I don’t know much about you… When someone asks “would I be a good programmer?” it really comes down to their personality in my opinion. Without going into too much of personalities, I’ll simply say I’ve found programmers to be the opposite of sysadmins. Sysadmins seem (to me) to simply want things setup fairly easily and quickly, then automate that system so it doesn’t have to be touched again. Programmers on the other hand, like the intricacy of what they are coding, all the way down to compiling and why something works down to the very core.
I’m not saying sysadmins are lazy and don’t like knowing how something works down to the core, because I’m a sysadmin and I like knowing everything about everything. I’m just using it as an example for a broad stroke.
I don’t want to make this reply super long with personality types (in general) so I’ll just leave that there.
If you like coding, check out DevOps, but based on your OC, you don’t seem like you’d want to be a programmer. The only reason I say that is because usually when you start working on a new program/etc, you’re married to that and you’re working on the same thing for the most part. You said you like diversity and jumping around. You’ll do that somewhat with DevOps, moving to different projects, but chances are you’ll be dedicated to projects for longer periods of time.
I would start slow and do DevOps on the side, doing training courses on the side of sysadmin/netadmin work (maybe for an MSP where you have LOTS of diverse networks to support) while you find out if it’s going to be an area you’re interested in.
Having said all that, DevOps is a hot topic in the last year or so, and DevOps engineers are becoming more in demand. I simply chose not to go down that road even with great pay and high demand because, as I’ve said, I simply don’t have the mindset of a programmer vs. a sysadmin.
A completely different, and totally unrelated way I can describe the differences between the two with other fields… Some people are artists, and others are great at math. Two different sides of the brains, I am horrible at anything creative. Absolutely terrible. But I have always been good at math and science. I can’t paint you a picture, or create a beautiful web site, but I can talk to you for hours about quantum computing. Some people just don’t have the mindset and skills for certain things. I would never be good at anything in development or creation because I’m no artist. I’ve tried in many areas and I’m just bad.
TL;DR= Diversify. Learn stuff on the side so you can see if you want to make a career out of it. Don’t just invest all your time into one thing because you might be surprised with your results, good or bad.
