Everyone else's work depends on the systems staying up, and that's on you — running the servers, networks, and infrastructure behind the scenes. Where the lights stay on for everyone's tech.
The day mixes routine and response: maintaining servers and networks, managing accounts and backups, applying updates, and troubleshooting whatever breaks. You work largely behind the scenes, with users and IT. Your best work is the work nobody notices, and when something's down, the whole office stops.
The role can mean on-call nights and weekends when systems fail. The technology shifts constantly so you're always learning, you often inherit and maintain systems you didn't build, and you're blamed for outages, invisible otherwise. Scope ranges from solo generalist to a large IT team.
It tends to suit people who are steady, methodical, and calm when everything's on fire. If you want to build products or hate being on call, the upkeep focus may chafe. But if you take pride in infrastructure that just quietly works, and like solving problems under pressure, it's foundational, in-demand work.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Technology roles →Everyone else's work depends on the systems staying up, and that's on you — running the servers, networks, and infrastructure behind the scenes. Where the lights stay on for everyone's tech.
Median pay for a System Administrator (System Admin) is about $97K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $60K to $150K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Systems Analysis, Reading Comprehension, Judgment and Decision Making, Critical Thinking, and Systems Evaluation.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to decline about 4.2% through 2034, with roughly 318,570 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Local Area Network Systems Administrator (LAN Systems Administrator), Security Administrator, and Application Systems Administrator.
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