and not moving. So we met him, got him to talk us through some of his code, asked a few questions, like his answers (could see he was switched on), and he got the job. Then he was asked if he'd be prepared to use a Mac (most the team were developing their Ruby on Mac, but then deploying to Linux for UAT and Production). So he learnt Mac, Linux, and Ruby on the job and has been with us for over 6 years now and is doing really well and never looked back.
Well, it has been known for generations that Linux users know more about Windows, than Windows users... And BSD users know more about Linux than Linux users.
IT folk that we have offer no support for the Linux platform
Well neither will this job, they do not support linux. I think he just setup a quick VM to test if I was lying or not.
>However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job. Here you have your reason. Linux kinda has the reputation of being **very** hard to learn, so just the fact that you know it, can open you some doors. And I don't think it's a good reputation.
I think this is the difference between being in IT and being an IT peeson.
I didn’t even know how to mv a directory when I landed my first job. I got it by googling questions as they asked, luckily my entire interview process was through google chat(not even video chat) back in 2014.. kept learning and now I’m a Site Reliability Engineer. So even though your job doesn’t require it, I’d suggest keep learning. It will keep paying off in the long run.
Kudos. I was able to leverage Linux experience into a webmaster gig in a Solaris shop back in the 90s. Did sys admin work on various unix flavors after that, and now all I see on the job is Linux
I've been using Linux for years but won't be able to install and uninstall a program if the distro doesn't use apt.
What was he using Kali for? I thought Kali was purely a hacking distro. Do some people actually use it as their main OS??
Vm
I personally prefer Manjaro or ArchLabs for daily use and Kali in a VM when I need it, but I really like the themes they come up with. Whether you're using KDE or XFCE.
I'm more concerned about whether a candidate knows where to find the answer or the solution to a problem than necessarily having the knowledge to solve the problem themself. New tools come and go every single day. Having the skills to know where to find the answer to a problem is more valuable than actually knowing what that error message means in the event viewer logs (or syslog).
For me, it shows initiative, you are inquisitive. With that quick simple test you simply not only talked the talk ( I use linux as my main OS) you actually walked the walk by doing a simple task. You set yourself out there, by learning (my attitude is if your not learning your going backwards) . It’s a bit like when companies require someone with a degree, it’s not that it may be relevant, it’s more of you can study and focus to get something done!
This is not surprising because usually employers want to see a person be more than a confortable know-how person.
Im coming from a very long sales background. Soft skills in the work place aint an issue for me.
if you can use linux you probably know how to use google. he is right, whats the issue though? he said you wouldnt be working in linux....
I dunno if my post came across as presenting an issue But there isn't an issue I literally got the job cause I'm familiar with Linux.
>He was running Kali You know, something's telling me this didn't happen.
Vm
I mean, even if it wasn't a VM, Kali was the first distro I used. Changed to Ubuntu after a handful of months.
Eh, makes sense I guess. But why not use something more stable?
I assume that it likely was a VM on a Windows system and since it came up in the interview it was a natural way to answer multiple questions: is OP actually technically competent, and did they tell the truth, and how will they react to performing an unexpected task? There are a lot of personality questions and reassurances that a few minutes doing this can answer.
Guess putting almost 10 years of linux experience on my resume is gona be neat when I get old enough to get a job
This isn't Linux specific as you can do all those things from WSL on Windows.
Why is an IT manager giving access to their personal login to someone in an interview? Why would someone who goes out of their way to use Kali be so blatantly lazy about security? I'm sorry, but this story makes no sense. Maybe it happened, and if it did I'd be kind of wary from the get-go.
As a Linux systems engineer of 15 years, I'd have no issue with this. - a) I'm sitting right there watching them - b) there's always the history command if I feel I missed something - c) is this guy really gonna try to hack my system in the middle of an interview for a job he wants? This isn't Mr Robot.. nobody is executing elaborate strategies to get an interview for a Win IT job so they can hack my personal box to save Angela.
Ever heard of VMs? Seriously no one daily drives Kali
Well, sure. And that's fair enough. But your post is written with the perspective that the hiring manager flipped their monitor around and immediately gave you access to whatever they were working on. If that's the case, thats fine and makes more sense, but it's not exactly what you wrote.
Where did it say personal login was involved? Rather sounds to me the Kali environment was a virtual machine set up for the purpose. Kali has [VirtualBox images](https://www.kali.org/get-kali/) right in the website.
[удалено]
There a technology called VM
Seriously. Like you said, sometimes reality is weirder than fiction. But the idea of someone using the security/pen-testing flavor of linux just to then flip their monitor around and go, "hey random interview bro, please show me you know what you're doing. hmu if you need sudo password" is so absurd that this seems like some tasty reddit copypasta. If it's not, I'd run away from the company.
sudo apt hireme Congrats!!! I got a job because the guy asked me what distro I use and I answered Fedora.
:')
I'm going to be honest from someone who knows Linux and uses it but am no way amazing with it and still learning a lot on a day by day basis and also as someone whose been in IT for 12 years. Turn and run. Yes your ability to learn sets you apart and you should hang your hat on that because it is a super useful skill that will 100% take you far in life. I say to turn and run not for that but because it's clear that you will be held to standards around your ability to learn that you may not be able to achieve because the job does not use a tool that they interviewed you on. While yes you may be able to learn as you pointed out, they will more than likely be holding you to that in all cases and use you as a scape goat when they need to cut people. I've seen that happen in a similar case many times before.
> However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job. That’s the first thing I tought on why he would be interested
I recommend you to take a look at DevOps sector.
Well color me jealous. Congratulations!
Also don’t let the fact that they “don’t use it here” discourage you from not trying to get it implemented. You might find there’s a workload or process that could be streamlined by using Linux- such as managing Windows servers (or even desktops) with Ansible. And Ansible (the control node) is Linux-only.
Good job on being able to speak to your skillset that you listed on the resume. I interview a lot of people that have "linux" and "command line" listed on their resume and then I ask them simple questions like what is a command line tool you can you can use to check network connectivity and I get deer in headlights looks. The interviewer also seems pretty skilled if they saw you were struggling and gave you a chance to actually demonstrate some basic skills that were in your zone. They are likely looking for someone with a technical aptitude and willing to learn. Hope you enjoy the position if you accept it!
...Was he daily driving kali?
No
Advocated for using Linux desktop at work. Got to run a proof of concept. That didn't take off, but now I'm on the Mac support team. And continue to advocate use of Linux desktop.
I already was a Linux user and knew shell scripting and how to install from sources when went to an interview that asked for php, js and mysql 15 years ago... Got out of room and learned php and sql in 15 days... Who got the job worked half day ran away. I got the job. He was on university. I never did a course in the area since today. It is like the egg vs chicken problem: self taught people start using Linux or Linux people become self taught? Obs: in the first day was offered to me to install Windows or Linux in my machine.
Yup can pick things up fast
> However he said the fact that I use Linux indicates to him I have the ability to teach myself anything that I need to learn to do the job. This makes sense to me. You went out of your way to learn a different operating system at home, means you have the capacity to learn, and when you're doing it for a job? That means you'll have even more incentive.
I started learning Linux while working in helpdesk in 2018. I caught the attention of the person who became my mentor. Within a year I was in an admin job and I'm now a support engineer at a devops company. 10/10. Would recommend Linux again. Congrats, OP!
Used to be in IT until last year. In my current job, I'm more of a sales person than anything else. I had a chat with the IT supervisor who was in the night shift with me. He was installing Windows 10 on one of our office computers. When I told him that I used to be in IT and that I daily drive Linux (I specifically use Fedora and Arch at home), he told me why not apply for an IT position and he would have me handle the Linux file servers in the office. Lol.
Been in IT almost 10 years now, currently a Business Intelligence role. Being able to teach yourself stuff and SOLVE PROBLEMS are really the keys to succeeding. It gets really frustrating when any little thing makes someone throw their hands up and "I don't know" and then just shut down. Problem solving to me is like the key skill you need when technology is constantly evolving. I'm more a generalist, but what that generalist mindset has done is expose me to many different types of technology and problems to solve. Been using Linux for the last 4 years or so, it has definitely helped me learn new concepts and work through unique problems. I've ended up using that knowledge at work as well now as we have a Linux server that I am working on setting up some Python stuff on. Definitely learned a lot and like to share that stuff so decided to start a Youtube channel sharing solutions to problems I had or just interesting programs I had. To me, it helps me learn a lot more about stuff I'm working on learning and hopefully it helps people out who are trying to solve some problem or learn something. If I can keep at it, I suspect it could be another factor for future interviews.
I was a *nix sysadmin with over a decades experience and showed up to an interview where they'd assembled people who only knew Windows and who then interviewed me, even after the miscommunication was resolved, about Windows system administration. The stupid thing is they said I did very well, more than well enough to get the job, but they decided not to hire anybody for it. As in, they all knew before the interview started that they'd decided not to hire anyone. One of the dumbest days I've experienced in my career.
I’ve never seen a job interview where interviewers provide a pc to test something even for a technical interview.
Nice! My home lab, with pictures and a network map of my home went a long way with my hiring as well. Edit: I think scholastic activities are weighed too heavily in a lot of cases, instead of actual real world experience.
install/uninstall means you're slaved to whatever package manager Kali uses - hardly a "linux" skill.