[AusNOG] Starting green at 23. What does the industry want from me?

[Matthew Keen]

Lets not forget AirTrunk being built in Sydney either... (website doesn't
seem to hold news, but from LinkedIn their announcement was a YouTube
video.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RR-lQ6xEEs

Plenty of Data Centres still being built.

On 15 March 2017 at 11:09, David Hooton <david.hooton at ordnance.co> wrote:

> Hey Paul,
>
> I'd advise against networking as a potential career path. 1) No one's
> building data centres, except the cloud providers, who operate at massive
> scale where most of the provisioning work is automated.
>
>
> I’m not sure how a lack of new data centres causes a lack of networking
> jobs, even given the rise of cloud providers managing a large proportion of
> Enterprise infrastructure. My experience is quite the opposite, enterprises
> moving to the cloud are creating a significant demand for network engineers
> with solid enterprise skills and a few new tricks that aren’t so common in
> traditional Enterprise networks as the edges of the network begin to blur
> and customers begin to integrate further and further into their vendors own
> networks.
>
> Regardless of this, I beg to differ with you on the lack of new data
> centres being built:
>   - https://www.nextdc.com/news/nextdc-secures-site-second-
> melbourne-data-centre
>   - https://www.nextdc.com/news/nextdc-secures-site-second-
> brisbane-data-centre
>
> 2) Software defined networking/networking as a service again, means we're
> seeing fewer jobs in the market. So it would be a poor choice moving into a
> market that's consolidating, the work available will go to those with
> experience, and most of those in work in the networking industry will be
> moving into other industries over the next 10 years.
>
>
> I feel like this is an extremely pessimistic way to look at things. While
> the type of work that network engineers perform is changing, there is a
> very real and clear need for more engineers especially young engineers who
> are passionate about learning and don’t have a “this is how its always been
> done” approach to their work. Software based networking is just another
> tool in the box of tricks engineers can use, its not a tombstone on a
> profession but it is an opportunity for old dogs to potentially learn a few
> new tricks.
>
> Rory - 10 points for having the courage to introduce yourself and to ask a
> question that most would be too proud to ask.
>
> As far as what you can do to make yourself employable goes, while learning
> to code and do the cool devops stuff is certainly popular these days, I
> would still suggest that no matter how good of a coder you become if you
> don’t get networks and networking you’re just going to become a not very
> good network engineer who can write not very useful code. Code and
> automation is only useful if the engineering it automates is sound.
>
> My advice is to get really really good at networking. Build networks,
> break them, work out how to fix them and why they broke, repeat. Once you
> know how to diagnose and solve problems you’re immediately employable even
> if you don’t have devops skills. And finally getting ahead in life is very
> rarely based on what you know, its usually personal referrals that open
> doors - so start trying to meet/network with engineers who do what you want
> to do. Go to industry events and introduce yourself, if you’re as
> enthusiastic as your email indicates, it won’t take long before someone
> takes you under their wing!
>
> Finally - I’ve dropped you an email off list, we have some tools that may
> help you in the building & breaking phase of your journey :)
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> David Hooton
> Founder | Ordnance
> Cloud Scale, Carrier Grade
> P: +61415850000 <0415%20850%20000> T: @dave_hooton W: ordnance.co
>
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