FWIW, the
Bootstrapping an Infrastructure
concepts and strategies seem to be the proven way to apply programming
and engineering skills to "system administration" problems.
There are even some people and projects same tackling those issues for
MS Windows installations, although fewer (and with greater difficulty)
than for Unix-like systems. Which, you could even view as an
opportunity, as in the Windows world, you are even less likely to
encounter competent competition than with Unix! ;)
(And personally, I really, really wish there were more people doing
that sort of thing... on any OS platform. Using and maintaining
computers today still has far, far too much friction.)
