Ask HN: Are there any on-demand sysadmin/devops/dba markets? There should be | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are there any on-demand sysadmin/devops/dba markets? There should be

3 pointseblanshey2 comments

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good service or marketplace that allows me to get a hold of someone more knowledgeable than me in a particular technology when I need it.

For example, I am a decent sysadmin and can manage a fleet of servers, but for that one time when I can't figure something out, I want to be able to log in on this marketplace that has professionals "on call", ready to give immediate help. Perhaps the service would just let me choose what expertise I need, such as "Sysadmin" with "Ubuntu" knowledge, and it would connect me with one immediately and supply them any SSH details needed for them to log in themselves. This could even be automated with alerts that open up tickets with such services.

The same for database services, devops, etc. This is in contrast to usual "managed" services where you pay a monthly fee for something you might not even use. This would would be pay-as-you go at an hourly rate.

Does something like this exist?

There's upwork.com but in my experience, it's terrible.

My advice is to find someone already employed with free time to help out when needed. I wouldn't trust a queue where you're not sure which admin you'll get on a particular day. Skills vary so much that I don't believe you'll get good results.

I imagine part of the problem is that few good systems people are going to want to work at such a service. I'm on a sabbatical now but my last DevOps position paid me 247K a year with great benefits, ESPP, and RSUs.

It's unlikely that a good systems person would work in a pool waiting for an hourly engagement when they can make reliable money somewhere else. The marketplace is too good for us on the systems side right now.

Some of my friends and I have done hourly work on the side but not in a pool. Most of the time it's for small startups where we know at least some of the people there and they need some help. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I like to think there's some level of trust needed for systems work. Giving someone root access is a big deal IMO.

As was already mentioned. Trustness is the key. You need to be a trusted partner for such sensitive type of work.

Wrong people with root access to core infrastructure can make much more damage and cost more than problem which isn't solved at all.

There is also no space for learning on-the-fly. You have to know what you are doing, and how to perform certain steps correctly (t-shoot, recovery, migration).

From my experience, almost all my contracts (> 90%) came from word-of-mouth. Almost all online and printed advertisements, online profiles were waste of my time and resources.

Also, if friend of mine recommend me to someone else, I can believe that I will get paid (or there is only low risk). In case of blind-contract via internet, there is still a bigger risk that you will not get paid. I am not sure if I can (and want) trust published ratings on such web-pages.

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