Sysadmin salary whinge

So, I've been with this company since 2017. Started as senior support on 85k. After a year, moved into unofficial sysadmin role, slight bumps (mostly just with inflation) until I am now on 114k. Been doing IT in some capacity for 20 years now. We are now offering a desktop support (l2) role for a site, 90k. Not one applicant who will take under 110k, so now recruitment team is suggesting they will just have to pay someone 110k. 110k for a l2 person with 2-3 years exp. I've been asking for a realignment for 3 years now and keep getting told no. Is it just time to walk?

Edit: Should clarify, Sydney AUS.

https://redd.it/1p2nn2s
@r_systemadmin

Is it just me or are enterprise workflows held together by absolute chaos?

I swear, every time I look under the hood of a big company, I find some process that makes zero sense and somehow everyone is fine with it.

Like… why is there ALWAYS that one spreadsheet that nobody is allowed to touch?
Why does every department have one application that “just breaks sometimes” and everyone has accepted that as part of the job?
And why are there still approval flows that involve printing, signing, scanning, and emailing in 2025???

It blows my mind how normalised this stuff is.

Not trying to rant, I’m genuinely curious:

What’s the most unnecessarily complicated or outdated workflow you’ve run into at work?
The kind where you think, “There has to be a better way,” but it’s been that way for like 10 years so everyone just shrugs.

I love hearing these because they always reveal how companies really operate behind all the fancy software.

https://redd.it/1p2nzey
@r_systemadmin

Weekly 'I made a useful thing' Thread - November 21, 2025

There is a great deal of user-generated content out there, from noscripts and software to tutorials and videos, but we've generally tried to keep that off of the front page due to the volume and as a result of community feedback. There's also a great deal of content out there that violates our advertising/promotion rule, from noscripts and software to tutorials and videos.

We have received a number of requests for exemptions to the rule, and rather than allowing the front page to get consumed, we thought we'd try a weekly thread that allows for that kind of content. We don't have a catchy name for it yet, so please let us know if you have any ideas!

In this thread, feel free to show us your pet project, YouTube videos, blog posts, or whatever else you may have and share it with the community. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, or links that appear to be monetization-grabs will still be removed.

https://redd.it/1p2uqsd
@r_systemadmin

Google buys Wiz for $32B… what’s the backup plan now in a worst-case scenario?

I just read that Google is acquiring Wiz for $32B to boost its cloud security footprint. While the deal hasn’t closed yet, this feels like a huge move, and honestly, I’m a bit nervous about what it could mean long term. Google’s track record with security acquisitions (Impermium, Mandiant, VirusTotal, Chronicle, etc.) hasn’t exactly been reassuring. It has merged or shut down parts of other acquired companies in the past.

Here’s why I’m concerned:

* There’s a real risk that Wiz’s multi‑cloud neutrality could be compromised. Some analysts worry Google will prioritize GCP features over AWS or Azure.
* Integrating Wiz into Google Cloud could lead to architectural changes or feature shifts that don’t align with how teams use it today.

How are other teams handling this?

* Are you sticking with Wiz or looking at alternatives?
* What’s your contingency plan if Google starts prioritizing GCP?
* Has anyone already switched to Orca, Prisma, or Lacework? Would love to hear comparisons.



https://redd.it/1p2unat
@r_systemadmin

Are printers just always broken?

I've been working as a sysadmin for a company for over a year already. There is always an issue with printers. Clogged up queues, connection issues, restarts long overdue, print errors that windows just refuses to fucking elaborate on so I could troubleshoot. Every single week for over a year. We buy fresh new printers - they have issues. Buy old and simple models - they have issues. HP, Canon, Xerox, doesn't matter, they all have issues.

I've been reinstalling drivers, rebooting, browsing forums, poking at settings for over a year and I'm tired, man. Is it a skill issue or do printers just suck in general?

https://redd.it/1p2w52o
@r_systemadmin

Browser extensions are becoming a huge security headache

Our employees keep installing random Chrome extensions some harmless, some sketchy as hell. We can’t realistically block the entire Chrome Web Store, but letting everyone install whatever they want is turning into a mess. Looking for something that can actually control or monitor this without constant manual policing.



https://redd.it/1p2wsni
@r_systemadmin

Cloudflare CTO apologises after bot-mitigation bug knocks major web infrastructure

https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/cloudflare-apologizes-after-outage-takes-major-websites-offline Tom's Hardware

Another reminder of how much risk we absorb when a single edge provider becomes a dependency for half the internet. A bot-mitigation tweak should never cascade into a global outage, yet here we are, AGAIN.

Curious how many teams are actually planning for multi-edge redundancy, or if we’ve all accepted that one vendor’s internal mistake can take down our production traffic in seconds... ?

https://redd.it/1p2ypz5
@r_systemadmin

As sysadmins/endpoint engineers/etc, what do you appreciate from your help desk, and what do you wish they did better?

I'm starting as a new manager of an IT help desk, and I hear I'm inheriting a bit of a mess, and I'll have to do some rebuilding. I'm looking to build some good habits early on, and so I'd like to hear your input in what you guys like to see out of your help desks.

https://redd.it/1p2zjc0
@r_systemadmin

Again?

X/Twitter seems to be having issues. Down detector is beginning to show some spikes as well, including AWS and cloudflare. Anyone else seeing impacts?


https://redd.it/1p32c8j
@r_systemadmin

CloudFlare..... again? Come the fuck on

Here we go again, multiple sites showing Cloudflare issues......

Why? Why a fucking Friday? Really?!

https://redd.it/1p32ry5
@r_systemadmin

40k a year for first sysadmin job

Hi everyone! I am about to finish grad school and I finally got a job offer as a systems administrator. However, I am kind of upset about the salary of 40k a year. Is this really low for a sysadmin job, or a good salary for entry level position? Can I work my way up and make more money in the future? Any advice would be great.

https://redd.it/1p37r9d
@r_systemadmin

Vendors Using Teams for Remote Support

I'm not sure if it's just me, but it feels like more and more vendor support teams for line of business apps are trying to use Microsoft Teams instead of investing in proper remote support tools.

I just had another one this morning asking me to install Teams on a production server so they could troubleshoot an issue with their product. People think I'm the bad guy for making receiving support "more difficult", but c'mon, man.

Am I the one that's out of line here?

https://redd.it/1p33dgb
@r_systemadmin

Place your bets. which vendor is next to screw themselve...and all of us

Its starting to look like the year where hackers barely need to do anything because the biggest vendors keep taking themselves down with their own hands.

Cloudflare One bad configand half the internet offline.

AWS ...DNS chain reaction and banks, apps, and services collapsed.

Azure... A routing/config change and global authentication failures.

Google...Stacked flawed updates and couse massive outage.

Zoom...Registrar glitch and zoom.us disappears.

Slack.. Internal update issue and no messaging, no channels.

So what’s the real common denominator?

Misconfigurations!

One bad file, one flawed update, one DNS change and entire ecosystems shutdown
Not attackers. Not Ransomware

Place your bets...
Which vendor do you think is next to hit the global outage button?

https://redd.it/1p3afoz
@r_systemadmin

How the hell do I stop apps being installed for new users logging into a Windows 11 PC?

Server admin here. Vary rarely get to play with client devices but I've got a task at the moment to stop certain apps being installed for "new users" logging into a PC for the first time.


Outlook. One Drive. Xbox Games etc.


I've run the below and works well. But only for existing users. But when a new user logs in... boom... it's back.


Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.OutlookForWindows | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers


I tried to use to remove the underlying provisioning package:

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online-PackageName Microsoft.OutlookForWindows


But the command fails but I've seen the above mentioned in a lot of places online. I'm at my wits end here. Why make it so sodding complicated MS?




https://redd.it/1p35yf7
@r_systemadmin

Stuck in the land of zero motivation

Making this hoping it'll boost me toward getting back in IT and building up my resume.

Took this leap of faith by following my wife overseas and putting pause on my career so we can experience living in Europe. I didn't think it would be too hard to find work but with the government shutdown, adjusting to life here, and realizing the lack of job opportunities have burnt me out on looking for work or even looking at anything IT related. Going from dream job to part time babysitter sucks.


I bought a raspberry pi in hopes of doing projects and built a pc that should handle mini projects but I haven't had the motivation of trying to do anything with it. I've just given up on working on things with the minimal job opportunities/lack of true worth of spending time on a project.


But I've realized I can't just sit here and let time past so here's to getting back to the grind with projects then certifications. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a tech job somewhere...


Good luck to me and anyone else needing that push to keep going.

https://redd.it/1p3eq35
@r_systemadmin

Microsoft 365 Local is Generally Available

Is anyone planning to investigate / deploy? It was promised a while ago as the ultimate answer to data sovereignty issues - as expected, looks like a fairly out-of-the-box Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack HCI) deployment of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Skype for Business Server with a hardened security baseline and some cloud-based orchestrations. Not surprisingly there’s no on-premises Microsoft Teams functionality but this is still a disappointment. Useful or just another marketing innovation?

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azurearcblog/microsoft-365-local-is-generally-available/4470170

https://redd.it/1p3q3td
@r_systemadmin

Rant: "I'm not technical" is not a badge of pride

When I started in the industry users didn't do computers at school and the home computing revolution hadn't begun, so "I'm not technical" was perhaps a valid claim

Fast-forward 35 years and this phrase is still being said and as if it's a badge of pride.

There are not enough swearwords in the universe to describe what I want to say...but I am sure I am not alone in thinking in '25 ...it should actually be followed by "and I need to fix that"

https://redd.it/1p3rlkq
@r_systemadmin

DRAM Prices - lol WTF?

You guys seeing this? I know it's slightly off topic of sysadmin stuff, but we do upgrade some systems with 1 year EOL left, take them from 16GB to 32GB just to get them through their final year in service before RPL.

So I decided to lookup the RAM kit I bought for my personal setup. A few days ago, I paid $219.99 at BestBuy. (Solid RAM low timings BTW).

2 Days ago it was $679.99 and today... well.... today it's $906.99.... yep, for 2x32GB DDR5 6400

This isn't 3rd party, it's retail at BestBuy - https://www.bestbuy.com/product/corsair-vengeance-rgb-64gb-2x32gb-ddr5-6400mhz-c32-udimm-desktop-memory-black/J39QHTC43T

Newegg also: https://www.newegg.com/corsair-vengeance-rgb-64gb-ddr5-6400-cas-latency-cl32-desktop-memory-black/p/N82E16820982255

Price Charts: https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

https://redd.it/1p3sbrq
@r_systemadmin

Is there any DLP that’s designed specifically for AI applications?

What I mean is checking at the prompt level by not just blocking but semantically assessing the prompt against policies (e.g. no PII, relevance, etc.) before letting it through

https://redd.it/1p3t826
@r_systemadmin

What's the point of having VLAN tagging functionality for server management port (IPMI)?

To my knowledge, unless a port is a shared port (used by hypervisor), vlan tagging should be done on the switch, not by the node itself (IPMI).

My workplace supermicro server have the functionality to vlan tag the traffic going out of the IPMI port.

Why this functionality exists? What is the used for it?

https://redd.it/1p3t47c
@r_systemadmin

Azure File Shares now support kerberos for entra only in preview

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/how-to-configure-profile-container-entra-id-hybrid?pivots=hybrid-identities

I'm currently running an AVD setup using the Nerdio storage key injection workaround, and so far so good. Mostly for Intune only computers to run Remote Apps, a few teams use privileged desktops, like for database access.

With AVD you can schedule your session hosts to allocate off and on as needed. Same with things like Azure SQL or other back end systems.

I know everyone has their thoughts on cloud, but this basically means that SMBs don't need to run anything 24/7. Your entire infrastructure can allocate on and off on demand or schedule. If you're a 9-5 company this might mean pausing compute for 50% of the year. On-prem is a hard sell over that capability.

I guess the last big hurdle is SMB shares. Not sure we will see an Entra-only workaround for that any time soon, but Entra DS is not so bad if SMB is your only requirement.

https://redd.it/1p3voik
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