Re: Job leveling

Dsnyder wrote:

The reasoning behind my question is whether (in general - job title
roles only) would a System i System Administrator generally get paid
more than a Programmer/Analyst and /or a Systems Analyst?
I know number of years will factor in a lot.

Dave:

It very much depends on overall staffing (IMO).

One example scenario might involve a well qualified SysPgmr (or SysPgmr staff) who might effectively obsolete much of the value of both Operators and SysAdmins.

By providing system programming for task automation, there might be far less needed of other staff at any level.

OTOH, if that part of staff is ineffective or missing, requirements can rise dramatically for everyone else.

Perhaps all you can do is work up a series of 'dimensions' that can provide guidance on metrics. Dimensions might include:

1. Your application areas.
2. System software.
a. i5/OS
b. HLLs (and Qshell/PASE?)
c. Utilities (and Qshell/PASE?)
3. System hardware.
4. Your network.
5. Future projects.

Actually, I'm not sure how many 'dimensions' might exist for _you_ nor how they'd be separated. But once you decide what they are, you can ascribe values against them in terms of desired experience and/or whatever attributes you need. Depending on what you expect a given job/position to accomplish, you should be able to mark where that job/position sits on the multi-dimensional graph and see how one relates to the others.

A SysPgmr might need very little experience in your particular applications, but should know i5/OS more than anyone else on staff. S/he might not need to know which menu leads to what options, where an Operator might need to have many of them almost memorized. A SysAnalyst might need to have both deep and wide knowledge of your apps including relationships between them all, but might not have a clue about what your system hardware actually is.

It all depends.

Would your Systems Analyst be one who 'analyzed' your multiple System i 'systems'? Or would s/he be immersed in your applications 'systems'? I've seen both.

Does your SysAdmin primarily focus on general user access to application 'systems'? Or does s/he 'administer' the System i itself, including control of upgrades (hard- and soft-ware), cume packages and group packages, interactions with IBM remote support and outside consultants as well as CIO/CTO?

I don't think I've seen two organizations that had much useful consistency between them, particularly in this market. In mainframe or UNIX sites, systems programmers might have clear duties, for example; but even IBM contended that they weren't relevant under OS/400 early on. I'm not sure how well descriptions of duties have evolved.

It sure seems to be a useful to develop here.

Tom Liotta