IT is mostly about solving puzzles

The Myth of the "Computer Wizard"

How many times have I heard at work, "IT is black magic", "I don't understand how you can do this job", "IT are magicians," and other similar comments.

The common image of an IT guy is a hoodie-wearing figure punching keys at the speed of a machine gun in the dark of night, while cascades of green characters glide across the screen (shoutout to all Matrix fans!). The reality, however, is much more interesting (in my opinion), though definitely less cinematic. Users often call us "computer wizards." If you think my job is just tapping on a keyboard, that's like saying a writer's job is "placing letters." Letters are just a tool. The real magic happens where the translation from user language into technical language begins, where a problem becomes a solution, and everything looks like magic.

1. Tapping on the keyboard is only a small part

The truth is a bit different than most people imagine: I spend most of my time not typing but guessing.Yes, you read that right, guessing. IT job in most cases is a detective's job. You have to understand a lot of things, for example:

If you need to write or complete the code of some program or automation script and I read, what the author meant (even if I am the author from half a year ago) and for the life of me I can't understand why this function is written this way. It makes no sense. Yes, I know, well-documented code is easy to read. Let the one who always has perfect documentation of their own code throw their keyboard at me. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Why is the system behaving this way? What was I doing before it crashed? Was it my fault that it crashed?

What does a user mean when they say, for example, "My printer isn't working?" In my experience, the printer is rarely the actual cause of such a message.

Where is this one little nasty thing hiding, which kills the entire project? An example from a recent project at London Heathrow: we had a loop on a switch and for the life of us, we couldn't find it. Only after a few hours did a colleague of mine manage to find it, by accident ;) because that's often how IT problems are solved.

Tapping on the keyboard is really the last stage of my work– it is just a recording of the solution to the puzzle that has just been unravel in your head. Documenting your thought process and building a Knowledge Base that your fellow magicians can draw from.

2. Architecture, or building with blocks without instructions

Imagine you are given a task: build a castle out of blocks but you have no instructions, and the blocks change shape every now and then, because"business has changed requirements". Solving IT puzzles means designing systems that will survive these changes.

How to switch from an old network to a new one without the business noticing the changes?

How can you make the system handle 100 users as efficiently as 100,000?

Why can't Jason from HR print when 50 other people in the office don't have this problem?

Why do our security systems panic when we launch our new, crazy-expensive accounting software? The vendor has all the ISO, NIS, GDPR, and whatever certification we could possibly want.

By the way, I had this exact situation at work. A large financial software provider passed all certifications and audits with flying colors. And what happened? It turned out that logging in only required guessing a predictable token. The token was sent in clear text (not via HTTPS or TLS), not even in encrypted form (like SHA-256 or anything). Just plain text. Guessing another token was trivial and granted access to the financial data of many large companies that the software supported. I reported the bug, but I don't know if they patched it. I hope so.

3. "It's Not a Bug" – a moment of enlightenment

The biggest IT puzzles are those where the system works when it either shouldn't or should work differently.

Finding the cause of an error (debugging) is the purest form of forensic work. You analyze logs, examine traces, formulate hypotheses and disprove them. You test alternative solutions.And when you finally find the reason – that “AHA!” feeling is better than any written script.

4. Communication, or translating from "human" to "computer"

The most difficult puzzle in IT is often understanding another person. Decomposing a problem that the user describes as "my computer isn't working" into a set of information that will allow for a diagnosis is an art in itself.You have to be a translator, psychologist, and strategist all rolled into one. You have to understand that someone might not understand. That can be very difficult.

Summary:

If you're looking for a job where you'll just be copying instructions, IT will disappoint you. If however,you love this moment when after a long time spent on thinking all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, you understand the needs of users and the fact that they are often not technical– welcome home. Here, every line of code, every wire, and every click is a solution to a small intellectual battle.