How much does a certified Linux professional earn?

Why become a Linux professional?

It is a challenging profession for those who like infrastructure and like to set up all the services that are offered today on the Internet. Large companies such as Facebook, Netflix and Google are based on Linux and use it as a framework for all the services they provide to their users.

It’s fun to see people’s amazement when they discover that almost the entire population of this blue planet uses Linux every day, in its version embedded in Android and iPhone (Unix Like) cell phones. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that 95% of the Internet works on Linux.

So to be a Linux professional is to know how to design, create, install the system, configure and maintain almost everything involving technology.

In the cloud era, Amazon AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernets, and containers, it is more imperative for an IT professional, systems analyst, developer, or support analyst to be well acquainted with Linux and the various possibilities it provides.

Speaking of Brazil, in this whole crisis in which we are experiencing, it makes a lot of sense for companies to work with Free Software, especially free of expensive licenses.

What is the Linux market like in Brazil?

The Linux market is fabulous. The largest technology job site in the United States dice.com ranked what companies most ask for when filling out a vacancy application. Knowledge of “Open Source” comes in second place, second only to a bachelor’s degree in “computer science”.

Terms such as “Docker”, “NoSQL”, and “LAMP” (Linux, Apache, Mysql, and Phpadmin) appear in the requirements most sought after by employers.

It’s no different in Brazil. The term “Linux” appears in 32 vacancies on the Cathoo website as I write this post. On vagas.com there are 125 Linux vacancies. There are 411 open vacancies on the manager.com website. There are 429 vacancies in Ceviu. And on the specialized IT site, Indeed, there are 1,053 vacancies. There are 11 thousand vacancies on dice.com. That’s just using the term “Linux”. And of course, if you use other related terms, such as “cloud”, “infra”, “networks”, “oracle”,” mysql” and many other software that runs on Linux, the number of vacancies increases a lot.

How much does a certified Linux professional earn?

This may vary from which city we are talking about and of course the size of the company. Large centers in the Southeast, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, the average salary can vary from 3,000 to 13,000.00, depending also logically on professional background.

We can say that on average, a trained professional with LPIC or CompTIA certification is earning an average of 5000-8000. Not bad for someone who is not yet in management, supervision, or leadership roles. If you still have an MBA or graduate degree, the remuneration improves.

Research also shows that the salary of a certified professional is at least 18% higher than one who is not certified, and 75% of the professionals who became certified achieved a salary increase immediately after obtaining the certification.

If the professional chooses to become a consultant, the chances of getting more work and with better pay increase dramatically if the professional is certified. Because this assures the contractor that they will not waste their time and investment.

How can I get started?

If you are still a student of information systems, computing and related courses, I recommend that you start with the LPI certification basic, called “Linux Essentials”.

This certification is for those who are still in the “junior” stage of their career, understand little about Linux and also have little money to invest in the exam. The LPI Essentials test costs US$ 50 and can be taken through Pearson Vue in several cities around the country. It tests your basic knowledge in Linux and can help you a lot to get a good internship, training program, or job in the range of -1500-2500 reais.

If you are already a graduate, or already have some background, or are willing to take a better step to gain a foothold in the market, the best option is to study for the “CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI” exams.

Basically they are two tests, the LX0-103 and LX0-104. Each test costs $206.00 and if you pass both you will be certified CompTIA Linux+ and also LPIC-1. They are two certificates from two certification companies with just two proofs.

Why are there two tests? Well, the official answer is that the content is too extensive to fit in just one test. But of course we may think that it is simply “better for business” to have two tests. But is it worth it? Yes. You will jump from a salary in the range of R$2000.00 to a salary in the range of R$ 6000.00.

Then, if you want (and I highly recommend it if you want) to pursue a Linux career, I recommend taking the exams for the LPIC-2, with exams 201 and 202 from the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). With this you will move to a salary in the range of 7000-8000.

If you want to proceed, you can take the exams for the LPIC-3. At this level you can choose what you want to specialize in. Personally I don’t recommend it much. I believe it is much more worthwhile with a solid knowledge in Linux to specialize in major Cloud Computing players, such as Amazon AWS, Azure from Microsoft and Google Cloud, since companies are hardly investing in their own infrastructure, with backup, energy, generators, link redundancy and It goes on and on. It’s much cheaper and simpler to migrate to the cloud. But this requires a professional trained in dealing with Cloud resources, as well as Linux.

And there’s no point in going to the cloud without knowledge of Linux, because in the end, it will be there, waiting for skilled and experienced professionals.

How long does it take?

That depends only on you. Some people with baggage are able to study for each exam in one week, studying 4 hours a day. If you have some experience, but not much, you can study in 20 days for each exam. And if you don’t have any experience, then you can take 2 months for each test.

Our class site has an online schedule, which tells you how much time you have per week to study and it calculates how long it will take you to beat the content.

Learn much more about Linux in our online course. You can enroll here with a free 7-day trial. If you already have an account, you can log in here.

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