[bloqs]

Are there any businesses that are like this now? I'm based in europe and this sounds like the ideal environment for me

[Nextgrid]

Hosting providers such as OVH, Hetzner, etc still have old-school sysadmin work.

ISPs are hit & miss. If you can get into an early-stage (W?)ISP you will get interesting work, but avoid the big established ones like the plague - there it's all about outsourcing to the lowest bidder and providing the lowest level of service they can legally get away with.

[kuschku]

TNG/ennit in Kiel seems to be the closest example I know of, but even they're quite a bit larger (with all the bureaucracy that comes with that).