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

[Rory Jones]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for all the responses and feedback! It all really helps a
lot. Now, mailing lists are just slightly before my time (got my first
dial-up connection in 2003), but I'll try to reply as best I can to you
all, given my lack of experience with the format.

I know what it's like to be where you are now. Took me forever to break
> into the industry.
> FWIW I've forwarded your post to my boss for consideration.
> I like your attitude and gumption
> JP


Thank you, Jonathon. That really helps. I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. :)

 Hi Rory,
> Everyone has to start somewhere. Speaking entirely from experience, and I
> am sure others will have a different story as to how they got to where they
> are now, my suggestion is to start at the bottom. Showing you are willing
> to do the "hard yards" before you get to the "fun stuff" can go a long way
> with employers.
> How are your customer service skills? Can you keep your cool under
> pressure, show a real passion for clients? Be keen to see issues through
> till the end and ensure the customer is happy as can be?
> If so, start looking for service desk style jobs at a telco/ service
> provider that interests you. Solid customer service skills are essential in
> an IT world. Remember the customer isn't always external, land yourself in
> the right job/position further down the track and you may find yourself
> dealing entirely with internal staff. You can become the guy people
> actually want to approach when they have a problem, or maybe continue with
> external issues, there are loads of options.
> Show you are keen to do this and you will get noticed. Provide possible
> fixes to problems when escalating them, who cares if its wrong. The fact
> that you tried and showed some initiative is what people like to see.
> Strive to understand more!
> When someone hands me a problem of some sorts it usually has a domain
> associated with it. I will sit there and dig dns records, MX's, run curls,
> telnets, traceroutes, AS lookups, test mail server responses, check
> ciphers, and finally i may actually browse to the site itself. The actual
> problem may have nothing to do with the above but understanding how things
> are setup before tackling the issue can go a long way.
> Don't get bogged down with degrees (certainly not saying don't get one,
> just remember they don't guarantee a job at the end of the day. I would
> love to have one now, finding the time is the hard part!) Focus on
> certifications, but again remember its just a piece of paper with no
> promises attached.
> This industry looks for experience, just aim to get as much as you can
> while also tucking a few certs etc under your belt.
> Will reply off list with some personal recommendations.
> -Seamus


Thanks, Seamus. I like to think I am willing to put in the hard yards, I
had the intention of emphasising this however things may get a bit lost in
translation in the wee hours of the morning! I would be happy to start
pretty much anywhere at all in IT, but I was merely outlining where my
passions lie. Although I'm just passionate about working in general! I also
like to think I'm good with people, even if this is not screamingly obvious
in an interview.

I like the way you do things as well, really ingenious in my eyes. That's
the kind of methodology I'd strive to execute. I'm trying not to get bogged
down in unnecessary degrees, but I am keeping an open mind about
everything. If there is something I can study to help make me more
employable, I'd devote my time to it! Your idea of tucking a few certs
under my belt here and there is the general line of thinking I've been
going with.

I look forward to responding to your off-list reply. Thank you!

P.S. I hear Melbourne is lovely, though I've not yet been! Sounds great
either way!

Hi Rory,
>
>         As Seamus said on list, Degrees won't generally get you anywhere
> (trust me, I have one, it has never been relevant to me getting a job,
> though it does allow people to tick the "tertiary qualification" checkbox),
> if you want to do some courses stick to Certs, and/or TAFE courses. Certs
> are more useful but vocational education (Diploma level) still counts as a
> tertiary qual which a lot of HR departments seem to think is important.
>
> Based on personal experience one of the most valuable things for getting
> into IT is "people" networking. Every position I've had in IT (and more or
> less every other position too, but I digress), has been something that was
> created for me by people who saw potential, an anecdote if I may;
>
> The first year I moved to Melbourne to go to Uni (I'm originally from
> country Victoria) I had no luck whatsoever finding jobs (and I was applying
> typical "student" jobs, in entry-level hospitality, sandwich hand and
> such). The second year I started attending Melbourne 2600 and talking to a
> bunch of people there, on my fourth meet, one of the guys I'd been talking
> to had an opening for a shit-kicker to do dispatch work in the support
> department of a small software company (small enough that the support
> department is also the dispatch department), with a view to moving into
> software/hardware support, I interviewed (not a remotely formal interview,
> it was more a chat with his manager to basically ensure that I wasn't some
> muppet), got the job and started working there doing dispatch, that very
> quickly evolved into support (software and board/component level hardware
> repairs), then once I finished Uni they offered me a permanent position as
> a Dev (I'd done some development work on one of their products prior to
> finishing Uni).
>
> One other piece of advice I'll give you (though you do not seem to be on
> this trajectory), try not to become hyper-specialised. At present I'm in a
> bit of a rut because I am seen to be hyper-specialised in a very niche
> product, this has pros and cons, but given that the product in question is
> now utterly boring to me, mostly cons. As such I'm presently attempting to
> engineer a lateral move into a field that actually interests me.
>
> Can't tell you what's around up in BNE, but I'd suggest it's worthwhile
> hunting around for things like Linux User Groups and such, go to some
> meetings and connect with people.
>

Hi Morgan,

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say similar things with regards to degrees
and getting jobs. I know they're not a guarantor of work but I figured it
might at least up the odds somewhat. However, I am willing to pursue any
avenue that increases my odds of getting work in any form, really. As long
as it's IT or Telco based, I'm more than happy. I'm happy to scrub toilets
too, but it helps to do something I'm actually halfway decent at!

Yes, I'm told that people networking is very important, and I really do
attempt to treat it as such, I do like talking to people, treating them as
one of my own, making them feel welcome, and making sure they leave happy
so that they will return, I love all this, despite my rather lacklustre
performance in interviews (nervous wreck etc). I had advice like this go as
far as failing an interview on the spot (again due to nerves) because "any
idiot can do the technical side of things, we need someone who knows how to
talk to people", I found this a bit rich considering this same individual's
emails were formatted and spelled in a way that looks like it was written
by a 4-year-old. But I digress.

If by 2600 you mean the Atari 2600, that is definitely before my time! But
I have never really given the usergroups much thought, if I am totally
honest. I currently don't know a thing about *nix, beyond "I have a mac and
sometimes I have to enter magic words into a big bad command line", but
Linux is something I really, really want to learn. The closest thing I've
come to attending a usergroup is I've been to Hackerspace a few times!
(Which I also enjoy because I do like tinkering with hardware too. I'm not
quite adept at putting the magic smoke back in yet, but I sure can let it
out!) However the thought of attending these groups is a fantastic idea,
I'd love to start going, assuming they take kindly to youngin's who are
pretty new to it all, but want to learn.

I'm trying not to become hyper-specialized in any one field, but I do have
ideas on where I'd like to end up. I'm more than happy to climb the ladder
- I just have to find the bottom rung first.

Brisbane does seem to be pretty quiet as far as Telco goes, so I am willing
to relocate if it increases my odds of landing anything.

Thanks!

Hi Rory,
>
> I run an IT company with about 35 staff in Sydney, we have also started
> out own ISP about 2.5 years ago, thus being on AusNOG and getting your
> email.
>
> Im happy to take a look at your resume (over a couple of days) and give
> you some feedback on it if you would like?
>
> I think you did a great thing in sending the email below and believe you
> would get a lot of off list responses and offers to help,
>
> Cheers
> Ryan


Hi Ryan,

I'll be more than happy to forward my resume to you, along with my cover
letter, if you wish. I will aim to email you off-list shortly after I
finish this rather long reply!

Thanks.

Rory,
> 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. 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.
> If you want to be breaking into IT, cloud or layers above the network
> stack are where the future opportunities will be.
> Kind regards



Hi Paul,

Perhaps I do have slightly rose tinted glasses. However I am happy to start
anywhere, and I am open to any and all options available to me.

Thanks.

Hi Rory
>
> Just a word of advice, its fairly easy to dox your OCAU handle based on
> below :)
>
> Regards


Good evening, Mr. Bond. I've been expecting you!

Cheers

 Hi Rory,
> Would you be willing to move to Launceston? I own Launtel (
> http://www.launtel.net.au) a boutique business grade telco and would be
> happy to have a chat about jobs down here. We are about to embark on some
> major stuff around the NBN (Gigabit Internet), so I am expecting to have a
> lot of tech fun!
> Damian


Sounds exciting! I just drove down to Sydney, Wollongong and Canberra last
month - seems the further south I went, the nicer the weather got! I'd be
more than happy to flick you an email off-list, just let me know.

Cheers

Agreed, if you’re set on a career, devops is the path to look at to enable
> SDN / automatic management of the networking kit.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark


Hi Mark,

I'm not focused on anything in particular right now - as long as it falls
somewhere under the umbrella that is IT/Telco, I'm more than happy.

Cheers

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,


Hi David,

Thank you. I'm pretty good at ranting long-winded posts at two in the
morning! I try to be proud only to a fault. That meaning, I'm more than
happy to lay my faults out on the table because how are you going to that
there really aren't any problems if you don't ask? I like to avoid letting
problems become bigger problems, and I recognise that I am only one person.
I try my best to not let my pride nor preconceived notions come in the way
of a good decision. I like to think I would be the guy who is just loyal
enough to one particular thing to be dangerous. My idea of a good system,
is not cobbling together a scary black box in the corner that does its job,
it's a little black box in the corner that is clearly described and laid
out, so that if I were hit by a bus tomorrow, the guy coming in after me
won't hate my guts.

I did a lot of building when I was in TAFE, but not so much breaking - at
least not deliberately, anyway. I've got a few bits and pieces
<http://i.imgur.com/9OCOqBA.jpg> in dry dock at the moment expressly for
this building, breaking, fixing purpose. Not shown are the Ubiquiti,
MikroTik, DrayTek and the Cisco VoIP ATA gear I've also got. They're a bit
dusty because of my recent stint as a mechanic, and because I've had to
move back with the folks temporarily, tiny room with no desk makes work
like this harder which makes me a dull boy.

To be quite honest, I have no idea what a devops is, or what it entails. It
is something I will research, but knowing me it'll be a case of not seeing
the forest for the trees!

Thank you for your off-list email. I will reply to you, and everyone else,
in turn, shortly.

Thanks.



Jeez, this is about the longest email I've ever had the pleasure of
writing. Really, it has been a pleasure. You all seem like awesome people
and I'm glad I emailed this list. While I'm not terribly skilled yet, I do
look forward to contributing my two cents to this list where I can, even if
that's all they're worth. I will endeavour to reply to all the off-list
emails today, however I have been invited to lunch by a kind soul on this
list, so I must get ready for that. Wish me luck, and I look forward to
speaking and maybe even working with you all soon.

Kindest regards to all,
Rory

P.S. Sorry for the formatting, and the sheer size of this reply. As I said
somewhere in this whole quagmire of an email that I've penned, mailing
lists are a bit before my time, so please forgive the novice formatting.

On 15 March 2017 at 11:18, Darren Moss <Darren.Moss at cloud365.com.au> wrote:

> Sounds like you have called out the Elephant in the room.
>
>
>
> D.
>
>
>
> *From:* AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] *On Behalf Of *Matthew
> Keen
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 15 March 2017 12:13 PM
> *To:* David Hooton
> *Cc:* ausnog at ausnog.net
> *Subject:* Re: [AusNOG] Starting green at 23. What does the industry want
> from me?
>
>
>
> 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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> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>
>
>
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