<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Although this appears to have gone off on a tangent, to bring it back to Cameron's original question: Where is the best place to get a consensus on the state of the industry with regard to this particular skill set?</div><div><br></div><div>I'll be in a position to look for a job in this exact space (with a matching skill set) in about 9 months time and I'm interested to know where to find a baseline for demand, supply and remuneration scale. Seek (et. al) is by no means a good indicator as you get a lot of generic job listings and talking to one or two recruiters is hardly a good enough sample to get a broad view on the industry. </div><div><br><div>Regards,<div><br></div><div>Tim </div></div></div><div><br>On 14 May 2016, at 4:53 PM, Cameron Murray <<a href="mailto:cameron.murray@gmail.com">cameron.murray@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><p dir="ltr">And to think all I was looking for was recruiter suggestions.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 14 May 2016 6:13 pm, "Ben Buxton" <<a href="mailto:bb.ausnog@bb.cactii.net">bb.ausnog@bb.cactii.net</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>Given the statements made in this thread, ranging from mildly upsetting to somewhat infuriating, I cannot resist.<br><br>First, automation:<div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 2:59 PM Chad Kelly <<a href="mailto:chad@cpkws.com.au" target="_blank">chad@cpkws.com.au</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div><br></div></div><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
In terms of automation I've been using a lot more of it in recent
years, but you still need to manually check things as sometimes
stuff goes wrong. <br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Then your "automation" is not automation.</div><div><br></div><div>You need to close the loop, otherwise you're just scripting. Scripting != automation (it's really just beginner scale).</div><div><br></div><div>Much "automation" today is a bit like the web in the late 90's, or a lot of SDN "solutions" - lots of buzzwords and claims of solving world hunger, but there's an awful lot of hacks put together that just address a small part of the overall picture.</div><div>Then when it all goes titsup people whinge about how bad an idea it was and it never was going to work anyway.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Back when the dotcom bubble popped in ~2000, this is exactly what happened - we entered the dark ages of the web for a while. Until properly designed companies/products emerged.</div><div><br></div><div>Close the loop, people.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Tools like GTMetrics have come in handy as well for checking things
like the loading times of websites as website speed has become
increasingly important. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>"Tools" (power or otherwise) have no place in automated infrastructure except during those (hopefully rare) times when something really does go amiss.</div><div>Think of the electricity grid - electricians have tools like multimeters and the like, but the grid uses fully integrated sensors. </div><div><br></div><div>Next, specialist vs generalist:</div><div><br></div><div>"Specialists" have one place - contract roles. You want a monkey to push the right buttons on your AWS console, etc, then this is the place for them. As soon as your work deviates from this, they're outta there. Or sticking around whinging about change.</div><div><br></div><div>Permanent roles need generalists. I don't want to rehash much, but technology and your infrastructure will change over time (and if not, look up "Kodak", or "Novell", or...) - You need someone who will understand the principles and happily change to the new dashboard with latest shiny buttons that deep enough down do the same things. Not someone who will requiring having a "crucial conversation" with about dealing poorly with change.</div><div><br></div><div>Given a choice between an engineer who can explain how to use a vendor's X and one who can't, but can explain how/why a generic X might work internally, I'd much rather take the latter.</div><div><br></div><div>And then we come to pay...</div><div><br></div><div>If you're finding no candidates for a 100k role asking networking, "cloud", automation and the like - the problem is not lack of candidates, it's that no one wants to accept a dismal rate of pay, particularly in a capital. </div><div>You'll probably get a "conf t" engineer at that rate, but not someone who can close the loop and tie all your infrastructure together.</div><div>If you have engineers now who have these skills and they're topping out at 100k, then you've done a great sell on the job and/or they're just misinformed on the true rate out there - it's a great disservice to them.</div><div><br></div><div>Network engineers are going the way of the car assembly line worker. The old jobs are going away, and most of the workers wielding spanners will be made redundant. But some adapt and shift to designing the robots on the line. Those few who take the latter path command higher salaries, and rightly so.</div><div><br></div><div>BB</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
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