Will: 0:13

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Cables to Clouds podcast. My name is Chris Miles and joining me always is my lovely co-host, tim McConaughey, out of I'm assuming warm and sunny Raleigh, north Carolina. I don't know what it's like there now.

Tim: 0:30

Death ray sunny.

Will: 0:31

Yeah, there you go, but yeah, thanks for joining us. We have a fun one today. We have a good friend of the show. Hasn't been on in a while, so we're always glad to have him back. Welcome back, our good friend will collins. How you doing, man?

Chris: 0:47

good, what's up, fellas? And I think, yeah, it must be hot where we're tim's at, because he he shaved the beard.

Tim: 0:52

So yeah, it was too. It was too much.

Will: 0:54

It must be too much furnace yeah, well, yeah, I remember like the beard always hit me the worst when I was like cutting grass and I was like, okay, I feel it, but now it's part of my look. It's like glasses. You know, when people can't get rid of their glasses, I can't get rid of this beard. Man, there's no telling what's underneath. It's probably a double chin, whole kind of all this stuff under there. Who knows, there you go.

Chris: 1:26

I can't shave mine because my kids, like my daughter when she was three, four, I think, she was three um, I came out and I had shaved, for I think it was a wedding or something I had to go to where I needed to be clean, shaven and she didn't. She wouldn't even come to the kitchen table and eat, like if I was in the room. She was not in the room. It was terrible and this went on for like weeks like it wasn't just over really quick.

Chris: 1:43

Ever since then I've had at least a shorter beard. In the winter it gets a little longer, but I'm not going through that again. It was brutal Nice.

Will: 1:53

She'll be like 20 years old and she still won't recognize you when you see her she's going to bring that up whenever you get older as a traumatic experience, like when dad shaved yeah.

Chris: 2:05

She still brings it up every once in a while she's like remember that time? I'm like, do you really remember? And she's like, I think, but I hear the story, yeah, yeah that's awesome.

Will: 2:15

Well, all right, let's uh, let's get into today's topic. So we brought will on because we wanted to um, do an episode basically about career transitions. So you know, as we've talked about a bit on the show, I just recently changed jobs. Will just recently changed jobs. You know, I was previously at Aviatrix, a cloud networking or cloud security company. Now, but cloud networking focused, will came over from Alkira who was also at a cloud networking startup.

Will: 2:44

So to say so I think we but we kind of went down different paths, right, like, I'm going a little bit more down the network security track and he's going into the automation track a bit. So I wanted to bring Will on and just kind of talk about that process and talk about, you know, maybe we'll talk a bit about how the skills that we've taken from one and how they'll translate to the other, where the market is at with some of these things, and really just kind of share some of our stories and hopefully give feedback to listeners who may be thinking about the same thing or headed in that direction. So let's start out. So Will tell us a little bit about, um, your career change. Tell us about, uh, what went into your decision-making process um, and, and what was easy, what was difficult for you.

Chris: 3:33

That's a good question. Uh, over time, you know, as you learn and you grow, you just pick up different skills, and especially with like where the industry is right now. I don't want to say it's rare, but it's kind of rare to find somebody that is just dedicated to like route switch, at least in our generalists, like if we're working for vendors or you know, startups, uh, enterprise, like a lot of times you have to, you're almost, like, forced to be somewhat of a generalist.

Chris: 4:01

And network engineers, I mean, since I've been in the industry, have always kind of been. They've had to be somewhat of a generalist. And network engineers, I mean, since I've been in the industry, have always kind of been. They've had to be adjacent, they've had to be generalists in a lot of things while also being deep in route switch. But one thing that I just was always interested in, since, like I I'm I'm not lazy, but I hate repetition, I hate doing like okay, like I remember um way, way back before, even automation was really a thing. Managing like Linux servers, like logging in, typing a command, doing some things, logging out, logging into the next one and doing that through like a spreadsheet with like 100 lines, it's like torture. Oh yeah, I never like to do things like that. I've always tried to automate everything that is worth automating and I also think it was kind of fun. But I've been automation adjacent really with every role probably I've ever had in tech. Like that's been that skill that I've kind of brought to the table. I learned so much.

Chris: 4:55

Alkira was my first startup. You know the cloud market is where it is. And one thing that I realized that I loved even more than before when I was at Alkira was getting to. You know I'd done a lot with Terraform at that point. But getting in and you know seeing, you know building the provider, working on with the team that did that. You know building a lot of modules, doing a lot of like well-architected Terraform for customers. You know going through and seeing all the great ways that it can be deployed.

Chris: 5:22

But also you know some of the technical debt that hampers things and I just thought you know what? Why not? You know I love this automation stuff so much and it's not I've never worked for a company that you know that was their bread and butter. Like that was the thing they did, like their sole focus, you know, is you know Alkira. Life went on and you know you you get to the point you're fully vested and you have other like areas that you think you could grow more in and I thought you know what. That's a great reason to look at. Another opportunity is you know that new role might offer a path to you know advancing some of the skills that you really love, the things that you like to do, and then you know that company might invest in additional training mentor. You, just you, learn a lot and I'm not saying to enter that decision in haste.

Chris: 6:08

You know, never jump fast without looking especially as you get more tenured in your career, but if you have an area that is really interesting to you, yeah, so that's kind of what happened with me, and now I'm at attention and I'm loving it.

Will: 6:22

Yeah, I totally agree. I think it was that before I made my change. It was like something that I mulled over for months and months and months, like before like, and then you know things would pop up and I was like, oh, that would, that could be nice. But yeah, it's, if it's something that's been in the back of your mind and you, like, are looking for a new challenge, then you know, kind kind of just it's going to bubble to the top eventually.

Chris: 6:44

Yeah and new and shiny is always fun too. So, like I once when I was in enterprise, like I made I literally made a jump to a company just because they were rolling out sd-wan and the company I was working for at the time thought it was like a and we wanted to like mpls, everything you know. I was like okay, like I'm at the point where, like I've hit this blocker, like I'm not learning anymore, like I can learn a little bit more and I'm just doing the same old things.

Will: 7:09

And I want to learn this new text out there.

Chris: 7:12

I want to learn about it, you know so. Especially at the ground floor, like in the earlier SD-WAN days, it just it was a tremendous experience. I'm so glad I did that and I learned so many lessons. Experience. I'm so glad I did that and I learned so many lessons. And, um, the company that I left from I was at for 10 years at that time and I I made that jump to go into this shiny SD-WAN place. Uh, and that was. I was more scared about that. I think the longer you spend somewhere, the harder it is to jump ship, unless things get real bad.

Tim: 7:42

Sure, absolutely. I mean when I and mean and the whole shiny new thing I agree with, because you know, three and a half years ago now, when I left Cisco, I actually loved working for Cisco. Cisco is a great company. What made me leave was I was studying for my cloud computing degree and realizing, the more I learned about cloud that, like at that time, cisco didn't really have anything really for cloud. Even the SD-WAN hooks at that time were really really basic and not really cloud, not cloud native, not cloud friendly.

Tim: 8:18

Like at that time I've heard it's gotten a lot better. But I'm just saying at that time. So that's why I was like, oh man, if I want to stick with the cloud, if gotten a lot better. But I'm just saying at that time. So that's why I was like, oh man, if I want to stick with the cloud, if I want to actually work on the cloud, I gotta go somewhere that's doing cloud right. So that's at that time. That's why I went to aviatrix. I was in the same boat with you, you know, and I I was, I'd been there for five years. So, yeah, it was.

Will: 8:36

It definitely was hard to hard to make that jump, yeah, and it's funny you call out will the, the concept of you know kind of. There's a lot of people out there that just want to focus on route switch and that's really just like, sadly, not a thing anymore.

Will: 8:51

But I mean to be honest, this happened, I mean with SD-WAN, this happened as well. Right, like people were like oh, like that was a new concept that was like routing and swishing based, but it definitely had all this like policy routing and things like that built into it where people just like couldn't come. Like, if you, if you had like an mpls background, I think sd-wan was very easy to to ingest and take on, but the people that only focused on like layer 2 switching, you know um oh yeah, it's like routing.

Will: 9:22

It was like magic. But I think people were kind of upset then that some of the controls or some of the autopilot stuff was added in, where they were like no, I want to be able to control all of this. And it's like that's not how the company wants you to spend your days anymore. Right, you got to be kind of multifaceted, right.

Chris: 9:43

Yeah, yeah, do more with a lot less. Yeah, spamming ai is even pushing that more. It's like how much can we possibly squeeze out of one individual? And, yeah, and, and you're right at the route switch thing, I mean, unless you're in a very narrowly focused like uh, if you're, you know. So of course, service provider space is going to be a little bit different. You do have people that still exist, that are just real, true CCIE, expert route, tcp, ip ninjas out there, you know, but it's few and far between, and the market and other conditions have diluted that, I think. But you, I mean, you still have to have that. You want to have those people in the world, you know, and it's like it's funny because I think I have this prediction and I don't know.

Chris: 10:28

I haven't said this publicly, of course, but I talked to somebody that I know is like a, a plumber, and he actually went into plumbing from doing something completely different because he saw this thing in the market where there was just no plumbers during covid, and he has been making dollars hand over foot.

Chris: 10:47

I mean, he's crushing it being a plumber and he fast tracked it. He didn't have a family, he just got in there, learned the trade, did a quick apprenticeship with someone and eventually I say eventually, like in under a year I think he went out on his own and he's just crushing it and he doesn't like, he likes it and he has a team under him now and they're just, you know, doing all sorts of business and that's the thing. Supply and demand is always going to exist. You know, at one point in the future, if there's not enough bgp folks out there, I believe you know it'll make a resurgence. You're gonna have really highly paid bgp route switch people that are just narrowly focused in that, if you see such a time in the world where they quit, there's not as many of them. Because you have to have that skill. I mean you want to be able to flush your toilets, right, I mean I should call cobalt programmers side.

Will: 11:35

Yeah, I don't like digging holes, so yeah, I mean cobalt's never going away.

Tim: 11:39

Cobalt programmers, fortran programmers, like there they'll be. There won't be a million jobs for them, but there will be those jobs and those jobs will pay, like you know and you might pay psychologically if you have to go back and learn cobalt after being in these new hipster languages like go and such.

Will: 11:57

Yeah, go back in time, yeah just thought of the meme like if. It's like, if, if there are a million bgp fans, I am one of them. If there's one bgp fan, that is me. If there's zero bgp fans, I am dead. That's, that's kind of my stance on that. I'm a bgp lifer, yeah, um, all right. So let's let's get back on topic a bit here. So obviously, like we said, we both went to kind of these cloud networking startups, to kind of I think both Will and I were kind of skating towards the puck on this kind of multi-cloud network services, multi-cloud network architecture thing. That didn't pan out exactly how the market anticipated it would, but nonetheless I think there was a lot of skills and traits with working specifically in cloud, like that from a networking perspective, that were super valuable. So maybe let's get into some of those. Will, what about working in specifically cloud networking? What skills like that do you think properly transitioned over to your new vertical, new vertical and automation that you're at now?

Chris: 13:01

going, going in and like learning cloud. So back to my point of like never I, I don't like doing things in repetition. You have to fight me to like log into the aws console and do things in the ui like I want to automate all the things.

Chris: 13:16

But there's a different way. There's a different way that you think when you go up to cloud and that's something that if you're stuck you've been in the data center world for too long, I see it's kind of hard to change your thinking because really what you do is you go into this world of not being 100% beholden to physical hardware anymore, because if you're automating physical hardware, it's just going to be a little bit different. So cloud automation just given the nature of how many changes get made in cloud all the time, there's a lot more changes happening. You're dealing with pipelines, multi-stage pipelines, being able to have, you know, different branches tying to different stages of your infrastructure. You know test, pre-prod, you know production and having like automation, guardrails, security wrapped around all these things in like an automated fashion.

Chris: 14:06

The shift left. So getting into that mindset of mutable versus immutable. How, like infrastructure, when you deploy cloud infrastructure, you're thinking more like an application developer, you're not thinking like a route switch engineer in a data center. For me, like one thing that I learned a ton and this was before startup I took over a cloud practice for a big company and got to build out a team after that like an actual cloud networking team and that I tried to recruit Chris for and he gave me the a nice kick in the shins and uh, you're. I'm always gonna bring that up every time we talk.

Chris: 14:42

I forgot about that you dodged, I think you might have dodged a bullet, though, so good for you. Um, but yeah, like, getting that, that experience of like, okay, I'm thinking different, I'm thinking more like a developer. Those are some of the things I think that cloud teaches you, and then you also realized that, okay, just because we're doing cloud doesn't mean we don't have some crazy heavy dependency on premises right kind of like Leads to why your show exists, I believe is because things are gonna be hybrid forever at this point.

Tim: 15:12

I think so at least why I'm alive.

Chris: 15:14

It'll be like the adoption of IP v6, like, oh, it's gonna be cloud, only I Don't yeah.

Tim: 15:19

I going to be cloud only. Yeah, I don't think cloud only was ever going to happen. The cost alone would have made it impossible, much less the life cycles and the legacy apps and all that other stuff. It's never.

Will: 15:32

Just wait till that economy of scale kicks in man.

Tim: 15:35

Yeah, anytime. Now We'll start saving you tons of money.

Will: 15:38

Yeah, no, that's a great point, will, I think? Um? One other thing that was very valuable for me, just working in the cloud space, just kind of in in general um, was that every, every company that you talk to, like specifically being in sales, um, or on the pre-sale side things, you talk to so many different companies that are all at different stages of cloud transition, right, either some that are very mature or they just started it and because of that, the people that you're talking to have a very varying level of cloud maturity and you know, like at the place that just started, you might be talking to the only cloud person at that company and they kind of are doing everything under the sun. Or you're talking to a bigger company that has like everything kind of in its own on jurisdiction type type thing.

Will: 16:33

But it's weird because I felt like we were commonly like, as far as infrastructure people, developers, application people, we were always in the same room whenever we had to have a conversation about what to do with cloud. I feel like on-prem, you were never really talking to those people. Like I would never talk to a developer, like no reason to Like, it's just give me the TCP and UDP ports that you need open on your app and I'll and I'll help you out, but like it's I don't know like you learn how to talk to people at different stages or different parts of the stack, and I feel like that was just kind of helping me understand the holistic picture of of what a solution needs to look like, so I thought that was very valuable for me.

Chris: 17:18

I never thought about that before until you said it. You're absolutely spot on, like I remember one of the big companies I worked at that was doing this cloud, you know, abouting all the things. I think that was maybe one of the first times they had this big modernization project and they actually had everybody. This was when people were coming into the office still and they basically, for the people that weren't local, they were flying them in or they were driving in like some of them were pretty close, like ohio, not too too far, but we were. We had a whole floor to ourselves, um, in louisville and we just they, they had a big buffet table like in the middle of this floor and to get the this program like off the ground, we had everybody, from database to just what would become our cloud ops team, to the folks designing the, like me and the small team I had.

Chris: 18:06

And then even like bcdr you know, business continuity, folks, disaster recovery, because that's a huge thing, and I remember distinctly like talking to these folks, they didn't understand cloud. They're just like we manage bcdr for this company, what, what are we doing here? And so like taking them and seeing them mature. You know, actually that's a good, that's a good scenario where being in person actually was really valuable. There was whiteboards everywhere. We were like if you had a question you needed an answer, you just got up and walked a few feet and talked to the person. That was like the expert and and we got a lot of things off the ground pretty quick. Yeah, that was maybe the first time I've ever been on the same floor with all these folks at the same time or even talked to some of them.

Tim: 18:46

Really, yeah, I think. I think that's valuable for network engineers, because network engineers live in that infrastructure layer, which means that, just like sysadmins, they tend to be like I don't know if it's a reputation it's somewhat deserved, depending on the engineer but like, sometimes they get like that bastard operator from hell type of either the mentality or at least the view or the image, if you will, and you know some lean right into it. They're like yeah, I'm the curmudgeon and you know, I don't need to know anything about you, you, you, I treat everybody equally and I own the roads for everybody and I don't need to know anything about your app. And it's actually kind of doing a disservice to the infrastructure people to do that, because you're cutting yourself out of the conversation about what is the right way to be doing this right.

Will: 19:35

If you want to behave that way, go be a Linux administrator. Linux administrator like everybody else that's right, those guys.

Chris: 19:40

Nobody cares anything about what they have to say grow that beard a little longer, tim you're out of luck, man I'm working on my neck too uh, there you go. Yeah, just do your neck only and leave everything else, and then make a tiktok got my fedora beard, tiktok and then dance and you're gonna get, you're gonna go viral, well, so something that's interesting.

Chris: 20:02

So, like, one thing that I wanted to discuss um at the beginning is well, if you're in your career, in your tenure, and you've been around quite a while, it's like investing in the stock market, like when you're getting closer to to retirement. You're in your late 40s, early 50s you're gonna probably not take as many risks. You're in your late 40s, early 50s you're going to probably not take as many risks.

Chris: 20:20

You're going to take it easy, like for those long term, you know, invest in those mutual funds, indexes, 401ks, you know, exhaust that and then let your stuff grow. You know, but you might be take more of a risk taker early on in your career. And one thing that I, or somebody that actually like I don't want to say like we had a few discussions. I wouldn't say it was a mentor, but he planted the seed in my head like early on in my career anyway, he had this sort of mentality of like grow yourself at all costs when you're young. So if you can, according to him, just go. If you can get valuable experience, go work for someone for free, do that for a year, get your feet under you and then go crush it. Because if you go somewhere that's already established and you don't get to touch a lot of things, you don't have a good opportunity to learn, you're not going to grow as fast.

Chris: 21:07

That was one thing that I always I actually did this early on in my career is I took a job that did not pay as well as the job that I had at the time at all, like it did not pay good, and I went there and I learned a ton and you know I did that.

Chris: 21:22

I made that move because of what they were working on and I knew one of the folks there and what I was going to be working on. And I'm really glad I did that because it's like, ok, I didn't have a family at the time, I wasn't married, I didn't have all this responsibility. I'm young and stupid and still learning and you know I got a PhD in some of these, not like a literal PhD, but an experience doing some really cool things and that sort of, I think, helped set me up for success. Would I do that now? Definitely not. I'm a little more wiser, I know a little more. I've worked a lot longer and now I'm more. You know tactical about making that move. But if you're younger in your career and you have that opportunity to go and really learn from really amazing people, take that chance, go for it.

Will: 22:12

Yeah, I love that. If you need a, if you need a lesson and experience, go see Dr William Collins. He's got his PhD.

Tim: 22:19

You need a if you need a lesson and experience, go see dr william collins. He's got his phd. No, it's a phd in mpls or bgp or um, it's I.

Will: 22:28

I will say I actually find it quite um admirable that you did that, even even in your younger stages, because, um, I'll I've said it on the show and, like I was when I was younger, I was very focused by money. Like I like if someone said, take this job, you'll get so much experience but it'll pay you, like literally you'd be like they'll pay you ten dollars less than what your current job is. I'd be like no way not doing that like it. Like I think I've mentioned on here, the only reason I got my CCNA was because somebody told me he's like, oh, if you get this, you can make 50 K. And I was like I was like fuck, that sounds like like a billion dollars, like. And then eventually it started clicking and I found a passion for it. But like, yeah, I, I'm, I'm curious, like I guess, where are you still? Were you living on your?

Chris: 23:20

own at the time, I assume or are you like I was not living on my own, I was still actually I lived. I lived with my grandma for a time because it worked out beneficially for both of us. She wasn't working at the time, so I was able to kind of help out with rent and some other things Nice, and it just made sense. So, yeah, I was living with my grandmother at the time.

Will: 23:39

Nice, yeah, I think if you have, but I was definitely kidless and not married, you know.

Will: 23:43

Yeah, if you have one of those situations, it's probably like I could. If I was in that situation, I probably would have been in. But like, yeah, I could make do with this, but like I don't know, from the second I was like I'm never, I'm never asking for a handout for anything, like everything has to be built on my own back. So everything's got, I got to make so much money and, yeah, now, now I'm at the stage where I'm like, oh yeah, I'd probably take a bit of a pay cut if it was like a fulfilling job, right, and it actually like provided a level of value into my life that I don't currently have.

Chris: 24:20

Um, so it's. It's funny how things kind of flip on their head. Yeah, and you may. It's good to have good people around you too, like I was fortunate early on in my career where I had a few good people that just gave me like truly good advice, and I know I know a lot of people that didn't have that. In fact, I know some people that got very bad advice from people that they trusted, and if I would have gotten bad advice from people I trusted, I probably would have taken that advice and I wouldn't have known any better. So that's one of the great things about having podcasts like this or different watering holes that you can go and you can learn from.

Chris: 24:50

We have the Internet now and there's a lot of smart people like you all out there like giving good advice from experience, like lived experiences, and that's so good for for folks coming up in the, you know, in the talent pipeline now yeah, until we're all replaced by ai.

Tim: 25:05

There's a talent pipeline not.

Chris: 25:08

Are you even real tim? Are you ai right now? Uh, would you know the difference? Would you know?

Tim: 25:12

this is the deep fake couldn't figure it out, so it just took it off. There we go, uh, no, I mean my first, my first real networking job was, uh, on the nmci right, the navy marine corps internet talk about your crib, right. Like it was very, very regimented and I learned a decent amount working in the knock. But I was in the same boat that you were in. Like I was like all right, I'm done, like I've learned everything there is to learn. I can't touch anything that doesn't have 10 layers of approval. I can't author my own configs.

Tim: 25:42

So when I had the chance to jump to an enterprise that was where I would do everything like security, data center, collab all of it and get to go all over the world, I did it. I jumped at it. For me it wasn't a pay cut, though it wasn't. It also wasn't. It was also a huge risk, honestly, and I did it with a wife and a kid at the time. So you know that's dumb on me, but it paid off.

Tim: 26:07

But like this was we? Literally we moved to, they moved us, they paid for this to move because it was in like idaho falls idaho, where they had to, basically, you know, pay for people to come there. So, but like I can't make this up, a week after we landed there and we'd moved and we're away from all our family and friends, uh, my wife finds out that she's pregnant with our second daughter. So it it was. It was rough, right, but but the point is the job though, though, like I learned so much that's how I, that's how I ended up at, eventually ended up at Cisco was because I learned like everything about everything, and I could not have probably gotten that experience elsewhere, so it was still good Right.

Chris: 26:48

Yeah, I'd say another good reason to move is like as you get more tenured and you like you work with a lot of technology, like kind of we were talking about cloud and data center like if you you really have a love for cloud and you start looking for opportunities, even like the jump I made and the jump Chris just made. They're not different fields, they're kind of adjacent, you know. You know, one thing that I've learned as I've gotten older is just, if I'm going to make jump, I don't like switching jobs. Switching jobs is hard, it's a pain. Yeah, like all the paperwork, all the benefits, all the different things, especially like if you did open enrollment and then you switch jobs in like March, like I've done twice oh my god, it's like I have to do open enrollment two times in a row and I just want to cry like it's not for the faint of heart, but you.

Chris: 27:35

one of the things that you ought to do is you know in that interview process, if you don't know, inner workings of the company like evaluate the company, their tech stack and you can usually get there by asking the right questions in the interview you can get enough details to where you can kind of put the picture together of, like what is going on at this company.

Chris: 28:04

Like I like I've worked with Jenkins before the CICD tool and it's literally a Swiss army knife. It can do like anything. But how custom do you want to get with all your stuff, you know. But after working with you know at other places that use like alternative platforms that kind of maybe took away some features in favor of simplicity, like hey, that's something that is kind of important to me at the time. I don't want to be a Jenkins administrator at that point.

Will: 28:29

I want to work on other.

Chris: 28:30

I want the CICD to kind of get out of my way and I will trade in some features and some flexibilities for that if necessary. So you know work, you know look at places where they're doing, they're building something that's important to you and they're using tools and and technology stack that you want to use.

Tim: 28:49

So don't just jump into anything blindly so this is interesting because they're and this might be a little bias on our part or a little blindness on our part, but like what I hear a lot from people that are brand new to the industry is like I can't break in because I don't know. You know tool X. I don't have experience with tool X or tool Y, so there's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem with leveraging that and I don't know how to. I don't know the right way to recommend getting around that, you know but yeah, it's two things like for one.

Chris: 29:22

It's easier today to learn stuff that it ever has been, but it's also harder than it ever has been to break into a role. Yes, yeah I think part of that is market saturation and just having so many people on the market that are gunning for the same jobs that's got to be part of it.

Tim: 29:38

Because it's so easy to learn. You mean yeah, yeah and a lot of roles.

Chris: 29:42

I mean, one thing is everything used to that remote work was like unheard of. I mean, I don't even think half of us didn't ever even use our VPNs because like we would first, you know drive into the office to do things.

Chris: 29:54

Yeah, if you were only hiring and your talent pool is only like a place. Like you're tied down to geography hey, in that point. Like the market is not saturated with a ton of tech workers, right, you're limited to the talent pool in your city, yeah, they'll relocate some folks every once in a while but hey, that's much easier to get your foot in the door somewhere and you don't have that. That the culture, everything's just changed. So where you might think it's easier to work, you know the remote work brings, but I think in some ways it's actually harder to get a job with remote work because of the saturation in the market yeah I think you're with remote work of it, like your talent pool is is obviously a little bit more dispersed as well, right, right, so like there's stronger competition, Competition, yeah, Across the board.

Will: 30:40

But like I mean, obviously I think tech in terms of a kind of a career focus is currently like we probably thought a few years ago it was at critical mass, but it's at critical mass again with AI, so like it just keeps going right and I don't know. It's kind of hard to gauge whether network engineering as a career has expanded, stayed the same or constricted. What do you feel Will as far as what you've seen in the market?

Chris: 31:10

I feel like it's been watered down or diluted as far as the impressions of what networking I mean. I guess we can always say that it's always been that way to a degree. But I see, I feel like I see and feel that a lot more lately, and you see, things like with the way that, like I don't want to say that sassy's like the thing that brought this on, but this, the consolidation of how different disciplines have been mashed together.

Will: 31:36

You see like security and networking come together yeah, exactly, tim.

Chris: 31:40

And so with that it's like, okay, I don't have a like my what I used to have a security engineering team and a network engineering team, and now I just have network and security engineering with two less people so yeah, and with less budget as well, usually, yeah, I'm seeing the growth of a lot of teams.

Will: 31:59

Um, at least here in australia it's like like, kind of some of the bigger banks that are that are here and things like that there's not. There's not a dedicated networking team. There's a secure networking team. Where it's like oh yeah kind of everything falls into that category. Um, whereas obviously things were, were a little bit. I mean, people that knew networking probably also knew firewalls and things like that. But security is such a broader category now we're talking about like certificate management.

Tim: 32:30

Oh, there's a lot.

Will: 32:30

Yeah, so there's so much that goes into it. That just has blown up. But, like, even the networking team is not dedicated to just networking most of the time, there has to be some secure element in there.

Tim: 32:42

When I worked at the enterprise I was talking about I mean literally, I wasn't joking we ran the call center applications, so CUCM and all that. We built the data center, of course. We built the networking for the offices. We did all of the security, so firewalling, just any securing IPS, ids, all that crap. And, yeah, all the servers, all the identity stuff. The sysadmins pretty much only built servers for the most part. That was the thing. Whatever applications were on the servers, like Outlook and the Microsoft suite and all that, that, they, you know, they owned that. But like I felt like we owned like way more, like you know, and I don't think that's unusual for an enterprise.

Will: 33:26

So what you're telling me is this is cyclical, is we? We were at one point where network engineers had to know everything and then they went to just having to maintain networking, and now we're back to them having to be t-shaped right.

Tim: 33:39

I think some well, some places I feel like they never stopped right, like depending on the size of the enterprises you were at, like I don't think they ever stopped being everything right, maybe just the job listings have changed that is true yeah, you're right about the like like real security engineering, like like network engineers.

Chris: 33:58

if you've been traditionally a network engineer, like, ok, are you, have you dealt with MTLS? And OK, like actually MTLS, the way that this interaction happens, you're, you're validating both sides. It's not a TCP handshake, I promise you it's not. I had this debate with somebody the other day that was telling me it was the same thing.

Tim: 34:19

I'm like bro bro they operate a different.

Chris: 34:20

Like what are we talking about here? Application stack come on, man, you're like a route switch expert. Like what are you talking about? You clearly never dealt with certificates in mtls before. Um, what's going on? But two different things. You know, like mtls is gonna build on your, your, your tcp connection, you know, and they're just two different layers certificates, um, and these things. A lot of times, like in, at least when I first started, I had to do like cert replacements on like css load balancers and then eventually, oh yeah I did a ton of css or, uh, cert replacements, but at that point in my career I didn't understand certs, I didn't understand cert authorities.

Chris: 34:56

I didn't understand like I did the work, I didn't understand the principles behind those things until later in my career and I think that's something that a lot of um, some network engineers did do those things or they had to learn those things to actually help out with cloud folks that were kind of like quasi full stack developers that were then tasked with managing certs up in the cloud for, for various reasons. So, like I, that's someone that I talked to a while back. That was like he was working for a company it wasn't a big, big company, I think it kind of like maybe considered mid-market, I don't know smaller. He was in this, in the throes of this kind of this same thing where they had like a dedicated like his company. They had like two security folks and one of them it was like a single point of failure that handled all the search, did all these things had been with the company for like ages and then they started doing some cloud things and that person I guess had joined like the intro call to discuss like cert management and like load balancers in the cloud or something or another, and then ended up leaving and going somewhere else with like, not a like. It wasn't even like a two weeks notice, I don't know.

Chris: 36:04

I think something happened and like. I don't know if there was a bad relationship or a fight or whatever, but anyway he had to step up to the plate and start working on these things that he thought that he knew, because he'd like rotated certs and installed certs and swapped certs out. He didn't really know how they worked and so he had to do this eat, breathe, learn certs, learn socket layer stuff, learn more about application layer, moving beyond, like layer three and layer four. And then, like, looking back, it's like, oh he, that's the best thing I ever did Learning. You know, I really got in the security world now and you know, now he has a security job, which is kind of funny.

Will: 36:42

I think that's the tough part is usually when you're kind of breaking in or you maybe have a entry level or kind of a junior position, the like, your, your sole focus for a very long time is just the how, it's not the why, right, um, it's just like, hey, like, we need this done. You know you got this ticket, you need to do this. So, like you're focusing on, like, what cli config to put in to to get this done, or what have you right? And it's like, and I like for the last like 10 years, I'm just like, look, I don't, don't want to see CLI, I don't give a shit.

Will: 37:16

Tell me how this works Like, how like or why you'd need this to happen in the first place, because then I can draw a logical path. And then you know the config is just something you look up, right. But it's like when you're younger or early on, it's like you want to jump in, you want to be able to do this stuff, because it looks like you're in the matrix, when you're in a terminal console, right, but um, you know, it's uh, it's tough. It's tough to to kind of pull back and and and look at the early stages, cause that's not the fun stuff.

Chris: 37:45

And like to your point how do you get a job? No-transcript, I don't know much about that trade per se, but I don't know if that's the way it always works, but the way that he made it, the way that he told that story to me, like made me think in my head like we've, we've mucked this up, we don't do this right.

Tim: 38:32

Like all right.

Chris: 38:33

No, we're just like throw you to the wolves, get your CCNA, learn the command line syntax. And here's my production network. Folks, have fun.

Tim: 38:40

Yeah, Right, Yep and no.

Chris: 38:41

by the way, there's no there's no like gate saying no, we're going to make sure that you've sat under a practice network engineer or something like you've really learned it in that way to really validate your skills and teach you not to take shortcuts. Teach you how to learn the important things so that you can grow, and doing that will help you grow quicker later on.

Tim: 39:25

So it's not even it's a shortcut in and of itself, if you think about it yeah, we need apprenticeships, but it's funny you're right that nobody does it, and I think maybe it's yeah, we need apprenticeships, but it's funny you're right that nobody does it. And I think maybe it's because it's not considered a trade, because generally you see apprenticeships with trades and nothing else, or like I guess you could consider a residency for like a doctor would be kind of like an apprenticeship, but like true apprenticeship like you're talking about, it is pretty much just done with trades.

Chris: 39:58

For whatever reason, we only do it with trades. I think it's coming to a t, though, and I'll tell you why. So we just mentioned two things. Like I mentioned electric and you mentioned um doctors. Like if a doctor you know reads his quote-unquote ccna of working on um, removing an appendix book and and like kill somebody, that's not good. And if I go and I I'm an electrician, I read a book and I burned someone's house down, like equally not good. And I think with technology for a long time, like there's OK, like technology didn't drive everything. Now technology is connected to the things that are powering and keeping humans alive.

Chris: 40:25

And you know, it's just so integrated with everything now that it's OK. If technology breaks, it's, it's a serious problem, and you know serious problem Hospital networks. Exactly so hopefully it changes.

Will: 40:37

I'm just sitting here wondering how Will knows so many tradesmen. Man, I imagine you're just out hanging out with all your buddies and they're all talking about hands-on tools and you're just like yeah guys, I'm at my computer all day.

Chris: 40:51

So shout out to my hockey team, the Monarchs, I play ice hockey, there you go, that'll do it. I have a world like seriously world renowned cardiologist Vipple, who works over at Norton Incredible. And I have two trade worker. I actually have two doctors and three, three trade workers just on my one team. You know Nice. Three, three trade workers just on my one team. You know, nice, it's so, it's so funny that the things like a sport in our, our adult lives will bring but yeah, you're all living out that dream.

Will: 41:19

You can, your bodies will still let you play hockey till the day you die, right?

Tim: 41:22

so, man, I had to get I even beat up now I even had to give up on indoor soccer. I couldn't keep up, man, good for you. Yeah, I'm losing it though I'm gonna.

Chris: 41:31

I I have like knee. I don't want to say I have like knee issues, but like my knees they. They sound like the fourth of july when I go up the stairs. I don't know what's going on like I just had.

Will: 41:40

I had knee surgery like a year, a year and a half ago because of softball. Like literally nothing happened. Just took a weird step and, yep, you need surgery after that. That's how.

Chris: 41:50

That's how that's how the body works. You don't recover quick either. Like I hyperextended coming down, I thought I was at the last stair.

Tim: 41:58

Oh, I hate that. I hate that when you overstep it.

Chris: 42:03

It messed me up for like a month, like it was so, and it wasn't even that bad. Yeah, it's just your body.

Will: 42:13

Like once you hit 35, 40, you start breaking down. I guess I don't know. Now I sneeze and my back hurts, which is great.

Tim: 42:18

Yeah, which one of you has the knee? The trick knee for when it rains?

Will: 42:23

I broke my ankle when I was 19, and I still feel that thing every time it rains. It's quite weird, yeah.

Chris: 42:31

Yeah, I broke my ankle a few years ago playing hockey. Actually, I blocked a shot in a tournament and took a puck right on the inner ball, the ankle, and it like shattered the end of it and like a bunch of pieces. It was disgusting don't worry.

Will: 42:42

Pretty soon you'll know when it's about to rain just by.

Chris: 42:44

Yeah, my kids are like making fun of me. Like I'm on the couch, my foot's huge, like dad your foot looks like a balloon with things sticking out of it.

Tim: 42:53

Yeah, isn't that great.

Will: 42:57

Ha, ha, ha, all right. Well, yeah, I think we're about at time here, so let's go ahead and wrap up for today. So, thanks, will, for coming on, I guess. Lastly, let's see, do you have any parting thoughts for maybe folks out there that are considering a transition? Not that this, this current job market, is the best time to be making a transition, but, uh, you know it's. It's not always the best time, you know, I think, when it happens right, and that's kind of why changing jobs is so difficult. So I guess, in your opinion, what, uh, what kind of advice or parting thoughts do you have for those that are considering?

Chris: 43:30

So is a real thing. It's here to stay, but don't get lost in it. Learn your. Learn one thing, like whether it's network engineering, like applicate, like learn a programming language, but actually learn the things. Don't like let right the code agents build everything for you. Like actually learn it, because that is what's going to keep you marketable in 2035, 2040.

Will: 43:55

You know, as you grow in your career learn.

Chris: 43:56

Take the time to learn something and don't rely on augmenting your skills with the AIs. Learn it. Read the books, do the work, yeah.

Tim: 44:05

I mean, I'm doing the work.

Chris: 44:06

There is no shortcuts, even with AI. Even with AI, if you give AI to a really smart, like a legend visionary software developer, they could probably 10x and produce more work quicker if done right. But you just you can't take shortcuts. You've got to learn how distributed systems are distributed systems. We're bound by geography and lots of things that aren't going away anytime soon. So learn one of these verticals. That's all I got Don. Learn one of these verticals.

Tim: 44:33

That's all I got. Don't listen to William man, Just vibe code the shit out of everything.

Chris: 44:40

I'm not saying you know what. I actually started experimenting with this quote-unquote vibe coding maybe two weeks ago. I started using Clod Code a little bit just to explore see what I could do yeah and all that stuff and it's magical. I wouldn't want to bet my whole career on what I was gonna say.

Tim: 44:59

What are you putting in a prod having vibe coded?

Will: 45:01

that yeah yeah, yeah, all right guys. Well, with that, we'll uh, we'll uh say our goodbyes. So thanks listening, especially if you made it to the end. Please share this with a friend, subscribe, do all that crap, whatever you want to do.

Tim: 45:24

Maybe unsubscribe, oh, and Will actually, before we do this, will. Do you have anything you want to pimp, or you know, announce, or you know where can people find?

Chris: 45:30

you, yeah, so William-Collins on LinkedIn. So the Cloud Gambit recently got picked up by Packet Pushers, so we're subscribed to the new RSS feed and see us on the Packet Pushers network and all the Cloud Gambit social medias that I had. Since, you know, packet Pushers is doing the promotions and they have their brand, I re. You know what. It's so hard finding a name for any social media handle now.

Will: 45:55

Everything's taken up.

Chris: 45:56

Everything. I was like just trying to find something, you know. So I changed all those social handles to macro engineered, because that's what I feel like I'm doing all the time, like wide breadth of all the macro things.

Tim: 46:10

I thought it was going to be Club Gander PP.

Will: 46:18

No, but that would have been pretty funny. Yeah, it was probably just. Everyone's probably just handle squatting on, uh, on tiktok and all that kind of stuff, um, so, yeah, all right. Well, on my third attempt, we will finally say goodbye and, uh, we'll see you in a couple weeks. Goodbye, take care guys.

Tim: 46:30

We'll see you in a couple weeks. Goodbye, Take care guys.