Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
Hi. I have some big goals and a lot of enthusiasm but I need direction. I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data. This is what I want to do with my life. I have my CCNA, and when I graduate college I'll have a CCNP, and the ability to move anywhere in the USA. Please message me off-list. Thank you, Tyler.
On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Tyler Haske <tyler.haske@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.
why not just apply as a tech at any of the dozen or so large ISP's in the US? <http://www22.verizon.com/jobs/> <https://recruiting.level3.com/ENG/Candidates/default.cfm> <http://www.tatacommunications.com/careers/> I'm sure some google-searching (or bing or whatever) would lead you in the right direction.
What Chris said.... Get a job in the industry.. work like crazy learning as much as you can to learn, get involved in the industry to make connections. -jim On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 10:47 PM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Tyler Haske <tyler.haske@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.
why not just apply as a tech at any of the dozen or so large ISP's in the US?
<http://www22.verizon.com/jobs/>
<https://recruiting.level3.com/ENG/Candidates/default.cfm>
<http://www.tatacommunications.com/careers/>
I'm sure some google-searching (or bing or whatever) would lead you in the right direction.
Well, thats two mentors - and now one from the old school.... Why wait? Start Now. Use the resources Chris gave you & others you find, take Jims advice re total commitment, and then weigh that in the balance w/ your academic path. (noting that vendor credentials are good for the HR folks filtering the krill, but are not a reliable indication of skill or passion) Look for an internship while in school. Something part time. Build little ISPs in your dorm room using the VM tools and build/test complex topologies and random failure modes. Pipe size is one thing, engineering in your sleep is something else. of course YMMV. /bill (now too old/slow to run w/ the big dogs)
On Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:40:08 EST, Tyler Haske said:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.
OK, so I'm not a mentor from a Tier-1, and I don't directly monkey with routers as part of $DAYJOB. But anyhow... :) With great power comes great responsibility. Be prepared for high stress levels. ;) Also, keep in mind that unless you're insanely brilliant, three things will happen before you get experienced enough to be a senior tech at a Tier 1: 1) You will have grey hair (at least some). 2) The half life of technical know-how in this industry is about 5 years. You'll have been through several half-lifes of what you'll know when you escape from college. Develop the skills needed to learn the next 3 or 4 Next Big Things quickly. 3) You'll have learned that handling a big pipe at a Tier 1 isn't all there is to running a network - and in fact, quite often the Really Cool Toys are elsewhere. Sure, they may have the fastest line cards, but they're going to tend to lag on feature sets just because you *don't* want to deploy cutting-edge code if you're a Tier-1. As an example, AS1312 deployed IPv6 over a decade before some of the Tier 1's could even *spell* it (find out why 6bone existed - it's instructive history). I'm sure that MPLS didn't make its first appearance in TIer-1 core nets either. And the list goes on.. (Hint - where did the Tier 1's get the IPv6/MPLS/whatever experienced engineers to guide their deployment? :)
I really appreciate the specific insights offered by Keegan and Valdis. - Linking me places to apply for jobs doesn't help. I'm aware of who is considered Tier I, and how to find their website. - I'm in Kalamazoo Michigan, and I can commute up to 50 miles. I can't move until I finish my Bachelors in Computer Networking. - The job market here is bad. - I do have a home lab. (Cisco equipment) 2 3350s 2 2950s 4 2611XMs. - This isn't merely a technical request. I'd like support in this endeavor, from someone who's 'been there', to tell me things I CAN'T Google. Tyler.
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 09:09:50AM -0500, Tyler Haske wrote:
I really appreciate the specific insights offered by Keegan and Valdis.
- Linking me places to apply for jobs doesn't help. I'm aware of who is considered Tier I, and how to find their website.
- I'm in Kalamazoo Michigan, and I can commute up to 50 miles. I can't move until I finish my Bachelors in Computer Networking.
- The job market here is bad.
- I do have a home lab. (Cisco equipment)
2 3350s 2 2950s 4 2611XMs.
- This isn't merely a technical request. I'd like support in this endeavor, from someone who's 'been there', to tell me things I CAN'T Google.
Tyler.
Valdis evolked fond memories... (built the 6bone's first node! and was part of the baseline mesh for over a decade, when it was dismantled) wrt your home lab. you are at a disadvantage (except of course for your certifications) in that the cool toys are not yet in vendor code. consider augmenting your kit w/ OSS versions of routing code (I still like zebra) and dig into fundamentals (ISIS & BGP interaction, MPLS, esp with the still unstable OAM code - pick ITU/SG15 or IETF flavors -, consider where the market is headed... look into dynamic discovery in HIP networks, true mobility (not the mobile-IP that is current fashion))... if you are still keen, I can put you in touch w/ some good researchers doing dynamic BGP failover and over the Internet rekeying, if you want to collaberate on things. /bill
On Nov 21, 2011, at 9:09 AM, Tyler Haske wrote:
I really appreciate the specific insights offered by Keegan and Valdis.
- Linking me places to apply for jobs doesn't help. I'm aware of who is considered Tier I, and how to find their website.
- I'm in Kalamazoo Michigan, and I can commute up to 50 miles. I can't move until I finish my Bachelors in Computer Networking.
- The job market here is bad.
- I do have a home lab. (Cisco equipment)
2 3350s 2 2950s 4 2611XMs.
- This isn't merely a technical request. I'd like support in this endeavor, from someone who's 'been there', to tell me things I CAN'T Google.
The problem is that even talking about commuting to grand rapids (next biggest city compared to kz, excluding bc) there aren't a lot of local places. There is a nice set of WISPs out there on the west side that may be interesting. There's a few interesting things to think about here: 1) The core space has gotten "less interesting" in recent years IMHO. While there are still cool things to do, there's more interesting ways to think about problems. 2) A multi-talented person is more useful than someone who thinks only about networking or hosts. This also comes with its own perils as you may not fit well in places that place you inside a box. 3) are you at WMU? Any openings there in the IT/Networking group? What about KVCC, or others? There used to be a more robust local community of ISPs out there (e.g.: net-link/corecomm/voyager). You may want to consider talking to the folks at Climax Telephone as well. They were doing some interesting things last I checked. Learn about the difference between purchasing and leasing. Understand the business side of the equation, not just the technical. These skills will bear fruit when you ask for hardware. Hope this helps some. The market does change quickly (but is becoming a bit slower in some ways) so do be prepared for the business constant of change. If you are unable to adapt to change, you will be left behind. - Jared
Although it is outside of your current commuting distance, if you are looking to stay in Michigan, you might look into Merit in Ann Arbor, or one of the major universities. Merit has been around since the NSFNET/MichNet days. On November 21, 2011 at 9:09 AM Tyler Haske <tyler.haske@gmail.com> wrote:
I really appreciate the specific insights offered by Keegan and Valdis.
- Linking me places to apply for jobs doesn't help. I'm aware of who is considered Tier I, and how to find their website.
- I'm in Kalamazoo Michigan, and I can commute up to 50 miles. I can't move until I finish my Bachelors in Computer Networking.
- The job market here is bad.
- I do have a home lab. (Cisco equipment)
2 3350s 2 2950s 4 2611XMs.
- This isn't merely a technical request. I'd like support in this endeavor, from someone who's 'been there', to tell me things I CAN'T Google.
Tyler.
On 22/11/11 03:09, Tyler Haske wrote:
I really appreciate the specific insights offered by Keegan and Valdis.
- Linking me places to apply for jobs doesn't help. I'm aware of who is considered Tier I, and how to find their website.
Don't limit yourself to Tier 1's on the outset. A lot of Network Engineers have worked at least a couple of engineering roles before landing the one that best suits them. Companies usually want to hire experience. That experience coming from as many varied places as possible, actually has some value. In my own case, aside from pure bit-pushing I have had retail sales (electronics sector), technical support, sales, pre-sales and design experience as well as the hands-on engineering of supporting infrastructure (datacentre & rack environments, electricity and environmental systems exposure, plus Layer 1-4+...) The disadvantage in angling directly to Tier 1 and working your way up within that organisation will be the potential lack of diversity in your experience. The best thing you can do (IMHO) in lieu of moving to a network-hub city for your hunt, is get your foot in the door with a company that has a significant need for input at the network level, that can help you get your start in terms of hands-on exposure to network operations and management. It'll give you some real-world perspective and it'll provide some of the experience that people will be looking for when reviewing your CV. If you have that, are visibly keen, flexible and continue to (visibly) develop your talents as an engineer, you'll never struggle for work. You can pidgeon-hole yourself pretty quickly if you narrow your skill-focus too far. Mark. PS: Accepted i'm not in the US, so YMMV, but nothing i'm saying strikes me as generically unreasonable.
I appreciate the feedback so far. I'd love to have varied experience with a bunch of different companies, but first I'm trying to guarantee my first network engineering job out of college. Currently I'm studying for the CCNP, exam, with plans to do the CCIP also (its what I have the equipment for). Learning IPv6 is a good idea. With regards to a bigger lab I really wish I had more money to throw at equipment. (I'm aware I can emulate & virtualize up to a point) I've looked at the career sites for Western, KVCC, Davenport, CTS Telecommunication, Charter Communication and Stryker today, and nothing is posted. How aggressive should I be at trying to work at one of these places? I really don't have a solid plan for getting a job after graduation. Should I sidetrack and learn Active Directory and Exchange for instance? It would make me more marketable, but distract me from my goals. Tyler
Another really useful skill is knowing what it looks like to be a customer / end user of one of those networks. Sure, it's fun to crank obscure BGP load-balancing techniques, but you also need to know where the industry as a whole is going technically and business-wise. Tier 1s sell to Tier 2s, big enterprises, content providers, and consumers, and they all need different things. How much is computing staying under the control of the companies that use it vs. migrating out to cloud providers and Something-As-A-Service? What happens to networks as broadcast TV gets replaced by consumers downloading content? What do you know about end-users from hanging out with other college students that the old folks running the ISPs don't understand yet? Some parts of the Tier 1 business depend on providing access to large end user locations, which is more of an issue of zoning, real estate, and geography; other parts want to scale to hundreds of thousands of smaller connections. When I had a job that was more in the field than my current position, something I saw happening all the time was that people who worked for a customer would get a job at one of their vendors, or people who worked for a vendor would get a job at one of their customers. In bigger companies, that may also be internal end users and service organizations in addition to external customers. It's a big way that you build the relationships that lead to getting jobs and to finding people to hire. And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go learn technologies like Active Directory, either because you might end up working for an enterprise instead of a service provider, or just because your customers will be using it and you need to know how it'll affect their network needs. In addition to learning scripting languages, you really need to learn some basic VMware, because operationally just about everything that doesn't need custom silicon is migrating onto virtual machines. You don't need to have a whole VMsphere N+1 system at home, but at least install the free versions on a PC, build some VMs and some virtual switches and let them talk to each other, do some firewalls, etc. The certification business is useful for a couple of things - giving you some direction in your learning process, telling people who are trying to hire new coworkers something about your skills, and getting your resume past the HR department so the people who actually understand what the jobs are can see it (or at least keeping them from getting in the way if you've made the connections through people you know instead of through HR.)
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ... Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad & just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable. Randal On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stewart <nonobvious@gmail.com> wrote:
And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go learn technologies like Active Directory
[snip]
In addition to learning scripting languages
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background.. I expect it will be immensely difficult to find somebody. What makes it even more frustrating is that just such a person was not all that long ago made redundant! So if anybody is looking for something to do around London... -- Leigh
-----Original Message----- From: randal k [mailto:nanog@data102.com] Sent: 01 December 2011 15:19 To: Bill Stewart Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad & just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
Randal
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stewart <nonobvious@gmail.com> wrote:
And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go learn technologies like Active Directory
[snip]
In addition to learning scripting languages
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It takes me years to find such people and when I do, I try very hard to keep them! I have 3 key people that fit the "soft" attribute criteria Randal mentioned, but with a premium skill set in their specific function. Good luck with your task Leigh! Mark Stevens On 12/1/2011 10:21 AM, Leigh Porter wrote:
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background..
I expect it will be immensely difficult to find somebody. What makes it even more frustrating is that just such a person was not all that long ago made redundant!
So if anybody is looking for something to do around London...
-- Leigh
-----Original Message----- From: randal k [mailto:nanog@data102.com] Sent: 01 December 2011 15:19 To: Bill Stewart Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad& just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
Randal
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stewart<nonobvious@gmail.com> wrote:
And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go learn technologies like Active Directory
[snip]
In addition to learning scripting languages
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Personally, I have worked in places where I have performed all of the skills below (router/switch/Unix/Linux/AD/firewall/proxy/web admin/sendmail admin, etc.), and also in places where just router/switch/architect layer 1-3 skills were the primary focus. I prefer the latter, and find this to be a personal choice as to what makes for a meaningful and fulfilling job. The fact that so few network engineers are to be found with all of these skills, I think, speaks for itself in that many network engineers have made the choice, and that choice is to be focused on layers 1-3, which, with DWDM through BGP, offers many challenging, different, and varied technology complexities the mastery of which makes work meaningful and rewarding. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Stevens [mailto:manager@monmouth.com] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 7:53 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice. It takes me years to find such people and when I do, I try very hard to keep them! I have 3 key people that fit the "soft" attribute criteria Randal mentioned, but with a premium skill set in their specific function. Good luck with your task Leigh! Mark Stevens On 12/1/2011 10:21 AM, Leigh Porter wrote:
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background..
I expect it will be immensely difficult to find somebody. What makes it even more frustrating is that just such a person was not all that long ago made redundant!
So if anybody is looking for something to do around London...
-- Leigh
-----Original Message----- From: randal k [mailto:nanog@data102.com] Sent: 01 December 2011 15:19 To: Bill Stewart Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad& just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
Randal
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stewart<nonobvious@gmail.com> wrote:
And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go learn technologies like Active Directory
[snip]
In addition to learning scripting languages
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I keep running into cases where people do not know how to adequately use my talents so the compensation is too light... Or they require relocation, even though the nature of the job is virtual (hands on not really required). At least it is nice to see some folks out there who do need people like me. Over the years I've been a (very good) coder, sysadmin, DBA, network engineer, etc. with strong Cisco and some Juniper (of course a couple days self training and I am pretty strong on anything). I'm not a job hopper so I have to either really hate my position or get an offer too good to refuse, for me to change companies. For me the "too good" includes things like telecommute (I am well set up for that), good salary/package (have that now..the salary part anyway), limited paperwork a plus (we pay you salary, you provide results...no pointy haired bosses here), a company who's motto is not "Panic! Because planning is just too much effort." I guess my advice is: Don't miss out on someone who might be your star employee just to keep doing things the old way. Telecommuting can be very effective with the proper management tools. Obviously, working from home is not for everyone so the employee needs to be dedicated to the process. The best technical people can be quirky. I once had a guy on my team who customers thought was rude so I had to handle sites where people had met him before. I recognized he was desperately shy and did not deal with people well. He was a very talented technician so rather than loose him I was able to redeploy his abilities to projects not involving humans. Worked out well. For me it's lists. I do way better when I have lists I can check off. I make lists for everything and get a warm feeling when I check off an items. I like the word "check" because it brings up a picture in my head of a list with check marks. Freaky, huh? On Thursday, December 01, 2011 10:52:39 AM Mark Stevens wrote:
It takes me years to find such people and when I do, I try very hard to keep them! I have 3 key people that fit the "soft" attribute criteria Randal mentioned, but with a premium skill set in their specific function. Good luck with your task Leigh!
Mark Stevens
On 12/1/2011 10:21 AM, Leigh Porter wrote:
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background..
I expect it will be immensely difficult to find somebody. What makes it even more frustrating is that just such a person was not all that long ago made redundant!
So if anybody is looking for something to do around London...
-- Leigh
-----Original Message----- From: randal k [mailto:nanog@data102.com] Sent: 01 December 2011 15:19 To: Bill Stewart Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad& just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
Randal
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stewart<nonobvious@gmail.com>
wrote:
And yeah, sometimes it means that you need to go
learn technologies like Active Directory
[snip]
In addition to learning scripting languages
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-- David Radcliffe Network Engineer/Linux Specialist david@davidradcliffe.org www.davidradcliffe.org Nothing ever gets solved better with panic. If you do not know the answer, it is probably "42."
----- Original Message -----
From: "randal k" <nanog@data102.com>
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad & just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
A relatively serviceable argument can be made that that guy who knows every parameter of every command of every version of IOS ever shipped, and which bugs are in which ones... is like that cause he's an Aspie, and you're not gonna *get* the other stuff from him or her, no matter how hard you try. Luckily, by the time you get to the point where you *need* that person, your staff is usually large enough that you can absorb some savants. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
In a message written on Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 08:17:08AM -0700, randal k wrote:
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes - attitude, team player, can write, can speak, can run a small project - and are more than just Cisco pimps. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to meet a newly minted CCNP who has zero Linux experience, can't script anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
I've been on both sides of this coin, looking for folks with these sorts of skills and finding them very difficult to find but also looking for employers who valued this base of skills when I have been job hunting in the past. My observation is that most ISP's want this broad base of skills, but won't pay for it. The folks with these skills promptly move in one of a few directions. They become consultants making huge money but dealing with the clueless. They become SE's for vendors and VAR's, where their skills can earn them comissions. The few lucky ones become Architects or Principal Engineers and provide vision and run key projects, but then they aren't doing much day to day work. More interestingly, the people with these sorts of skills got them because they like touching everything and maintaining their end to end knowledge. While it's more a problem on the corporate side, a lot of folks want to hire this knowledge and then put them in a role where their hands are tied, unable to access all of these parts. Obstensibly the goal is to have them lead and mentor the clueless in control of the various elements, but the few folks I've seen try it quickly get frustrated, see no future in it, and leave. No where is this more true than when these sorts of folks are brought in to manage outsourced arrangements. It's a wonderful double edged sword. Someone who can think their way out of a myriad of technical problems is also smart enough to evaluate the orginizational structure and dynamics, predict their own future (or lack thereof), predict the success and failure rates of the current envornment and leave if they don't think it's a net positive. I do think NANOG as a community could do a better job in helping employers and potential employees in this industry find each other. I know nanog-jobs exists, but it doesn't seem to have traction with either side of the problem. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
-----Original Message----- From: Leo Bicknell [mailto:bicknell@ufp.org] Sent: 01 December 2011 16:15 To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
It's a wonderful double edged sword. Someone who can think their way out of a myriad of technical problems is also smart enough to evaluate the orginizational structure and dynamics, predict their own future (or lack thereof), predict the success and failure rates of the current envornment and leave if they don't think it's a net positive.
An excellent analysis of the situation. -- Leigh ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________
randal k wrote:
This is a huge point. We've had a LOT of trouble finding good network engineers who have all of the previously mentioned "soft" attributes -
anything, can't setup a syslog server, doesn't understand AD much less LDAP, etc. Imagine, an employee who can help themselves 90% of the time ...
Finding the diamond that has strong niche skill, networking, with a broad & just-deep-enough sysadmin background has been very, very hard. I cannot
Raking up an older thread, but I have to comment on this. I understand it is hard to find the right person for the job. And even harder to find someone who has a wide range of knowledge and "deep" specialised knowledge to boot. When I was even more naive I always thought that in the world of IT most people knew a lot about many things, because it's not just a job but their hobby and passion (it is for me). So a sysadmin knows how to code and a coder knows how to set up a network and server etc. Yet what I noticed is that it is very rare to find such people. In fact I found people in one niche being almost ignorant of other fields. Say a coder gets confused when /tmp fills up and being unaware of this thing called a "search engine" and instead will virtually cry "help my puter b0rked, I stuck!" and vice versa. It looks to me it's just the nature of most people to be good at only one or a couple of things and be mostly ignorant about the rest. It's not going to change much, and we just have to accept that's how it is for the most part. However it can be mitigated to some extent:
emphasize enough the importance of cross-training. Immensely valuable.
This indeed will help a lot and is very important. Sadly though in the USA this kind of thing is not found to be important at all. Besides that, it is actually quite hard to find the right job. Or, actually, to be even acknowledged or heard by the employer of such a job. As always this thing goes both ways. Employers in the USA need to invest more in training their employees and learning should be an important and constant part of one's job and be actively encouraged. I think in this they're quite behind their Western European counterparts. Regards, Jeroen -- Earthquake Magnitude: 3.2 Date: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 17:24:31 UTC Location: Southern Alaska Latitude: 59.8964; Longitude: -153.3298 Depth: 135.00 km
Say a coder gets confused when /tmp fills up and being unaware of this thing called a "search engine" and instead will virtually cry "help my puter b0rked, I stuck!" and vice versa.
Hah! In my experience, this phenomenon is not unique to coders, sysadmins, or any other specialization. People prefer to look to other people for their answers. This one has bugged me for a long time, as I'm not sure what to attribute it to - is it a desire to be social, or to have the answer personalized? Is it a compliment indicative of respect of ones peer, or is it an indication of laziness?
Employers in the USA need to invest more in training their employees and learning should be an important and constant part of one's job and be actively encouraged. I think in this they're quite behind their Western European counterparts.
This is likely true in many larger corporations. I have found the startup and SMB sectors to be highly amenable to investing in their people. Cash-strapped businesses are most likely to consider the ROI of buying their employees skillsets (ie, training) vs hiring in new employees just to acquire those skillsets, whereas larger companies either already have a guy who knows how to do X, or doesn't really mind hiring an X specialist (or the all-too-common X consultant). Nathan
Nathan Eisenberg wrote:
To: Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@mompl.net>, NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: RE: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice. Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 22:25:40 +0000
Say a coder gets confused when /tmp fills up and being unaware of this thing called a "search engine" and instead will virtually cry "help my puter b0rked, I stuck!" and vice versa.
Hah! In my experience, this phenomenon is not unique to coders, sysadmins, or any other specialization. People prefer to look to other people for their answers. This one has bugged me for a long time, as I'm not sure what to attribute it to - is it a desire to be social, or to have the answer personalized? Is it a compliment indicative of respect of ones peer, or is it an indication of laziness?
This phenomona has been recognized for, well, "forever". The 'reasons' are codified in 'traditional wisdom' like "two heads are better than one", or the modern "The solution to the most intractable problem is immediately obvious to the first unqualified observer." When ones own way of lookinng at a problem isn't working, it is necessary to find a "different way of looking at the problem". The most efficient way to do that is talk to some who thinks differently than you do. "Search engines" are good for finding facts; 'less good' for finding abstract/concept info -- It's much harder to formulate a search query to find something to 'fill in the blanks' in an _incomplete_ conceptualization. If yu can foumulate the search for "what you're missing" the search probably contains the answers you're looking for. Also, the act of 'organizing ones thoughts' to explain the problem to someone who is *NOT* familiar with the background of the problem can lead to _self-recognition_ of the solution. I have phoned a collegue, many times, and/or had a collegue phone me, where the _one-sided_ conversation has gone; <-- "Hello?" --> "Hi! I've got a problem. like _this_ {launches into description}... OH!! never mind, the light just dawned!" <-- "<chuckle> Glad I could help." "Troubleshooting", however, _is_ a special case situation. I can pontificate on this at some length. You have been warned. <grin> Troubleshooting problems is an 'art', not a 'science'. Either you know how to do it, or you don't. And, like any other "art", you can't teach it; you _can_ teach 'mechanics' that help people who have an 'instinctive' (for lack of a better word) grasp of the subject "do it better". But the _ability_ has to be there in the first place. It's similaar to integral calculus -- you have a result, and are looking for the question. (Remember how _hard_ integration was -- until the 'AHA!' moment when, all of a sudden, it all made sense. And you were shaking your head wondering *why* you had so much trouble 'getting it'.) Troubleshooting is much the same. If you've seen "that" problem before, you have an idea of what -may- be causing it. And can start checking for the existing of each possible 'what' that you know about. With experience, you know _which_ "what" is most likely and to start there. Also, what _additional_ things to check, to narrow down the list of 'possibles'. 'Search engines' are good when you have a 'question' and are looking for looking for an 'answer' (like 'differential calculus', to use the math metaphor). But they're "medium lousy", at best, at finding the 'question' that fits the 'answer'. There are some major attempts being made to build computers that _can_ reverse engineer the 'question' from an 'answer'. See 'Watson' -- the IBM research computer project that plays as a contestant on "Jeopardy!" The latest incarnation 'does good' a lot of the time, but when it's wrong it is *very* wrong. I don't think I've ever seen it be 'close, but incorrect'.
2011/11/21 <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>
On Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:40:08 EST, Tyler Haske said:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.
OK, so I'm not a mentor from a Tier-1, and I don't directly monkey with routers as part of $DAYJOB. But anyhow... :)
With great power comes great responsibility. Be prepared for high stress levels. ;)
Also, keep in mind that unless you're insanely brilliant, three things will happen before you get experienced enough to be a senior tech at a Tier 1:
1) You will have grey hair (at least some).
Not at all required.. Although you may grow a few belt loops and maybe ruin a marriage or two trying to get there early. Also, don't forget to read, cert guides, config guides, websites, RFC's. Grey hair and wisdom aren't mutually inclusive.
3) You'll have learned that handling a big pipe at a Tier 1 isn't all there is to running a network - and in fact, quite often the Really Cool Toys are elsewhere. Sure, they may have the fastest line cards, but they're going to tend to lag on feature sets just because you *don't* want to deploy cutting-edge code if you're a Tier-1.
Totally agree. I touch alot of routers some of them close to what Tier-1 would use. I also have a few friends that work in large ISP's. I'd say their ultimate goal is to touch a little as possible which is usually as unglamorous as it sounds. Also, alot of things are scripted so much of what you touch may not be as fun.
As an example, AS1312 deployed IPv6 over a decade before some of the Tier 1's could even *spell* it (find out why 6bone existed - it's instructive history). I'm sure that MPLS didn't make its first appearance in TIer-1 core nets either. And the list goes on.. (Hint - where did the Tier 1's get the IPv6/MPLS/whatever experienced engineers to guide their deployment? :)
Also, how many junior and mid-level guys leave a Tier I for a network where they can touch things and then come back as experts. Also, the intermediate job tends to pay for certs and training which is a plus.
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Keegan Holley <keegan.holley@sungard.com> wrote:
On Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:40:08 EST, Tyler Haske said:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data. ... I'd say
2011/11/21 <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> their ultimate goal is to touch a little as possible which is usually as unglamorous as it sounds. Also, alot of things are scripted so much of what you touch may not be as fun.
Tyler, this is absolutely key, and absolutely true; if you really, really want to get a jump in the industry, don't worry about learning active directory or exchange (unless it's a particular hobby interest of yours); instead, learn a good scripting language; PERL is the canonical example, but python or tcl are equally fine candidates these days. Most of the really big networks, whether access ISPs, content providers, or tier 1 transit networks try to automate as much of the work as possible; it's the only way to stay ahead of the demand curve. If you want to be a hot property in networking, you should have a good blend of network skills, scripting/development skills, and ideally enough system administration background to know how to make the boxes running those tools happy as well. Being able to understand the packet flow from the application, down through the OS, and onto the wire, and then back up again at the far end is going to make you much more useful than an engineer that just knows how to get bits from point A to point Z, but that's it. Being able to turn up a 100GE link by hand is useful; but being able to write a script to turn up dozens at a time--that's what networks will fight over to get. (Also...echoing an undercurrent from several of the other voices...set up an account on tunnelbroker.net, get a v6 tunnel going to your house, set up a linux box with your favorite flavour of DNS server on it; start learning how to handle v6 DNS zones, the odd and occasional challenges involved with dual-stacked hosts and different DNS entries. And then start experimenting and breaking things--some of your best understanding is going to come from breaking your setup when experimenting, and then figuring out why it broke, and how to get it working again in the way you want. Debugging dual-stack networks is going to be required knowledge by the time you hit the industry; no reason not to start learning and using the information today, to really get comfortable with it.) You'll find that many of us are happy to answer intelligent, well-thought-through questions; what we don't tend to like are answering questions that are easily found through quick search engine queries. If you've done your own exploration first, and come up empty, chances are it'll be an interesting enough question someone out here will be willing to give a shot at answering it for you. But if you ask questions that would be just as easily answered through spending 5 minutes with a search engine, you'll find even the best mentors will start to give you the cold shoulder. ^_^; And finally...don't get discouraged; if you're pretty sure this is what you want to do with your life, stick with it. There can be some big ups and downs in this industry, but the chance to build something really big that touches millions of lives every day brings with it that huge sense of accomplishment that only comes with achieving something on a truly global scale. Best of luck! Matt
On 22/11/11 10:46 AM, Matthew Petach wrote:
And then start experimenting and breaking things--some of your best understanding is going to come from breaking your setup when experimenting, and then figuring out why it broke, and how to get it working again in the way you want. Debugging dual-stack networks is going to be required knowledge by the time you hit the industry; no reason not to start learning and using the information today, to really get comfortable with it.)
I know I'm days late replying into this thread, but I wanted to highlight and emphasize this comment. IMHO, the people who are most in demand are those who know how to fix stuff when someone else does something bone-headed and then can't fix it themselves and it gets bumped up the ladder to someone with super debugging skills who can fix it. So don't hesitate to do bone-headed things to break your setup, and then figure out how to fix it. +2 on working with dual-stacks and knowing everything you can about ipv6. From the questions we see here on nanog it's clear that there are a whole lot of people who should know more about how ipv6 works (and how to integrate it into an ipv4 network) but don't. When you graduate and are looking for that first job, you will likely come across a hiring manager who should know more about ipv6 but doesn't yet, and if you can position yourself as the person who can help with solving the ipv6 knowledge gap in that organization it could put you above other candidates with more "experience" but who don't know anything about ipv6, and get you that job. jc
On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 8:40 PM, Tyler Haske <tyler.haske@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.
Replying on-list, as I think a route for this desired target can be neatly summarized (oh, networking term!) in the following list: 1) be 2) do 3) have First, start by being the sort of person that might work at these places. Don't know how or who they "are?" -- meet a few, interview them, ask about their life, attent NANOG (student rate: $100/meeting) and have a drink or three with them, etc. Next, do the things they do--this may take a while. Finally, you can 'have' whatever they are having once you've traversed 1) and 2), assuming there's a spot on the far-side of this bet. You can thank Janet Plato (a great ex-Ann Arbor/ANS person) for this method. I hope she doesn't mind my paraphrasing here. Best, -Tk
participants (23)
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Anton Kapela -
Bill Stewart -
bmanning＠vacation.karoshi.com -
Christopher Morrow -
David Radcliffe -
Holmes,David A -
Jared Mauch -
Jay Ashworth -
JC Dill -
Jeroen van Aart -
jim deleskie -
jjanusze＠wd-tek.com -
Keegan Holley -
Leigh Porter -
Leo Bicknell -
Mark Foster -
Mark Stevens -
Matthew Petach -
Nathan Eisenberg -
randal k -
Robert Bonomi -
Tyler Haske -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu