Administrator vs Engineer

[Martin James Gehrke]

I have been both a system administrator and a systems engineer to varying degrees in my career, based on needs and interest. 

I was trying to differentiate to myself the positions. Before I give my thoughts I wanted to see if anyone else had ideas.

I'd ask on /r/sysadmin but "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. " 

Marty

[Tim Quinlan]

Most places use the terms interchangeably.  And most of us probably do a little of both.  I think in the purest form:

  - Engineer: Mostly design and integration work.  

                     High-level understanding of implementation and operations.

                     More knowledge of business practices and goals from a technical POV.  Maybe even his career is tied to a certain industry.

                     His sh*t rolls down hill to the admins.

                     Not concerned with hardware/software/programming language/shell selections, as long as it conforms to predefined standards and will perform to the needed spec.

                     Not on an on-call rotation, although could be called in off-hours if a **really** big problem occurs.

  - Admin: keeps the systems running.  

                Intimate understanding of implementation and operations.

                More flexible in job selection (for most admins it doesn't matter if they are working for a shoe company or a finance company) although the amount of pressure will vary from industry to industry.

                On-call duties.

                His sh*t rolls down hill to the NOC and the Help Desk. 

                Very concerned with hardware/shell/software/language selections.

If there is a clear differentiation between the two levels, both should have influence on the other.  (or else the admin positions will turn over frequently).

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[Sal Ghani]

I think I'm in agreement with Tim, with an addendum for the Admin definition: sh*t rolls uphill from Help Desk/NOC to them and downhill from management... but this may just be from my personal experience! :-) I think the Engineers and Admins definitely need to work hand-in-hand for smooth running of the business.